Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Barack Obama lets his faith show



The president has gone to church again and Politico thinks it is worthy of a lead article.

The main focus of the story is the one-liner from scripture that the president often uses about being our brother's keeper. I have a few thoughts about the repeated use of the line.

Politico story
HONOLULU — President Obama’s trip to church Sunday followed a steady rebirth over the past three months in public expressions of his Christianity.

Obama has publicly mentioned his “Christian faith” more times in the past three months than he has over the past year. He has more frequently cited passages of the Bible, including repeated references to the spirit of Genesis 4:9 — “I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper” — which was a mainstay of Obama’s 2010 campaign stump speech. And he’s taken his family to church twice, a shift for a president who has preferred to worship privately since the end of the 2008 campaign.

“He presents his Christianity as an important aspect of his identity but one he doesn’t want to foist upon anyone else, and he would rather risk downplaying it than offending somebody,” said Jeffrey Siker, a theology professor at Loyola Marymount University, who has studied Obama’s use of the Bible in his speeches.

“One recurring phrase — and I’ve noticed this frequently of late — this notion that we are our brothers’ keepers, which is kind of a mantra for him,” Siker added, noting that Obama “would see the notion of being our brother’s keeper as something that crosses all religious lines.”

Obama has used the reference, which was a regular feature of his on the 2008 campaign trail, in two dozen speeches since September. Before then, he’d used it just four times as president. References to his “Christian faith” also have appeared more times in Obama’s speeches since September than they did before....

It's really sad that with our president we have become suspect of his religious references... with the thought that they are nothing more than politically motivated. But... that is what he has left us with... esp. with this continual reference to being "our brothers keeper." For we conservatives we actually hear him saying that we are responsible to provide everything any person might desire instead of people being responsible for their own lives and actions.

I would love to hear him quote the verse that says,
"If anyone isn't willing to work, he should not eat."
2 Thessalonians 3:10 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Now... I can't help but wonder what kind of political capital that would harvest for a politician these days... esp. the president?

xtnyoda, shalomed


H/T Jeremy

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