That night, Michelle sneaks into her daughter Sasha’s bedroom. With a soft downy pillow, she smothers Sasha to death. In the early morning, she carries the tiny corpse into the Oval Office and presents it to Barack. “Here,” she says, “Is my offering to make up for last night’s sins.”
Yes, this story is ludicrous—even stupid—because no reasonable person could imagine such events happening. Yet, some 2000+ years ago in Jerusalem, a good man, the alleged Son of God, was pinned to a crosstree and hoisted up to die three hours later as a sacrifice to his Father for the sins of all mankind including the original sin of Adam and Eve. Unlike Michelle in the above ridiculous story, this man was supposedly sinless.
In short, is this essay being written by an atheist? The answer is a resounding no. It is written by a man who believes that God, the Wholly Other, lies behind all the unanswerable questions science boasts it will some day answer, given enough time. It is written by a person who believes that Barack Obama should not adopt any religion unless he’s thoroughly examined its foundation blocks.
To become a Christian, or a Muslim, or a member of the Jewish faith, sends a wrong signal to the rest of the world. It continues the dangerous belief that one religion is better than another--ultimately, that the people of one religion are better than others because of their beliefs.
The world does not need organized religion. Like so many of the oriental thinkers believe, the world is what it is. It is unexplainable, but it is here. We need to examine it because humans have a desire to know. Claiming one organized religion has better ultimate answers than another has created epochs of agonized terror down through the ages. Hopefully, Barack Obama will rely on more than Christian religion to make intelligent decisions about world peace.
Article comments
1 - Ruvy
Obama should have moved quicker. In March, he had everybody eating out os his hand - the messiah. Why wander into someone else's church when you can start your own and hire a preacher you like to deliver YOUR message to the country?
A shame that Obama does not think outside the box. The boxes he allows his thoughts to run in will bury him.
2 - Joanne Huspek
I'm wondering how religious/spiritual he really is.
It's possible he used Reverend Wright's church as a platform, which would explain how and why he threw his supposed spiritual leader so quickly under the bus.
I don't see any problem with him not belonging to a specific church. Reagan wasn't a churchgoer either, but he didn't attend regularly before the Presidency. I do see a problem with trying to appeal to those who do, and switching gears for those who don't.
Pick a policy regarding church and stick with it.
3 - Jacob
To be perfectly honest, I've always gotten the impression that he's agnostic/atheistic but is attending church for his wife's sake.
4 - Baronius
My hunch is that Obama approaches questions of religion and culture with the detachment of an anthropologist. When asked if he's an evangelical, he analyzes the black church experience. When he talks about becoming a Christian, it sounds like a decision rather than a conversion. He sees himself as better able to approach Islam because he's not pulled into sectarianism.
That said, when they say that he's choosing a church, they don't mean a religion or a denomination; they mean that his staff is trying to pick an acceptable local facility.