Barack Obama's Christian Faith and his Scholarly Personality
I have updated this post below.
Summary of this post: Barack Obama is a sincere Christian and has a scholarly personality but his strength is not writing theology. Below I intend to give some modest observations and to provide links to other resources where you can do your own investigating.
Over Christmas break I read Barack Obama's
book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. I am usually quite strict about just writing about church leadership issues on this blog, but I thought I would share a few observations because I think some pastors might be interested and helped by my observations.
I have five main observations about Obama, his book, and his Christian faith.
(1) In the book, Obama admits his imperfections regularly. For example, he ends the book admitting that he was too often absent as his wife was raising their two small daughters. This, along with a series of Chicago Tribune articles, have helped me to feel like I really understand what this man is like - his strengths and weaknesses. The character of his early life was not particularly exemplary but half way through college, he switched colleges and began to take life seriously. (See this article in the Tribune about his college days). Since then, he has tried to use his sharp mind and diverse experiences to help people through community activism and politics. (I have not read his
autobiography Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance which gives a fuller account of his life and which the Chicago Tribune fact-checking found to be quite reliable in its accuracy).
(2) In Audacity of Hope, Obama gives a very fair-minded overview of the issues facing the United States. This would be a great textbook for introducing high school and college students to political science, social work, and economic issues. It is timely, well-written, and fair. Like other well-written textbooks, I think virtually everyone would find this book informative and helpful for their own understanding of the various issues. This leads me to the next observation.
(3) Obama admits in the acknowledgements at the end of The Audacity of Hope that this book has been thoroughly vetted by political advisers. This differs from his first book Dreams from My Father which was not written with politics in mind to the same extent. I think it would be difficult to find a quote in The Audacity of Hope that could be used against Obama in a campaign. I wonder if any of the candidates (Republican or Democrat) would differ with much he writes here. But I also wonder whether any of them are as capable of seeing and articulating the various factors that must be considered when making decisions about particular issues. This brings me to my next point.
(4) I conclude from this book that Obama is a thinker, a scholar, a writer, an academic, someone who is deeply concerned with ideas. I was reminded today by David Brooks in his column in the New York Times, "How Voters Think," that people often vote based on whether they resonate with their first impressions of a candidate. And as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in Blink, people's first impressions are often right. As a doctoral student at Duke and a fellow academic, I am attracted to Obama's thoughtfulness. But I realize there are crucial other questions. Does he have the grit, experience, discipline and decisiveness to lead and manage the government? To use a church metaphor, the student with the best grades in seminary, does not necessarily become the best pastor. Management barely gets mentioned in Obama's book. The difference between Obama (the man of ideals) and Obama (what is really possible) is already apparent on the campaign trail. For example, he writes eloquently about the Iraq war and about foreign policy in the book, but the sound bites that make it into the news are about his "attacks" on Hillary Clinton's judgment about Iraq and his promise to "bring the troops home." If he became president, would he be able to be the Barack Obama who wrote The Audacity of Hope or would he be the Barack Obama of the soundbite political campaign? I have no doubt he wants to be the former but many wonder whether he would end up being the latter.
(5) Finally, I find Obama's Christian faith to be sincere but I am not sure that it is stronger than that of the other candidates. Now, I should preface these observations with some heavy disclaimers. (a) I am making some conclusions based on what I've read, which is certainly limited. Who can judge a person's faith without knowing them? (b) I feel like I am making quite a minor point that Obama's faith is not leaps beyond the other candidates as some have thought. (c) As I have stated above in observations 2-4, he is quite an educated person with a law degree from Harvard and his personality is that of a professor so in that sense he is more articulate than the average Christian about his faith.
I find Obama to be a person of church-attending Christian belief - probably similar to those of John Edwards and Hillary Clinton (though I know less about their religious beliefs).
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee is certainly more explicitly devout than the other candidates though he is walking a tight line here - trumpeting his Christian beliefs while at the same time making them palpable to the general public. Huckabee has been a Southern Baptist pastor. It is important to note though that he does not however have a seminary degree, though he has said often that he has "a theological degree." He has a BA in Biblical Studies from Ouachita Baptist University. He dropped out of Southwestern Baptist Seminary (Fort Worth, Texas) after one year. John McCain and Fred Thompson are not regular church-goers as I understand it. Mitt Romney is a Mormon. I think I am just reiterating the commonly held views about the other candidates but I am happy to be corrected.
A survey of Relevant Magazine readers (Relevant Magazine is a magazine targeted toward what I would call "evangelical" young adults), showed that many think Obama is a particularly Jesus-friendly candidate.
Who would Jesus vote for?
Barack Obama
28.7% 284
Dennis Kucinich
2.8% 28
Mike Gravel
0.2% 2
John Edwards
4.7% 46
Joe Biden
1.4% 14
Hillary Clinton
1.8% 18
Mike Huckabee
24.2% 239
Rudy Giuliani
4.3% 43
Fred Thompson
6.0% 59
Ron Paul
15.6% 154
Mitt Romney
3.7% 37
John McCain
6.6% 65
Also, Jim Wallis, (who I like very much usually), wrote:
Many news reports have noted the similarities between the two. Each is a "religious" candidate. Barack Obama is virtually a public theologian and the most sophisticated political leader in many years in articulating the relationship between faith and politics. Mike Huckabee is actually a former Baptist pastor who can out-preach, out-charm, and out-Bible almost anyone.
Obama gave a speech to Jim Wallis's "Call to Renewal" group in June 2006. The transcript and MP3 of the talk are both at Obama's website here. It is almost exactly the same as his chapter entitled "Faith" in Audacity of Hope. Obama writes in the acknowledgements of the book that people including "Jim Wallis took the time to read the manuscript and provided me with invaluable suggestions" (p. 364).
The speech and chapter are a thoughtful, pragmatic approach to talking about faith and politics and I think he gets most of it right. But I think Jim Wallis overstates it when he says he is "virtually a public theologian." A public theologian is deeply educated in the Christian tradition (a theologian) and then thoughtfully articulates the faith in ways that the general public can understand. They thus write some of their books for the general public. They are often interviewed by the media because they have the capacity to speak to the general public. I think of Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Regent College's John Stackhouse, Dallas Theological Seminary's Darrell Bock, Duke's Lauren Winner and there many others. Though they are trained theologians, they sometimes act as public theologians - speaking to non-Christians and functioning as spokespersons for the Christian faith, subtle evangelists, articulate apologists and cultural critics.
There were many comparisons to Martin Luther King after Obama's victory speech in Iowa. David Gergen said on CNN, "I thought Barack Obama's speech was one of the best I have ever heard from him. There were echoes of Martin Luther King in that speech, as well as, of course, echoes of his own convention speech." I have no problem with people comparing Obama to Martin Luther King but it is important to note that Martin Luther King was himself a pastor, a seminary graduate, and even finished a Ph.D. in systematic theology (though he plagiarized some of his dissertation). Dr. King was much more deeply formed in the Christian tradition than Obama.
From all of this, I think you could conclude one of two things. First, the optimistic view. You could conclude that Obama has deep Christian faith which manifests itself in the way he approaches every issue, how he lives his life and how he campaigns. He does not want to alienate people of other faiths by being overbearing in his use of Christian language. You might also say this about Hillary Clinton or John Edwards who are less explicit in their Christian language but would say that their decisions are rooted in their Christian convictions.
Second, the cynical view. You could think that the brief references to Christian faith in his speeches are politically designed to appeal to Christian voters and that his life and approach to the issues has been formed to a great degree by other factors.
I think it is probably a combination of the two. I like Obama and I think he is a Christian with orthodox beliefs, who has seriously tried to apply his faith to the issues. I think there are many reasons to vote for him but if you do so, don't do it because he is much more devout than the other candidates, is a public theologian, or compares as a Christian thinker to Martin Luther King.
Update:
Below Jake comments that David Brooks says that Obama knows Reinhold Niebuhr's book The Irony of American History
The fresh interest in his work, then, ought to be invigorating—a source of clarity and perspective. It hasn’t been. On the contrary, the Niebuhr revival has been perplexing, even bizarre, as people with profoundly divergent views of the war have all claimed Niebuhr as their precursor: bellicose neoconservatives, chastened “liberal hawks,” and the stalwarts of the antiwar left. Inevitably, politicians have taken note, and by now a well-turned Niebuhr reference is the speechwriter’s equivalent of a photo op with Bono. In recent months alone, John McCain (in a book) celebrated Niebuhr as a paragon of clarity about the costs of a good war; New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (at the Chautauqua Institution) invoked Niebuhr as a model of the humility lacking in the White House; and Barack Obama (leaving the Senate floor) called Niebuhr “one of [his] favorite philosophers” for his account of “the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world.” (November 2007 - Atlantic Monthly - not available online for free).
See an interview with Paul Elie about this subject here.
Additional Resources:
- Obama gave a speech to Jim Wallis's "Call to Renewal" group in June 2006. The transcript and MP3 of the talk are both at Obama's website here. It is almost exactly the same as his chapter entitled "Faith" in Audacity of Hope.
- You can also read the transcript of his speech on AIDS at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in December 2006 here.
- Evangelical? Obama's faith too complex for simple label January 19, 2007 Chicago Sun-Times.
- A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith April 30, 2007 New York Times.
- See Joshua DuBois's blog. He is Director of Religious Affairs for the Obama campaign.
- One example:
I will cite one example of him trying to talk about the intersection
of faith and politics.
Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion. This is not entirely foreign to religious doctrine; even those who claim the Bible's inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, based on a sense that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life. The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a constitutional amendment banning it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics. (The Audacity of Hope, p. 220-221).
Obama is here talking about hermeneutics or Biblical interpretation or the use of Scripture in ethics. What he is saying is that not every command in the Bible is of equal value. The Scriptures are a collection of different genres (prophets, law, psalms, narrative, gospels, letters). Christians in community, taking the Scriptures as authoritative in some sense, interpret the Scriptures for ethics today. Some tenets of the faith are fundamental or primary. Others are secondary. Christians must use their minds and deliberate and decide how to live Christianly in the contexts where they find themselves. Roman Catholics receive significant guidance in this area from Rome. Obama is trying to make the point that even more deliberation is necessary when Christians want to use the Scriptures to make legislation for all people (Christian and non-Christian).
I know what Obama is trying to say but I just think this paragraph shows that his theological sophistication is at quite a basic level. I think his approach to integrating faith and politics simply identifies the worst extremes to avoid.
He has a much firmer grasp on the complexities of interpreting and applying the Constitution. (See chapter three of The Audacity of Hope). This is of course understandable - he has taught constitutional law, not Scripture. I actually think that there are some interesting parallels here: should one interpret the Constitution/Scripture narrowly/literally, or should one apply the general principles of the the Constitution/Scripture to the issues we face today more broadly?
Update January 24, 2008
Obama has tried to reach out to Christian voters in the last couple of days. Thus, a number of stories and interviews have appeared. See below. I think they confirm that Obama is a sincere Christian but not a particularly conservative one nor one who is especially good at talking about his faith. Also, below in the comments, my good friends Kyle and Eric have reminded Christians to look at Obama's position on abortion. Point well taken.
My disappointment with the candidates has reminded me that God is at work through his church and most often, despite our political leaders. That is where "hope" is. I am reminded of 1-2 Samuel and some people wanting a king (president) and others like Samuel reminding them that God is the only one worth putting our trust in. Kings turn out to be ok sometimes for the people of God in the Bible but often times pose an obstacle. Regardless, God is at work in a remnant of people faithful to him. That is where I want to be. A good king/president provides some basic structure that allows God's work to happen but that is the only the framework. God is at work building his kingdom (already here but not yet).
I find myself watching the political race like watching sports - cheering for different candidates to get ahead. Of course politics is much more important that sports but in light of what God is doing, it is actually quite superficial - like watching sports. That is a good reminder to me to put my hope in God and his kingdom and thinking less about politics.
More links about Obama's Christian faith from
CT Interview: Q&A: Barack Obama
CT Liveblog: One Look at Hillary's Outreach to Evangelicals
CT Liveblog: Obama Still Hoping to Catch the Evangelical Vote
beliefnet: Barack Obama: Praying to Be 'An Instrument of God's Will'
CBN: Barack Obama Talks to The Brody File
May 29, 2007 Christian Century "Africentric church: A visit to Chicago's Trinity UCC" by Jason Byassee
Christian Century's Theolog "The internet and Trinity UCC" By Jason Byassee
Links to the Obama campaign which have links to a lot more newspaper stories:
http://my.barackobama.com/churchfacts
http://my.barackobama.com/faithfacts
I enjoy these two sites that check facts on the campaign. They both try to check facts and keep the candidates honest.
http://www.factcheck.org/
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/
See this interview with Hillary Clinton about her faith.
