{"id":991,"date":"2012-10-22T07:52:54","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T13:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=991"},"modified":"2012-10-22T07:55:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T13:55:12","slug":"is-obama-the-wrong-kind-of-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2012\/10\/is-obama-the-wrong-kind-of-christian.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Obama the Wrong Kind of Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I am always shocked by the glee with which many evangelical Christians will pass judgment upon, and dismiss the faith of other professing Christians. I guess I shouldn\u2019t be. Finding ways to be dismissive of those who come from a different Christian tradition, or have experienced a different kind of obedience to the gospel is all too common. But it still shocks me \u2013 disappoints me as well.<\/p>\n

This has been the practice of many evangelicals who disagree with the president\u2019s politics, so feel inclined to dismiss the fact that he\u2019s a Christian. There\u2019s a fantastic article up at CNN<\/a> right now by John Blake describing the faith tradition President Obama is a part of and why it\u2019s so hard for some evangelicals to accept. Here\u2019s an excerpt that is particularly embarrassing to me as both a Christian and a Kansan:<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Barack Obama was sharing a pulpit one day with a conservative Christian leader when a revealing exchange took place.\u00a0Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a conservative Christian who has taken public stands against abortion and same-sex marriage, had joined Obama for an AIDS summit. They were speaking before a conservative megachurch filled with white evangelicals.\u00a0When Brownback rose to speak, he joked that he had joined Obama earlier at an NAACP meeting where Obama was treated like Elvis and he was virtually ignored. Turning to Obama, a smiling Brownback said, \u201cWelcome to my house!\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience exploded with laughter and applause. Obama rose, walked before the congregation and then declared:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is one thing I have to say, Sam. This is my house, too. This is God\u2019s house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historians may remember Obama as the nation\u2019s first black president, but he\u2019s also a religious pioneer. He\u2019s not only changed people\u2019s perception of who can be president, some scholars and pastors say, but he\u2019s also expanding the definition of who can be a Christian by challenging the religious right\u2019s domination of the national stage\u2026.<\/p>\n

Obama is a progressive Christian who blends the emotional fire of the African-American church, the ecumenical outlook of contemporary Protestantism, and the activism of the Social Gospel, a late 19th-century movement whose leaders faulted American churches for focusing too much on personal salvation while ignoring the conditions that led to pervasive poverty.<\/p>\n

No other president has shared the hybrid faith that Obama displays, says Diana Butler Bass\u2026\u201cThe kind of faith that Obama articulates is not the sort of Christianity that\u2019s understood by the media or by a large swath of Christians in the U.S.,\u201d says Bass, a progressive Christian. \u201cHe\u2019s a different kind of Christian, and the media and the public awareness needs to reawaken to that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Christians, however, still see Obama as the \u201cother.\u201d He doesn\u2019t act or talk like other Christians, says the Rev. Gary Cass, a conservative Christian president of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. \u201cI just don\u2019t see or hear in his accounts the kind of things that I\u2019ve heard as a minister for over 25 years coming from the mouths of people who have genuinely converted to Christianity,\u201d says Cass, pastor of Christ Church in San Diego. Cass says he\u2019s never heard Obama say he\u2019s \u201cborn-again.\u201d There\u2019s no emotional conversion story to hang onto.<\/p>\n

Obama talks about his faith and attends church, but Cass says that doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s a Christian.\u00a0\u201cJoining a church doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re a Christian. \u201cYou can put me in the garage, but that doesn\u2019t turn me into a car.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you think about this?<\/p>\n

If you feel like reading more about the relationship between evangelicalism and the social gospel, you might want to check out the book I wrote on the subject: An Evangelical Social Gospel?<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am always shocked by the glee with which many evangelical Christians will pass judgment upon, and dismiss the faith of other professing Christians. I guess I shouldn\u2019t be. Finding ways to be dismissive of those who come from a different Christian tradition, or have experienced a different kind of obedience to the gospel is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[134,128,129,131,133,132,127,130],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-billy-graham","tag-christianity","tag-diana-butler-bass","tag-jim-wallis","tag-marcia-pally","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-president-obama","tag-walter-rauschenbusch"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Obama the Wrong Kind of Christian?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I am always shocked by the glee with which many evangelical Christians will pass judgment upon, and dismiss the faith of other professing Christians. 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