My column from last week about religion-related questions I'd ask Mitt Romney produced a bit of response. Among my favorite comments was one that included this:
"Name one other presidential candidate you have ask questions of their religion? Have you ask Obama about Black Liberation Theology? Leiberman about how being Jewish will inform his relationship to the middle east?"
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The reason I liked it so much is that, in 2000, I had the privilege of spending 22 minutes alone with Lieberman, where I asked him about how his faith informed his governance. And four years ago, I spent a ton 'o time analyzing the theology of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and writing about Barack Obama's religion.
It's a fair point, however, that I should write about the Democrat that is almost certainly to face Romney in November. So I'll get to that presently.
But also in fairness, I'd like point out exactly what I did last week -- and why the situations of Romney and Obama vis-à-vis religion are not particularly parallel.
I did not suggest that Romney be asked to explain Mormon doctrine, nor was I interested in any aspects of Mormon theology regarding God, Jesus, the afterlife or the like. I listed official Mormon doctrines that could have an impact on secular governance. And I asked whether Romney's understandings of those doctrines informed his policy positions.
The reason I felt particularly justified in posing those questions is why the situations of Romney and Obama are not parallel.
For a decade, Romney was a member of the clergy for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was ward bishop and stake president. (And thank you to the many Mormon readers who pointed out my dumb inversion last week of the responsibilities of those two positions.) As such he was a recognized authority, expected to understand and agree with official church doctrine and to apply it while working with members of his congregations.
I would only ask these kinds of questions to someone for whom religion is a central part of their public persona. Dick Cheney, for instance, is Methodist but never much talked about it. So it isn't politically relevant. His former boss, however, famously said that Jesus Christ was his favorite political philosopher.
I count it a signal failure of the national media that candidate George W. Bush was not queried sharply and repeatedly to explain how his understanding of the political philosophy of Jesus would inform his governance.
President Obama, like his predecessor, has made his faith a key element in his public persona. By contrast to Romney, however, Obama was a guy in the pew, free to listen and agree or not with what he heard. He has never claimed particular expertise with religion. And has rejected narrow acceptance of Christian doctrine. A more parallel set of questions for Obama would be about Constitutional law, since he was a law school professor in that subject.
But Obama has been speaking and writing about his faith and its effect on him since before he was a senator and through the last campaign and his presidency. Whether or not people are satisfied with -- or even believe -- what he's said is one thing. But only the willfully ignorant or dishonest can claim that he's not been asked questions and given answers about how his understanding of his Christian faith has informed his approach to governance.
What has he said? There's no quick reply to that. So if you're actually interested, strap yourself in and I'll provide some highlights and some links to more complete accounts. Bring some refreshments. We will be here a while.
On the one hand, among the oldest and most complete texts are Obama's two memoirs. Dreams From My Father has a long account of his journey of faith -- from the child and grandchild of people who were indifferent or hostile to organized religion to crying in the pew of a Chicago church. The Audacity of Hope has an entire chapter titled, simply "Faith."
But for me, the uber-source is a remarkable interview Obama gave in 2004, when he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate and long before he was even whispered about as presidential timber.
He sat down with Cathleen Falsani, then a religion reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. She did a news story off the interview at the time. Later, when Obama became a bit more important than a mere senate candidate, Falsani posted the entire transcript of the interview on her own website. You can read it here.
Here's how Obama explained his approach to his faith back then:
"I am a Christian. So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith. On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences. I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10. My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim. And I'd say, probably, intellectually I've drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith."
And here is how he explains his attitude toward specific doctrines:
"I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding."
And here is where he starts to explain how his understanding of his faith helps inform his ideas about governance:
"I think it's perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values that inform my politics that are appropriate to talk about... I can give religious expression to that. I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, we are all children of God. Or I can express it in secular terms. But the basic premise remains the same."
For the next eight years, he's come back to the same basic themes: That he's motivated by his understanding of the Christian social gospel as an inspiration for his personal service and as a guide for the kinds of policies that he pursues. But he rejects narrow and sure interpretations of religion. And he's careful to say that government policy must not be narrowly tailored for any faith or none.
Four years ago, the specifics of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago became a huge part of the presidential campaign. Obama's friend and pastor, Rev. Wright, became a huge part of the campaign because of sound bites of a particular sermon titled "Confusing God and government" that he'd given many times all over the country. Based on the sound bites, it quickly became known as the "God Damn America" sermon.
I listened to the whole thing and did a couple of detailed pieces about it. Here's one that has lots of quotes. And here's one that puts it in context with the history of African-Americans and the black church.
Purely as a matter of theology, those who object to the sermon likely don't think much of the biblical texts of Jeremiah, Isaiah and other prophets. Wright lists a long set of what he counts as national sins and suggests that a nation that sins without repentance deserves to be condemned -- damned -- by God. As I wrote back then, when a Christian pastor says "God damn" from the pulpit, it's a pretty safe bet that he's not simply uttering an epithet.
As a matter of history, Wright's list of putative sins include examples that are as bogus as birtherism. He claimed that AIDS and crack cocaine were government-produced plots aimed at blacks. That the U.S. government knew about the Pearl Harbor attack before it happened.
But other items on his list are true: The Vietnam war was justified on a pretext and the government lied about bombing Cambodia. The CIA helped the South African apartheid government jail Nelson Mandela. The founders of America refused to give full rights to blacks and women.
Obama was hammered with questions about Wright. He gave a remarkable speech repudiating the racism of some of Wright's sermons:
"I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy and, in some cases, pain. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in the church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely -- just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed. But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial...
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