Posted on 08/23/2010 2:48:42 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Barack Obamas election in 2008 gave many peopleRepublicans, Democrats, and Independents alikethe hope that America was entering a new phase in its history. Just maybe the nation was about to do something remarkable: embrace a style of politics defined less by old arguments about race, religion, gender, sexuality, and culture and more by new visions of the common good.
Few would have predicted whats happening now. A growing number of Americans believe, mistakenly, that the president is a Muslim, and most of them cite the media as the source of their information.
Suspicion about Obama has been a problem since he first appeared on the national stage. But recently the rise of a politicized brand of journalism has blurred the boundary between fact and fiction in ways that would make even the most ardent postmodernist blush.
Whats new, too, is the failure of Obama and his team to handle this story effectively. Given that millions more people think Obama is a Muslim now than 18 months ago, were seeing a serious failure to communicate.
We dont think that, in principle, a Muslim president is at all problematic. Indeed, its profoundly worrying that the mere idea of a Muslim president is met with moral outrage. Beyond the not-so-subtle racism at work, the secret Muslim claim is empirically false and politically toxic, and it marks a refusal to heed the high ideals upon which this nation was founded.
But how should Obama respond? Heres our suggestion: the White House should discontinue its purely reactive approach to claims about Obamas beliefs and undertake a sustained effort to have him tell his own story as a Christian believer.
In other words, Obama should talk publicly about what he believes and how he believes it. He neednt do it all the time. He neednt do it all that often. But when he does do it, he should do it simply, plainly, frankly, and deliberately.
So far, the president has made occasional remarks about his beliefs, but theyve been just thatoccasional and largely an afterthought to his public persona. His administration has proved astonishingly unmusical when it comes to religion. No one in Obamas inner circle seems to understand how religious issues and themes are implicated in his presidency and how religion factors into domestic and international politics.
But isnt Obamas Christianity a private matter? Isnt it peripheral to the real issues at hand? Not right now. The culture is desperate for adult guidance when it comes to religion. While citizens stand under no obligation to talk about their religious convictions, people expect more of the president, and this political moment requires more from this president, lest discussions about religion become still more coarse and vicious, and our political culture even more degraded.
Were not suggesting Obama should talk about his faith for purely pragmatic reasons, although God knowsand Rahm Emanuel does, toothere are likely to be political advantages. He should recognize by now that if he wont talk about his beliefs, his opponents happily will; politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. There are sound civic reasons for doing this as well. The office of the presidency has a representative function. It is not just about the day-to-day running of the government. Its about shaping public conversation on a variety of matters of common concern, religion included.
Nor are we asking Obama to be the believer-in-chief of American civil religion. Were simply saying he should offer himself as one example in America today of what it means to believe. He should render his religious persona public, for the good of the republic as a whole.
A president willing to talk about his own faith could do some powerful civic good. Obamas biography suggests he has much to offer. He has spoken movingly of his mother as someone who did not believe in God, but who epitomized a life well lived. He has intimate knowledge of Islam and other religious traditions and appreciates their richness in a way that have not hindered his Christianitya serious believer who is seriously alert to the power of other beliefs.
Hes clearly given serious thought to religion as a reality in the world. In a speech he gave in 2006, he described politics as the art of whats possible and religion as the art of the impossiblea thought-provoking idea, to say the least. Religiously, he embodies where the nation itself is headed, as American Christianity undergoes a period of dramatic transformation and the categories we typically use to talk about belief become less and less sufficient for describing the real dividing lines, generational changes, and demographic shifts we are experiencing.
What we are proposing, then, is for President Obama to tell us about his religious identity, and to do so in ways that befit his office. Despite the degraded condition of our public debate about religion, he has the opportunity to give voice to our collective desire to speak more openly, and more honestly, about the faiths that make us who we areand thus to make out of those many faiths one nation.
*******
Paul Dafydd Jones and Charles Mathewes teach religious studies at the University of Virginia.
Re: A growing number of Americans believe, mistakenly, that the president is a Muslim, and most of them cite the media as the source of their information.
Well, if it’s in The New York Times, it must be true.
I doubt it. I recall during the campaign him defending homosexuality vis-a-vis the Bible by saying, "Are you going to believe an obscure passage from Romans or the Sermont on the Mount". This was such a goofy statement, on so many levels, that it was clear whoever wrote it didn't have a clue about biblical Christianity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.