The NYT explores the Senator's faith and his pastor, while David Brooks deciphers how it might affect his foreign policy.
The New York Times has an extended piece on Barack Obama's faith, his church, and his relationship with his pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Wright has become known for his liberation theology, which, as Wright has applied it, some have called reverse racism.
Obama describes the differences in outlook he has with his pastor.
“Reverend Wright is a child of the 60s, and he often expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism and the struggles the African-American community has gone through,” Mr. Obama said. “He analyzes public events in the context of race. I tend to look at them through the context of social justice and inequality.”
The article's emphasis on Obama's relationship with his outspoken pastor is due to its potential political effect on Obama's presidential campaign. But the article does describe Obama's personal conversion: “He comes from a very secular, skeptical family,” said Jim Wallis, a Christian antipoverty activist and longtime friend of Mr. Obama. “His faith is really a personal and an adult choice. His is a conversion story.”
The article has less of Obama speaking about himself than David Brooks's column does. In the column, perhaps, we see Obama’s faith at work better than we do in the much longer piece about Obama and his pastor. Brooks says he got Obama to open up when he asked, "Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr?” Obama, it turns out, is a big fan. "What do you take away from him?" Brooks asked.
“I take away,” Obama answered in a rush of words, “the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away ... the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.”
Posted by Rob Moll on April 30, 2007 12:06PM
Comments
If he was only pro-life!
Posted by: wbtaz47 at April 30, 2007
That is what I tell myself too.
I wish he was pro-life.
In balance though, I do believe abortion should be legal only when necessary, extremely necessary or in case of incest of a young woman.
Because in those times, we need to put ourselves in the other people's shoes and see how difficult this decision can be.
When it needs to be done in such rare circumstance, I don't think it's fair for us to let hacks do it by criminalizing it.
My huge disagreement with the left is their trivialization of it.
It shouldn't be a commodity, it shouldn't be easy to just go get.
And for those of us on the other side, let's support programs that make it hard for this to be necessary in the first place.
Easier adoption systems, better schools, a more accountable foster system, teaching abstinence and--though controversial--safety, because we don't live in a vacuum in this world.
I did listen to this and everyone should.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/faith/
Posted by: Concerned at May 1, 2007
There are two things I would like to ask of any candidate:
1. Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples?
2. How many times did you attend church services last year?
Whether the UCC should be called a Christian church is open to question. It is more of a leftwing social organization. I doubt very much they would exclude atheists from membership, for example.
Posted by: Eric Rasmusen at May 1, 2007
Before passing judgement on a particular UCC congregation, pastor, or memeber; consider that no label we apply makes a group monolithic. Sure, most UCC congregations are very socially liberal and barely warrant the title Christian--but not all. I happen to know many people who attend Trinity UCC and they are firmly orthodox. I dont' know Mr. Obama personally, but I do hear that he is very active in his congregation.
Posted by: Matt K at May 2, 2007
Concerned, you have evidence or reason to believe that this church denies teh ressurection or is only a social organization. And as far as whether they have atheists involved, do you really think that atheists should be barred from churches as a general rule? There is evidence to think that this church is largely more conservative on so-called "value" issues than the rest of the UCC denomination. Wright spoke ought against ordination of homosexuals. That is firmly in line with the conservative values black church, not the wishy-washy liberal deonomination.
Posted by: ac at May 2, 2007
I might not have evidence that Trinity UCC is liberal on so-called orthodox issues, but there's loads of evidence that Trinity's leadership is RACIST! And why Robb Moll won't actually say so, instead of repeating the wimpy statement that "some have called (Wright's views) reverse racism," is beyond me. What is "reverse racism" anyway? Why isn't it just plain 'ol racism? I'll tell you why, because you're using leftist-speak, which abides the notion that a person of color can't be racist.
Posted by: DiverCity at May 2, 2007
Sorry, Concerned. I was respdonding to Eric Rasmusen, not you.
There is no particular evidence that Wright and that church is racist, in so far as believing that the black "race" is superior or has supreme place in society. It is NOT racism for a black church to articulate a black-centered christianty (assuming it doesn't exlcude whites from the church--which this one doesn't) because the sorry state of things is that we in the West have been articulating a white-centered gospel from a position of power for hundreds of years, whether explicitly or (most of the time) unintentionally. The un-racist value of a church like this one is that it tries to correct for these hundreds of years of white dominated christianity in this country by reaching to black people in a way that inhabits their culture, not white culture. A church like this can preach the incarnation of Christ as just as real for the African sub-continent and its descendents as Christ is in our mainstream American culture (historically speaking, of course, he was neither black nor white--as we understand those "races" today). This move to preach Jesus incarnate in black cluture and as present with the powerless and discriminated-against of today is deeply biblical. Frankly, we in the white church don't need to explicitly articlute our own version of this because it's what's all around us in the mainline and evengelical churches which preach for social concerns of our own society, unconsciously envision Jesus as a white American, and use a long, deep, and wonderful (but very white) tradition of worship and fellowship.
Posted by: ac at May 3, 2007
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it bothers me that he never mentions God leave alone jesus.
Posted by: anne at January 16, 2008
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