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So, at Long Last, What Is Barack Obama’s Religion?
President Barack Obama has said that he is “Christian.” But isn’t that a bunch of religions? Which is his? It’s actually complicated as to whether “Christian” is several different religions or “one true catholic and apostolic church,” as many claim. More on that in a moment.
For some reason, the President’s religion keeps popping up. Candidates are asked if Barack Obama is a Christian. Candidates are told by questioners that Barack Obama is Muslim. A recent poll shows one percent of Americans think he’s a Jew. This persists despite the President’s own testimony of being Christian.
If we are going to talk about the President not being a Muslim (after seven years you’d think the media would stop), can we in the same conversation reveal to which religion he actually belongs? Wouldn’t that help rid us of the problem of people claiming he is Muslim?
I’ve followed the President pretty closely and can’t find any time he has said to which of the Christian religions he belongs. I’m reminded of the row over his birth certificate, which subsided greatly once he released it. Why not give some detail about his religion to close out this debate?
So let’s take a closer look, but first let’s visit this issue concerning the difference between a religion and a church (and just to be more confusing, many use the two words interchangeably). The definition of religion, although containing variables by source, in its simplest form, is in two parts:
1. a set of beliefs and practices 2. followed by those committed to the service and worship of God.
The Roman Catholics (themselves suffering an east/west schism) see one church, and while they see Protestants in certain communion with them, it is an imperfect communion. That sounds like one religion with those protesting folks simply doing it wrong. The many Protestant churches (religions?) also see one church – a church they improved magisterially with their reformation in the 1500s. That sounds like one religion, with those Roman folks simply doing it wrong.
However, note that culturally and colloquially, many people see the various Protestant denominations not as separate churches in one religion, but separate religions. Ask a Roman Catholic his religion and he will say “Catholic.” Ask a Lutheran his religion and he will say Lutheran. The same goes for Methodists, Baptists, et al.
In making this determination of what is or is not a separate religion, we might look to what “confession of faith” and what “catechism” a church adheres to. Note that there is among the Protestants the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles, the Lutheran Augsburg Confession and the Reformed Churches Heidelberg Catechism. While the various Protestant confessions and catechisms (Roman Catholics have their own) started with Zwingli, Luther, and Calvin, they were revised many times over the years in many directions.
There are many differences between the Roman Catholic and the various Protestant views of religion. The authority of the Pope is obviously disputed by Protestants. Catholics have saints and venerate Mary, while Protestants don’t. Lutheran and Reformed churches apply the doctrine of sola scriptura, where the Bible is both the highest authority and all one ever needs, while Roman Catholics add tradition as equally important. The Methodists and Anglicans ascribe to prima scriptura, wherein scripture is primary, but inspiration can come from other sources too. There are many more important differences, including those involving the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the forgiveness of sin.
Considering the differences, it’s clear why so many treatments refer to Catholicism and the various forms of Protestantism as separate religions, not separate churches in a religion.
Those who claim there is one Christian religion now should note well there are even efforts to consolidate the Roman Catholics and Protestants into one (thus contrary to the point that it is one religion now). There is a Pontifical Council on Christian Unity. Read this 2013 agreement on baptisms. Or the Evangelicals and Catholics Together Agreement. Or this 1999 joint declaration on justification between Catholics and Lutherans that concerned a central point of disagreement leading to the reformation. In fact, on the 500th anniversary of the reformation in 2017, Pope Francis may sign a document that some believe will finally end the split (you’d think that would be getting more press).
So, at long last, what is Barack Obama’s religion?
I’m going to avoid the claim that holds, “A Muslim is born a Muslim if his father is one.” I’m also avoiding the conversation that says because the penalty for Muslim apostasy is death, he is hiding his childhood Muslim faith to avoid being killed. I’m also skipping the concept of taqyyia, which holds a Muslim is allowed to lie about his beliefs to avoid persecution (if any of you are interested in these things, write your own column – this one presupposes the President’s Christianity).
Let’s start with what we know. As an adult Barack Obama became a congregant of Trinity church in Chicago. That doesn’t tell us enough. Trinity is a local church of the larger religion into which one gets baptized — the United Church of Christ (UCC).
One could probably say that the President’s religion is the United Church of Christ and be technically correct. However, you’d be missing an important detail about his religion if you left it at just that. It would be like trying to predict what state a person is from if they told you nothing more than they were Midwestern.
The UCC was formed in 1957. It was the coming together of two churches: Congregational Christian and the Evangelical and Reformed Church, the latter being a prior merger of Reformed and Evangelical synods. The Evangelical and Reformed church used the Heidelberg and Lutheran catechisms and the Lutheran Augsburg confession. That made their protestant linage both Reformed and Lutheran.
The Congregational Christian Church, although started in 1931, obviously from its name had a history with congregationalism, and was Reformist. It also used the Heidelberg Catechism. There are differences in the Reformed and Lutheran beliefs, and there is a good detail of those difference offered here, as well as many other treatments you can find on the web.
Now here is a twist: According to the UCC Constitution, the local churches (like Trinity) remain completely autonomous (a nod to the Congregationalists) and are free to follow the confession and catechesis of their prior lineages, either Reformed or Lutheran.
This is where it gets a little tricky. Trinity UCC in Chicago, where the President is a congregant, doesn’t give any indication (at least not on its website, nor anywhere my Google kung fu can reveal) if it has adopted a confessional or catechism from any particular prior lineage, be it Reformed, Lutheran or otherwise.
And this is where it gets interesting: Trinity Church, being its own highest authority under the UCC constitution, has adopted its own creed (neither Nicene nor Apostles’ creed), written by its pastor found here.
But it doesn’t end there. Trinity, being a proclaimed Black church, has also adopted something called the “Black Value System,” inspired by a man named Manford Byrd and is found here. While I dig the emphasis on Black families, that part about “middleclassness” is shocking.
So what are we left with? What, at long last, is Barack Obama’s religion?
I still don’t know. While Trinity is technically part of the UCC, it appears to be neither Reformist nor Lutheran. Did Trinity start its own religion? The affiliation with the UCC suggests no, but Trinity doesn’t seem to have anything in common as a matter of doctrine with the UCC or any other church or religion. It may be its own religion, dedicated to Black Liberation Theology, which arguable excludes me.
Now it was the tone of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Black Liberation Theology that led the President to distance himself from Trinity Church. That opens up the questions, did he ever return? Is he somewhere else now?
So I don’t know to which religion, or even a church within a religion, that Barack Obama belongs. I’d say none of us really do. I bet if you asked him about confessionals and catechesis, he wouldn’t know himself. The next time Jimmy Kimmel sticks a microphone in your face and asks you if you know the President’s religion, bet him $1,000 he doesn’t know either.
If Republican candidates are going to be asked to what religion the President belongs, in fairness he should clarify the answer.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
The question of Obama’s religion is tied up intimately with the question of who Barack Obama is. He is a man who (I think it was Tom Brokaw who first noticed this) watches us watching him. He has gone to great pains to create a public image of himself which is oddly dissimilar from the rare and carefully scripted private portraits we get in the media. They somehow always neglect to include the fact that he is a smoker, which, although a small personal quirk is nonetheless emblematic of the obfuscation which the media engages in to his benefit.
Everything about him has been crafted with an eye towards seducing a willing America. This was a man who, by all accounts went by the name Barry Soetoro in his early life, until it became convenient for him to start going by his given name – the name of his socialist Kenyan father given to him by his socialist mother, raised by his social-democratic, oikophobic grandparents and mentored as a young man by Frank Marshall Davis.
I think it’s fair to say that The President has been subject to influences in his life that no previous American President ever felt. As America’s first atheist, social Democrat President it’s no surprise that he’s a mystery to us.
Sadly, many who call themselves Christian are not real clear as to what that means either . . .
majestyk is right. I know this guy. I’m an atheist, too, and have dissembled the way Obama does for the sake of social acceptance. I don’t critcize his atheism. I don’t even criticize how he hides it. But criticize his abominable policies, and the way he wraps them in an ideology he clearly reputes.
Maybe we should ask the remaining Christians in Iraq that ISIS has overrun if they think Obama is a Christian? Or the Coptic Egyptians? Its open season on Christians in the middle east, and all you hear is crickets from this administration. I believe that is your answer right there.
Lack of discernment trumpeted as virtue.
The same option we have with respect to any other professed beliefs.
Knowing what is other people’s hearts is a liberal virtue.
My own theory is that the Jeremiah church in Chicago was and is Michelle’s church, not Obama’s.
What happens in a lot of mixed marriages is that the couple goes to a church that is really important to one of the spouses but the other spouse never really joins. It’s something they want to do together, but the other spouse isn’t as fired up and doesn’t really want to join.
Obama loves his wife and family and basically goes to church with them. He seems to believe in God and Christ, but he doesn’t align with any organized religion. I think that’s why it is hard to figure out what his religion is.
His religious life is pretty typical in mixed-religion marriages.
Tommy, I think this is comment #100. Did you get your answer in all this or just more questions? I am guessing the latter.
I got a good deal of insight, Brent, which I was looking for.
What fascinates me is on my Facebook page, something that I didnt expect, is that liberals are apoplectic that I asked the question. Basically they are accusing me of trying to insult or attack the President by asking his religion. I point out that the media asks everyone else what is the President’s religion so I’d like to clarify so they stop. They continue to accuse me of everything from contempt to being nosey.
This is pretty close to what I was talking about. We just have to look at how the man acts. From the obvious discomfort that the man displays when discussing matters of faith to his casual dismissal of political opposition as being motivated by common leftist boogey-men like “Racism” or “Religion” his mien is that of a person who is not merely “not of” religion but one of “barely contained disdain” for it and its practitioners.
The “Clinging to Guns and Religion” bit really drove it home for me. Those were the unguarded words of a man who was entirely comfortable speaking that language to people whom he knows are sympathetic to that viewpoint. The mask was off for that brief moment.
Just as conservatism was a “Second language” for Mitt Romney, the language of faith is secondary to Obama. He clearly feels awkward invoking spirituality – just as I would.
I don’t dislike Obama for that, but I find his obvious pandering to religionists of the left and obfuscation of his real opinions to be contemptible.
Even though it costs me nothing to be wrong, and this prediction is as good as words on the wind, I’d still be willing to bet that after Obama leaves the White House we aren’t going to hear too many stories about Obama going to church. In fact, the number of times this is referenced is likely to be zero.
Then, some number of years down the road there will be a news story about somebody who interviews President Obama (we’re going to be stuck with his ex-Presidency for longer than we have been with Carter, with even more disastrous consequences I fear – Think “Secretary General Obama”) and he will slyly admit that he doesn’t have any particularly profound religious beliefs.
There will be a brief row about it and then it will fade into the background.
There is a chance your due diligence will explode their myth so their appropriate course of action is to destroy you.
Devil’s Advocate: Why hasn’t he done this already? He’s already shown that he doesn’t particularly care about how he affects the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party and that he’s not going to let a little things like popular opinion get in the way of his agenda, so why keep up the charade?
President Obama is a shrewd enough politician to understand the side his bread is buttered on. That side of course is with the minority community, which is the sole province of the Democrat party.
If the President were to say that he would risk alienating the largely religious African-American community which almost unanimously elected him. Merely having the approval of the white liberal base of the Democrat party isn’t sufficient to prevent him from being drubbed in Congress and he knows that. If he somehow had his own party partially abandon him then he would be at risk of having all of his “accomplishments” undone before he even left office.
Things don’t end well for Presidents whose party abandons them. Just look at the difference between Nixon and Clinton.
From an interview:
Barack Obama has no religion… at least not one he takes seriously.
It’s simple: the church of Barack Obama is. . .Barack Obama.
Barack Obama’s comments here are nonsense.