by Lisa Miller
Washington Post<\/p>\n
Last week, the Christianity police, in the persons of Rick Santorum and Franklin Graham, came forward to discredit the president\u2019s religious beliefs. First, Santorum called Obama\u2019s theology \u201cphony\u201d; then, on \u201cMorning Joe,\u201d Graham refused to accept Obama into his Christian band of brothers: \u201cHe has said he\u2019s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
With rhetoric like this, these Christian conservatives are playing an ancient game. They are using religion to separate the world into \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem.\u201d They are saying, \u201cthe president is not like us.\u201d
The president\u2019s Christian beliefs are hardly unusual. He was raised by a mother whom he has called \u201cagnostic\u201d and who today might be dubbed \u201cspiritual but not religious.\u201d (The fastest-growing religious category in the country is \u201cnone\u201d: people who believe in God but don\u2019t affiliate with any denomination.) When Barack Obama walked for the first time into Trinity Church on the South Side of Chicago, he was 27. He had read widely in theology \u2014 St. Augustine and Nietzsche and Reinhold Niebuhr \u2014 but he had no formal religious training.<\/p>\n