David Jeffers
The Deep Faith of Barack Obama
June 10, 2008

In our post-modern world, the word “faith” can mean anything. For a presidential candidate to claim a “deep faith” suggests a level of humility and principled behavior that people find desirable in a national leader. It is also a claim that is easy to make. A responsible voter will dig a bit deeper, knowing that unfortunately, things are not always what they seem. A person’s “faith” can be placed on many things.

 

Listening to Senator Obama talk about his faith, I believe he is someone who truly believes what he says. Yet I also find him to be conflicted about the role of religion in our society. I’m not sure what is core belief and what is campaign rhetoric. Fellow blogger Larwyn Greer sent me a link to an interview Senator Obama gave in 2004 that focused on his religion. The first question the interviewer asks is, “What do you believe?”

 

His response:

 

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.

 

I think it is important before we go any further to define the term “Christian.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus.” Now that is a pretty broad definition with lots of room for interpretation.

 

Belief in Jesus Christ can manifest itself in many ways depending upon denominations. Traditional evangelicalism professes a Christian belief “in the sole authority and inerrancy of the Bible, in salvation only through regeneration, and in a spiritually transformed personal life." [1]

 

This definition is contrary to Senator Obama’s Christianity. In the interview he states:

 

So, I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.

 

The interviewer later asks Senator Obama if he “got yourself born again?” Got Questions.org defines the “phrase ‘born again’ literally means ‘born from above.’ New birth, being born again, is an act of God whereby eternal life is imparted to the person who believes.” Senator Obama answers:

 

Yeah, although I don’t, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I’m not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I’ve got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.

 

What Senator Obama describes as dogma is considered a doctrinal foundation to Christianity. In John 14:6 Jesus declared “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus is not only declaring a monopoly on the truth, He is claiming exclusivism, a biblical “my way or the highway.” This does not mesh up neatly with Senator Obama’s stated beliefs:

 

I’m a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at its 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.

 

Senator Obama states he has “a deep faith” and yet he thinks “that religion at its best comes with a big dose of doubt.” What Senator Obama describes as deep faith is clearly not biblical faith. Hebrews 11:1 gives this definition: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Would a limited understanding be expanded for Senator Obama if he had more visual evidence? That seems contrary to biblical faith.

 

When asked who Jesus Christ was, Senator Obama laughed nervously and said:

 

Jesus is an historical figure for me, and he’s also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher.

And he’s also a wonderful teacher. I think it’s important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.

 

Jesus Christ claimed to be God Incarnate and to claim He was an historical figure and a bridge between God and man does not acknowledge His deity. This is central to the Christian faith. Senator Obama further states:

 

This is something that I’m sure I’d have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.

 

INTERVIEWER: You don’t believe that?

 

OBAMA: I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That’s just not part of my religious makeup.

 

This is clearly a liberal theology based on trying to compromise the Truth of the Gospel with one’s own personal feelings. This writer wrote in “Losing My Religion” that Senator Obama seemed “to be advocating consensus that would require compromise on religious beliefs.” Compromising principles for the sake of consensus is at best risky business. Worse than that is compromise for the sake of political advancement. More from his interview:

 

There’s a vanity aspect to politics, and then there’s a substantive part of politics. Now you need some sizzle with the steak to be effective, but I think it’s easy to get swept up in the vanity side of it, the desire to be liked and recognized and important. It’s important for me throughout the day to measure and to take stock and to say, now, am I doing this because I think it’s advantageous to me politically, or because I think it’s the right thing to do? Am I doing this to get my name in the papers or am I doing this because it’s necessary to accomplish my motives.

 

On the surface that comment might seem prudent, however it reveals confusion bred from compromising for the sake of consensus. For a man to have to ask himself “am I doing this because I think it’s advantageous to me politically or because it’s the right thing to do” shows his motives for entering politics is not bred primarily from a desire to serve.

 

With this in mind, looking at Senator Obama’s questionable associations with four notorious public figures may enlighten. First, Senator Obama says in the interview:

 

So that, one of the churches I met, or one of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ. And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church.

 

By now most Americans know about the controversy swirling around Reverend Wright and the majority of people do not believe that Senator Obama could be a member of that church and not know about Reverend Wright’s racist tendencies. But what if he is telling the truth, what if he didn’t know?

 

Then there is something more troubling and it brings into question Senator Obama’s judgment and his ability to evaluate people’s motives and desires. How is it possible that a grown man educated in an Ivy League school could be taken completely by surprise over Jeremiah Wright’s behavior? When asked if he had people in his life he looked to for guidance, Senator Obama responded:

 

Well, my pastor is certainly someone who I have an enormous amount of respect for.
I have a number of friends who are ministers. Reverend Meeks is a close friend and colleague of mine in the state Senate. Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend and somebody I interact with closely.

 

Add on to Senator Obama’s list his dear friend convicted felon Tony Rezko and his associate, domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, and we have a pattern here. And if it is true that Barack Obama was completely fooled and surprised by the behavior of these four men, three of whom he says “this is not the man I knew”, then that leads to a very important question.

 

How are we to trust this man to sit across the negotiating table with the likes of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, or Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez? Senator Obama has already stated that he would initiate “tough negotiations” with these four countries and yet he is unable to know the hearts and minds of three close friends and one political associate?

 

When Iran eventually gets the nuclear bomb, will President Obama state this was not the man I negotiated with? When Syria completely invades Lebanon through the help of Hezbollah, will President Obama say this was not the man I negotiated with? And what about North Korea and Venezuela; will President Obama’s only excuse for the betrayal of our enemies be these were not the men with whom he negotiated?

 

One last quote from Senator Obama’s 2004 interview:

 

As I said before, in my own public policy, I’m very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.

 

The deep faith of Senator Obama manifests itself in a suspicion “of religious certainty expressing itself in politics” and yet his deep faith somehow relieves his suspicion to the point of a willingness to negotiate with our enemies.

 

The deep faith of Barack Obama leaves a deep chasm in my trust of him becoming the next President of the United States.

 

Footnote
[1] David Jeffers, Understanding Evangelicals: A Guide to Jesusland, (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2006), 13.