The other day I stumbled upon a screed that notes how Barack Obama is really a Unitarian Universalist, which means he is really a communist.
But of course…
I suspect first for a politician, and second for one who had been working out his own faith journey which eventually took him to the African American church, that UU connection was probably something he’d just as soon ignore. And he certainly has…
I don’t hold it against him. Just as a practical political issue the fact of that screed is perhaps enough to understand his not discussing any connection to our liberal faith. That and the fact he is not a UU, he is a congregational Christian, currently unchurched. I suspect his family will make sure there is a new church in their lives in Washington. It’ll be interesting to see where they end up.
Governor Adlai Stevenson seems to be the last serious contender (I think we can stipulate that Governor Mike Gravel’s play for the presidency wasn’t serious to too many people) to publicly own a Unitarian faith.
In fact the nutjob set have enough to play with ballyhooing the constitutional crisis in allow someone who had a non-citizen parent become president. Of course they have to ignore the other five presidents, including Andrew Jackson who actually had two immigrant parents to run with this. But if you actually find this a startling and dangerous challenge to the republic, frankly actual facts don’t need to enter the picture. Which leads to those who think Obama wasn’t actually born in Hawaii rather than to those ruminating on the UU connection.
Which perhaps explains with such lovely challenges to the republic and all it stands for in his genealogy, there hasn’t been a lot of ranting about Obama’s UU connection.
But at least there really is a UU connection.
It was the religion of his maternal grandparents and presumably the faith within which his mother was raised and the church he attended at least on occasion during his childhood.
And this means things. It does seem many of his values came to him through his maternal grandmother. And her faith was Unitarian Universalism.
What, however, this actually might mean, and how it plays out, well, only time will tell.
But somehow I find it heartening…
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