{"id":2,"date":"2015-02-23T11:06:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T17:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/does-it-matter-whether-obama-is-a-christian.html"},"modified":"2015-02-26T15:54:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T21:54:14","slug":"does-it-matter-whether-obama-is-a-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/does-it-matter-whether-obama-is-a-christian.html","title":{"rendered":"Does it matter whether Obama is a Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve been writing (too?) frequently on this topic (e.g., yesterday\u2019s post<\/a> on an interview with Obama on religion, a prior post<\/a> on Obama\u2019s National Prayer Breakfast confused statements on religion) but I\u2019ll try to articulate why I think this matters (still a work in progress), and then move on to other pressing (or not-so-pressing) issues.<\/p>\n

Some say that it matters whether Obama is a Christian because, in fact, he\u2019s not just \u201cnot a Christian\u201d but a Muslim, and that his indifference to ISIS, his willingness to help Iran get the bomb (or rather, his lack of willingness to stop them), his lack of support for victims of Islamic supremacist-motivated attacks, are all the result of his secret Muslim beliefs. \u00a0They point to such things as the gesture Obama reportedly made<\/a>, the \u201cshahada\u201d or a symbolic profession of faith, at a meeting of African leaders in August 2014.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s beside the point. \u00a0Plenty of non-Muslim leftists make common cause with Muslims out of a belief that Muslims are victims of American imperialism. \u00a0And before that, plenty of leftists, without being communists per se, were more than happy to believe communist regimes when they said they were peace-loving, that their preservation of the \u201cright to have a job\u201d was more important than fluff like the \u201cright to free speech,\u201d and so on. \u00a0And Obama\u2019s actions in the foreign policy arena can be judged and found wanting without regard to any Muslim sympathies. <\/p>\n

In the same way, I\u2019m not particularly interested in the \u201cObama doesn\u2019t love America\u201d fight, though for what it\u2019s worth: \u00a0Obama wants America to be transformed into a mythical European welfare state, and wants America to be as passive about world affairs as, historically, Western Europe has been, when the U.S. did all the heavy lifting. \u00a0He wants to believe that somehow the stars will align and \u201chistory\u201d will see to it that nothing too terribly bad will happen if you leave all other countries to their own devices. \u00a0(In a way, that\u2019s part of his religion: \u00a0that some metaphysical force will ensure that justice wins out. \u00a0See my old blog post<\/a> on the \u201carc of history.\u201d) \u00a0 At the same time, he is fairly \u201ctransnational\u201d in that he doesn\u2019t believe we as Americans have any greater \u201cright\u201d to prosperity than anyone else, and, if he takes actions that benefit other countries at our expense, such as open borders (that is, boosting the income of those who come in, and family members back home, at the expense of Americans), it\u2019s all a part of smoothing out income inequality.<\/p>\n

But as far as the \u201cis Obama Christian\u201d issue:<\/p>\n

What religious doctrine Obama believes in ultimately has nothing to do with his position as the President. \u00a0And plenty of the, for instance, Slate commenters<\/a> who couldn\u2019t give a rat\u2019s ass about Christianity recognize this and go further to say, \u201cof course he\u2019s not a Christian\u201d, but still gripe that Walker didn\u2019t fall in line and say, \u201cObama says he\u2019s a Christian, so he is,\u201d in the end take the position that \u201cit\u2019s disrespectful to anyone, but especially to the president, to question their own personal profession of religious identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, that sentence is a bit of a mess.<\/p>\n

Whether someone is a Christian depends on two things: \u00a0what, in their heart, they believe, and what, definitionally, Christianity is.<\/p>\n

Obama believes he is a Christian \u2014 let\u2019s take him at his word and not get into the question of whether he\u2019s making claims for political gain.<\/p>\n

But his definition of \u201cChristian\u201d is pretty flimsy, and seems to be more about \u201cidentifying with the Christian tradition and believing you should be a good person\u201d than about Christian beliefs.<\/p>\n

The Slate commenters, too, use this as their operating definition, by tossing around statements like: \u00a0\u201cWalker doesn\u2019t care about the poor, so he\u2019s not a Christian, either\u201d or \u201cno Republican can possibly be a Christian because they hate the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there has to be some connection between Christianity and core historical beliefs that Christians hold. <\/p>\n

Yes, \u201cyou\u2019re a Christian if you say you are\u201d is a shortcut to avoiding disputes such as born-agains claiming that you aren\u2019t a Christian unless you have had a born-again experience, or evangelicals disputing whether Mormons<\/a> are Christians. \u00a0But if you have to abandon any standards at all and open up the label Christian to anyone who claims an affinity with Jesus, even as a misunderstood social-justice reformer \u2014 well, what\u2019s the point? \u00a0I suppose, in a way, this is similar to the concept of the \u201cbig tent\u201d Republican party \u2014 if your tent is so big that you don\u2019t stand for anything any longer, you\u2019re pretty much lost any meaning to your endeavor except pursuit of power and\/or membership numbers.<\/p>\n

When it comes down to it, playing a \u201cgotcha\u201d with politicians and asking them to affirm Obama\u2019s Christianity is almost a demand that those politicians deny their own faith, by saying it doesn\u2019t matter whether Jesus is God or just a good preacher. \u00a0To demand that \u201cChristianity is in the eye of the beholder\u201d says that Christianity is, in the end, nothing of any significance. \u00a0And, as a Christian, I can\u2019t accept that.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been writing (too?) frequently on this topic (e.g., yesterday\u2019s post on an interview with Obama on religion, a prior post on Obama\u2019s National Prayer Breakfast confused statements on religion) but I\u2019ll try to articulate why I think this matters (still a work in progress), and then move on to other pressing (or not-so-pressing) issues. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":1384,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6,5],"class_list":["post-2","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-obama"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes it matter whether Obama is a Christian?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've been writing (too?) frequently on this topic (e.g., yesterday's post on an interview with Obama on religion, a prior post on Obama's National Prayer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/does-it-matter-whether-obama-is-a-christian.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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