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26 Year Old to Head Obama's Faith Office
ABC News ^ | January 30, 2009 10:38 AM | Teddy Davis

Posted on 01/30/2009 11:18:08 AM PST by lewisglad

Josh Dubois, the 26 year-old who ran religious outreach for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, has been tapped by the new president to head the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a White House aide tells ABC News.

Dubois, who previously worked as an associate pastor for a small Pentecostal church in Massachusetts, was drawn to Obama in 2004 when he heard the future president tell the Democratic National Convention that, "We worship an awesome God in the Blue States."

After hearing that line, DuBois tried to work on Obama's US Senate campaign but was rejected. Following Obama's election to the U.S. Senate from Illinois, DuBois kept pushing for a job and got hired as a Senate aide.

Part of his job was focused on building relationships with religious leaders, especially evangelical Christians who were dissatisfied with the GOP's approach to economic justice, the use of force, and environmental protection.

The progressive religious community, which has worked closely with DuBois, learned about the pick a few days ago. Initially, the president's staff was declining to comment but the White House is now confirming the selection.

One key question DuBois will have to help Obama address is whether the new administration should rescind a legal memorandum from the Bush administration which allows religious organizations that receive public funds to hire only those who share their faith.

During his presidential run, Obama said that those receiving government funds should not proselytize the people they help nor should they discriminate in hiring practices on the basis of religion.

Where there are state or local laws prohibiting hiring decisions from being made on the basis of sexual orientation, Obama has said he would support those laws being applied to the federally funded portion of the faith-based programs.

DuBois, whose stepfather is a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, has lived in several places including Maine, where he was born, Massachusetts, where he spent his first few years, Tennessee, which he considers his home, and Ohio, where he attended high school.

He earned his bachelor's degree from Boston University and his master's degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He was enrolled in law school at Georgetown University's Law Center when he left to work for Obama in his Senate office.

As detailed in a Boston Globe profile of DuBois which ran this past summer, his social and religious activism was sparked as a 17-year old freshman at BU when a New York jury acquitted four police officers whose 41 bullets had killed an unarmed immigrant named Amadou Diallo.

DuBois wrote "NO MORE" on a placard and stood in front of a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., in Massachusetts, for 41 hours to draw attention to the 41 shots which were fired.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: agenda; bho44; dncfalseprophets; dubois; faithbased; falseprophets; joshdubois; obamaandgod; religiousleft
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1 posted on 01/30/2009 11:18:09 AM PST by lewisglad
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To: lewisglad

I really don’t understand how any christian could be drawn to a man like Obama?


2 posted on 01/30/2009 11:19:39 AM PST by Edizzl79 (you want my guns..come and get em...I dare ya....)
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To: lewisglad

“We worship an awesome God in the Blue States.”

That would be the current “messiah” in the WH, right?


3 posted on 01/30/2009 11:19:53 AM PST by max americana
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To: lewisglad

The new Reich Bishop?


4 posted on 01/30/2009 11:19:53 AM PST by Natural Law
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To: lewisglad

“As detailed in a Boston Globe profile of DuBois which ran this past summer, his social and religious activism was sparked as a 17-year old freshman at BU when a New York jury acquitted four police officers whose 41 bullets had killed an unarmed immigrant named Amadou Diallo.”

All I needed to know.


5 posted on 01/30/2009 11:20:00 AM PST by SMCC1
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To: lewisglad
What, he's a Pentecostal?? Like Palin was, when she was painted as a lunatic? Does Dubois speak in tongues?? Does he have spiritual fits? What an unbelievable hypocrisy!!!
6 posted on 01/30/2009 11:21:36 AM PST by americanophile
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To: Natural Law
Looks like another 'community organizer'


7 posted on 01/30/2009 11:21:44 AM PST by lewisglad
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To: lewisglad

Race trumps right to life?


8 posted on 01/30/2009 11:21:57 AM PST by Aria ("An America that could elect Sarah Palin might still save itself." Vin Suprynowicz)
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To: lewisglad

He has more experience than ‘Bama so what the hell?


9 posted on 01/30/2009 11:22:16 AM PST by MahatmaGandu (Remember, remember, the twenty-sixth of November.)
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To: lewisglad
Title should read

26 Year Old Pastor to Head Obama's Faith Office

10 posted on 01/30/2009 11:22:34 AM PST by Between the Lines (I am very cognizant of my fallibility, sinfulness, and other limitations.)
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To: Nightshift; tutstar

later


11 posted on 01/30/2009 11:23:15 AM PST by tutstar (Baptist Ping list - freepmail me to get on or off.)
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To: Natural Law

True Conservatives knew Bush’s “Faith initiative” is a bad idea. Now look who gets to run it.

Obama has long been a vocal proponent of the past Administration’s faith funding policy.


12 posted on 01/30/2009 11:23:44 AM PST by Boiling Pots (Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious)
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To: lewisglad
...and how can a Democratic president of the United States have a 'faith office?' Where's the ACLU, and the People for the American Way, and all the other radical secularist groups. Why doesn't Newdow sue over this??? Where's the wall of seperation?

Purely rhetorical points of course, we all know the answer.

13 posted on 01/30/2009 11:25:04 AM PST by americanophile
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To: lewisglad

I wonder if this young feller has a “domestic partner”.


14 posted on 01/30/2009 11:25:08 AM PST by little jeremiah (Leave illusion, come to the truth. Leave the darkness, come to the light.)
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To: lewisglad

Faith based? Which faith?


15 posted on 01/30/2009 11:25:34 AM PST by azishot
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To: Edizzl79
I really don’t understand how any christian could be drawn to a man like Obama?

What makes you assume they're Christian to begin with? Because they belong to a "Christian" church? I can spout all sorts of "Christian" churches that are that in name only.

16 posted on 01/30/2009 11:25:52 AM PST by bcsco (Illinois politicians should be read their Miranda rights when sworn in to office...)
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To: lewisglad
Dubois, who previously worked as an associate pastor for a small Pentecostal church in Massachusetts, was drawn to Obama in 2004 when he heard the future president tell the Democratic National Convention that, "We worship an awesome God in the Blue States."

So the guy worked as a pastor? Then a few paragraphs below, they list his academic credentials ending with him going to work for Obama. Wonder when he worked as a pastor, he's only 26.

DuBois, whose stepfather is a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, has lived in several places including Maine, where he was born, Massachusetts, where he spent his first few years, Tennessee, which he considers his home, and Ohio, where he attended high school. He earned his bachelor's degree from Boston University and his master's degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He was enrolled in law school at Georgetown University's Law Center when he left to work for Obama in his Senate office

17 posted on 01/30/2009 11:26:01 AM PST by dawn53
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To: lewisglad

Wonder what god he’s referring to, if only the blue states worship it. Red states must be worshipping something or someone different I guess.


18 posted on 01/30/2009 11:27:49 AM PST by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Boiling Pots

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”

*sigh* You just can´t make it any more clear than that.


19 posted on 01/30/2009 11:28:04 AM PST by villagerjoel ("Gun control is a prerequisite for genocide." - Unknown)
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To: lewisglad

I think I understand:

If GWB or some other “R” is president, “faith based initiatives” are BAD, and they violate the “constitutional mandate” on separation of church and state.

BUT.... When the Obamamessiah is president, “faith based initiatives” are a great idea and we should all be happy he came up such an original idea for saving federal welfare dollars.


20 posted on 01/30/2009 11:28:19 AM PST by WayneS (Respect the 2nd Amendment; Repeal the 16th)
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