http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2111204/posts?
OBAMA: Right. Jesus is a historical figure for me, and hes also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher. And hes also a wonderful teacher. I think its important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.Obama: “Theres the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people havent embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.” GG: You dont believe that?
OBAMA: I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I cant imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. Thats just not part of my religious makeup.[snip]
GG: What is sin?
OBAMA: Being out of alignment with my values.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham#Religion Religion
A friend from high school has said that Dunham touted herself as an atheist, and it was something she'd read about and could argue.[6] Maya Soetoro-Ng, when asked if her mother was an atheist, said, I wouldn't have called her an atheist. She was an agnostic. She basically gave us all the good books the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripture, the Tao Te Ching and wanted us to recognise that everyone has something beautiful to contribute.[19] Jesus, she felt, was a wonderful example. But she felt that a lot of Christians behaved in un-Christian ways.[20]The first mention I find of religion in this lengthy Time Magazine article is on page 4 http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524-4,00.htmlIn his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father Barack Obama wrote, My mother's confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn't possess... In a land [Indonesia] where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship... she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism.[21] In his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope Obama wrote, I was not raised in a religious household... My mother's own experiences... only reinforced this inherited skepticism. Her memories of the Christians who populated her youth were not fond ones... And yet for all her professed secularism, my mother was in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I've ever known.[22] Religion for her was just one of the many ways and not necessarily the best way that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives, Obama wrote.[20] In 2007 Obama described his mother as a Christian from Kansas. I was raised by my mother, he continued. So, Ive always been a Christian.[23][24] Also in 2007, he said in a speech, My mother, whose parents were nonpracticing Baptists and Methodists, was one of the most spiritual souls I ever knew. But she had a healthy skepticism of religion as an institution.[1]
Ann took a job teaching English at the U.S. embassy. She woke up well before dawn throughout her life. Now she went into her son's room every day at 4 a.m. to give him English lessons from a U.S. correspondence course. She couldn't afford the élite international school and worried he wasn't challenged enough. After two years at the Catholic school, Obama moved to a state-run elementary school closer to the new house. He was the only foreigner, says Ati Kisjanto, a classmate, but he spoke some Indonesian and made new friends.
So he went to a Catholic school briefly because she thought it might be a better school.
On page 5 of the article, there is this:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524-5,00.html
Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, but Obamas household was not religious. My mother, whose parents were nonpracticing Baptists and Methodists, was one of the most spiritual souls I ever knew, Obama said in a 2007 speech. But she had a healthy skepticism of religion as an institution. And as a consequence, so did I.
What is a healthy skepticism of religion as an institution for a devout Christian?
“What is a healthy skepticism of religion as an institution for a devout Christian?”
Very sensible, surely?
Jesus came to Earth to reconcile God and Man and destroy Religion, which is more of the Devil than God.
Well researched thread response, by the way.
Whether Obama is a Christian or not is difficult to know without knowing him personally.