Church, State, and Barack Obama

In July 2007 Barack Obama said, "For my friends on the right, I think it would be helpful to remember the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy but also our religious practice."

In more recent prepared remarks delivered on July 1 at Zanesville, Ohio, Mr. Obama vowed not only to continue George Bush's Faith Based Initiative Program, but to expand it. He added one disclaimer, that faith based agencies could not discriminate on the grounds of religion in hiring employees. (Many questioned this disclaimer as undermining the very nature of faith in faith based initiatives.)

The greater hue and cry focused on the issue of the separation of church and state generally and Mr. Obama's politically expedient flip-flop about it.

In my estimation Mr. Obama's affirmation of faith based initiatives is further evidence of his own strong religious values, rooted in his experience as a community organizer on Chicago's Southside. I found one of the final paragraphs of his July 1 remarks particularly telling (note my highights):

"And my Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will also have a broader role – it will help set our national agenda. ... If we’re going to end genocide and stop the scourge of HIV/AIDS, we need people of faith on Capitol Hill talking about how these challenges don’t just represent a security crisis or a humanitarian crisis, but a moral crisis as well."

For my Unitarian Universalist readers, take a look at Forrest Church's take on the church/ state issue on the UUA website: http://www.uua.org/visitors/uuperspectives/55665.shtml

Obama on the Role of Faith in American Political Life

Arguably, the most important contemporary remarks regarding the place of faith in American political life were made to the Call to Renewal convention in June 2006, by Barack Obama. Mr Obama declared “secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King— indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.” Yet Mr. Obama also argued that those motivated by faith must seek universal values (to persuade even non-believers) when seeking to implement their faith based objectives in the political arena.

Mr. Obama has posted this address on his website: http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/

I recommend that you visit YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4nPeC8SIM, to hear this keynote address.

In my estimation this speech is worth the attention of study groups on both the religious and secular side of the separation of church and state debate.