Is Obama "Elitist" and "Out Of Touch" About Religion?

Hilary Clinton says Senator Obama is "out of touch" and "elitist" about religion. So does Senator McCain. They make a great team.

When someone is accused of something, how he defends himself can be dismissed as newfound conviction born of necessity. The only way to know who they really are and what they really think, is to find out what they were saying about it long before the issue came up.

So who is Obama when it comes to religion? In 2006, he told us.

Between McCain, Clinton and Obama only Obama has articulated a personal, cogent and pre-political explanation of his faith and how he sees it in the context of his life and political activities. His statement wasn't prompted by the need to answer anyone. He delivered it long ago because he wanted to share his vision of the place of religion in his personal life and its proper place with his public life.

Here is an excerpt taken Obama's talk "Call to Renewal" delivered June 28, 2006.

Senator Obama spoke at a conference sponsored by the evangelical group Sojourners. (For the whole text go here.)

Obama in his own words:

"For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

"Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

"Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that -- regardless of our personal beliefs -- constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith.

"Now, such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when our opponent is [someone like] Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

"And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

"This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.

"Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

"They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.

"And I speak with some experience on this matter. I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people I've ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I.

"It wasn't until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.

"I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.

"And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well -- that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.

"And if it weren't for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn - not just to work with the church, but to be in the church.

"For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.

"And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship -- the grounding of faith in struggle -- that the church offered me a second insight, one that I think is important to emphasize today.

"Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts.

"You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.

"It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

"That's a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans... It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values.

"And that is why that, if we truly hope to speak to people where they're at - to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to their own - then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse."

As the son of a pastor, as a former lifelong Republican, as a white 55-year-old middle class, gun-owning male, as a practicing and believing Christian, I'll stack Obama's prophetic and sincere religion up against McCain's bizarre war-without-end nationalism and embrace of hate-filled far right anti-intellectual fundamentalists, any day. I'll also stack Obama's well articulated and profound personal faith up against Clinton's facile politically expedient and cynically useful religiosity any day. If Obama isn't in touch with religious America no one is.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

Comments

[c1ee]

Wow, thank you for that. That was soooo impressive from Obama. Keep em coming Frank! :D

[Shantee]

I believe there are many people of sincere faith, and I believe on the other hand people do use religion as a crutch, especially those who are poor and struggling. This is what I see and what I believe and you can't negate that.

[Liberal2]

Anyone who thinks there's a bearded guy sitting on a cloud, watching all of us, is already intellectually unqualified to even be elected dog-catcher. When the universe was so poorly understood even as recently as Abraham Lincoln's era, there was an excuse for thinking a god might exist. Ever since, no, only morally and intellectually challenged think there is one.

Why morally challenged? Because if a person follows a moral code only because their religion demands it, and not their genetic inheirtence (even chimpanzees have a moral nature, believe it or not. Researchers have seen it in action), they can't be fully trusted.

[hominidx]

The belief in a deity is more nuanced than simply requiring moral edicts, but hey, whatever makes you feel all smug.

[booksnmore4you]

Good stuff, Frank, as always. :-)

[AnninCA]

His obvious affiliation with his own religion is precisely why I was shocked by his comments.

I came to my own spiritual perspective in middle age. I so relate to Hillary. My grandparents were Methodists, and that's a group who really almost over-do good works. But her comments about feeling the Grace of God touch me deeply. I relate.

I don't relate to Obama's religion. But that's OK. I don't relate to my own grandfather's Baptist roots.

I don't relate to my own father's atheist roots.

I think our spiritual place is highly individual and highly personal and should not be criticized.

That is why, even with Wright's flammatory remarks, I didn't feel comfortable making too many remarks, other to to echo Hillary: I personally wouldn't have felt at ease in that kind of spiritual enviornment.

It confuses me too much when we mix anger and religion.

I'm one who loves my spiritual part of life. I know that sense of deep, deep contentment. Even when I've not been particularly deserving of it.

But I'm not keen on taking the religious discussion too far into politics.

That can lead only to a very strange dialogue where there really is no meeting of the minds.

[Shelly1970]

While I know the real intent of your comment is to try and keep the thought of Wright alive for those who read it (based on your profile, it's clear that you're hell-bent on smearing Obama's name -- planted here by the Clinton campaign much?), you raise an interesting point.

You suggest that anger and spirituality are incompatible (at least for you)?

For some, that is not necessarily the case. In fact, the Christian Bible suggests that followers, while being slow to anger, aught to not reserve anger towards what is truly wrong.

And BTW, I voted for Hillary :)

[SShaw490]

Jesus was occasionally angry. He said to the Pharisees "you are of your father the devil." He made a whip of cords and drove the moneychangers from the temple. He experienced the whole range of human emotions, but he was still the Messiah. If you're looking for a sedate, well-ordered, safe, calm, non-threatening religion, a religion that doesn't stir up passion, then you should try something other than Christianity.

[Rescisco]

The economy is in the tank, the unpaid for war in Iraq is a tragic mistake that gets more costly by the day, the national debt (racing toward 10 trillion dollars) increases by a million dollars a minute, the corporations are accelerating their irresponsible attack on the middle class, and we have to be subjected to another false and pointless debate about religion. If we take that bait this time, if we spend even one more minute seriously discussing it, we should be ashamed.

[SShaw490]

A "pointless debate about religion"? The debate about who we are, where we came from and what we're doing here on this Earth is far from pointless. It's more accurate to say we occasionally divert our debate about religion to have pointless debates about social programs (since religion has existed since the earliest civilizations, and social programs rarely last more than a decade or so). We should use our religion to drive our social concerns - and if we did, we'd find the progressives to be very satisfied. Jesus loved to hang out with the kinds of restless souls who make up the progressive movement; he had very little patience with the Religious Right of his day.

[desmirl]

Wouldn't it be nice to have just one person to vote for who would state, without a trace of embarassment, "Of course, I'm an atheist. Isn't everyone?"

[truthskr]

Sign me up - where can I run? As far as I am aware, there is only one out atheist in congress and he's from the SF area.

I am an atheist, and could not be any more disgusted with all the candidates (though I support Obama) no matter how sincere or well articulated, willfully subjecting themselve to this ridiculous religious vetting.

We're electing a president, who must represent all people of the US, religious as well as secular, affiliated as well as agnostic, the "faithful" as well those of us who are atheist, and not just Christians. Since the separation between church and state seems to be ever dissolving in our political process, I say we just skip the debates and primaries altogether. Why let any of us commoners vote at all? Let's just get all the super delegates together, acting as the cardinals of the Democratic Party, let them cast votes, and just wait for the white puff of smoke.

I tried to watch CNN's "Compassion Forum" the other night on the very off chance there would be anything of substance discussed, but ended up turning the channel after about 3 minutes. Everyone involved in that should be ashamed of themselves, Obama included, despite their half-assed attempts at incorporating inclusionary language into their Christianity-espousing verbal diarrhea. Jesus isn't on the ticket, but he's apparently everyone's running mate all the same.

[AnninCA]

We are a nation that supports all beliefs.

That's the beauty.

[HeevenSteven]

Or no belief, why does that have to be seen as ugly?

[WebHedon]

Representative Pete Stark, California's 13th district, is a devout Atheist! Actually, there are more Atheists in America than any single sect of any one religion. Crazy when you think about it, but really, it's a few centuries over do.

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins

[Gibbons]

And the church he was drawn to and which nurtured him had a pastor who spewed hate from the pulpit I certainly hope it was not a "Typical black church". It is no wonder that Michelle said for the FIRST time in her adult life she was proud of her country.

[desmirl]

Your bigotry is showing--and it ain't pretty.

[Gibbons]

I voted the first time for the president who integrated the military and introduced the first Civil Rights plank ever in his platform that was in 1948 and the man was President Truman as a result the solid south walked out and formed the dixiecrat party. Later another of us white bigots President Johnson signed the Civil Rights bill and when he did he said the solid south just moved over into the republican column. He gave away eleven states and the democrats sometimes can carry one of them Florida a swing state. so grow up and learn something about the civil rights movement as great as Dr. King was he didn't start the movement though he advanced it in leaps and bounds with help from both blacks and whites, And don't be so quick to call people bigots because they don't worship at Obama's altar.

[LAJonathan]

Still don't get it huh?

[Gibbons]

Oh yes I got it the first time I heard the reverends tirade and Obama claim he had never heard him talk that way I have slept through a few sermons in my life but one like that with the entire congregation cheering him on would be hard to sleep through. Of course you are sure that the Anointed One doesn't lie so you will have to make up a new word to cover it. I will vote for Obama if he gets the nomination because I REALLY love my country and don't want to see it handed over to McCain how many Obama supporters would do the same if Clinton is the nominee not many I expect you would rather stay home and pout.

[TinaFreeman]

Thank you for posting this. Obama is a very deep thinker who has a very healthy perspective. There is nothing in his entire career that is not completely consistent with the man he is presenting himself to be today.

There hasn't been another candidate so authentic in a very long time. People who don't see that, are either not looking closely or are so jaded by phony politicians they automatically assume Obama should be tarred with the same brush.

[spotchester]

Considering nobody on this planet can prove religion, yet many try to force it upon those who don't want it, maybe it's the religious who are 'out of touch' and 'elitist'

Maybe in fact, Obama is very much in touch.

[BOfever]

Nobody can prove global warming and that is being forced upon us.

[desmirl]

Amazing statement. Yes, global warming IS being forced upon us by our wasteful use of carbon-based fuels which pollute our atmosphere and hold the sun's heat in the atmosphere. So, you may have meant one thing, but you confirmed something entirely different. Thanks for being on the side of sanity and conservation.

[Javalation]

Only the scientific evidence proves that global temps are rising. Other than that you are right.

[HeevenSteven]

Nobody can prove WMD.

[AnninCA]

Obama actually made me a tad uncomfortable with how he weaves in his religious perspective. Why?

Because it's really very different from mine.

I felt a great deal more at ease with Hillary's reticence to blend the two.

Spiritual......yes.

Religious........no.

I respect the separation of Church and State.

I do not think they need to defend their spirituality to anyone, even Obama. I found Wright personally offensive. But I'm glad that nobody demanded that Obama over-explain.

His beliefs are his beliefs.

[boombox]

At last, a lucid thought: you don't like Obama because he's different from you.

[uscitizen]

Nice post.

[Jalenth]

This was a very thoughtful and honest diary. I only wish the media would do a more honest assessment instead of finding ways to demean Senator Obama in order to reconcile the notion that he's not properly vetted.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media isn't going to rush to your post and comment on it infinitely until the rest of American gets it.

This isn't sensationalist enough for it to be talked about over and over again. Reverends Wrights incendiary words aren't registered in Obama's thoughts. ummmm.

I hope the rest of American, who doesn't have an agenda, will pay close attention and not fall for the fake message and distraction that is gear to fool them once again.

[YuryGetsin]

This Frank Schaeffer character sure seems mighty smart. People have begun to realize that spreading conflict is mildly incongruous with that whole "turn the other cheek" thing.

Violence begets violence
Vote Obama

[ATLiberal]

I have to marvel at the sheer chutzpa of the Clintons. Do they really think that they can accuse Obama of being elitist and not experience severe blowback from that? The bubble they have lived in for the past 20+ years, as Governor/ First Lady, then President/ First Lady, then world traveling pitchman and schill for billionaires and windfall moneymaker/ US Senator. $109 million in 7 years.

Are you freakin' kidding me?? It is pretty obvious who are the elitists who are out of touch. And it ain't Obama.

[PoliticalEnnui]

The height of condescension is trying to manipulate the public by stating that the country is fed up and wants a change out of one side of your mouth, then trying to tell middle-America that it isn't bitter out of the other. We're not buying it and Obama is the only one honest enough to say it. Always against NAFTA my ass!