POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Losing His Religion

I said early on, back when all the Jeremiah Wright sermons were coming out, that Obama's christianity and church choice seemed far more politically oriented than anything else. This isn't anything unique to Obama, or even to politicians. I think it's more common in small towns, but anyone who has spent any time in church knows there are always people who attend for the social, economic, or political benefits. Others attend to avoid the social, economic, or political damage that comes from not participating. It's a pitfall of living in a country where Christianity is the dominant religion.

The thing is, if it weren't for church attendance, no one would think of these folks as Christians. It's only natural, then, that for such people, their attendance needs to be very regular and visible. With Obama, the confusion over his religion goes all the way back,and many people have been hearing conflicting stories for years. Contrast this with George W. Bush, whose Christian beliefs were made public and pounced on by liberals who seem to only be able to tolerate Social Justice Christianity. Since I don't know that the question was ever asked, I'm left to wonder what percentage of respondents would have thought he was Muslim. I would guess only the Neo Nazis and Jim Birch types would have answered that way.

The other key about the politically motivated church members is that they have no real desire to be in church. It's hard enough to want to go when you, well, want to be there. But when you don't want to go, all sorts of obstacles tend to pop up to keep you out. For some, it's late nights on Saturday. For others, there's yard work to be done. For those who are so inclined and have the means, it's golf. My cynicism with regard to Obama leads me to believe that since his attendance was designed to get him to as high an elected office as possible, he no longer has any incentive to attend now that he has attained the highest elected office in the free world. And now that he's no longer attending, or making any sort of waves with his faith, Americans are losing sight of what he wanted them to remember.

Also, we're all aware that, as Franklin Graham noted, Obama was born a muslim.  The fact that, as an adult, he converted to Christianity, will be overlooked by a couple of groups of people.  First, the devout muslims in our country would, presumably, still consider him to be a muslim.  Second, every politician has political enemies who just simply refuse to believe anything he says.  There were those who claimed Bush wasn't a Christian; their claims were based on their disagreement with his policies.  Third, the portion of the population that pays just enough attention to be dangerous.  The same group who thought Republicans were running congress in 2008, or who think Sarah Palin actually said she could see Russia from her house, are prone to hear just enough about Obama being born a muslim to think he's still a muslim.  I can't imagine any reason those three groups wouldn't equal, say, 18% of the poll taking population.

Adam Wells

Living life at 84 mph and 7000 feet. All I ask is that you don't block traffic, act like a professional, and don't act all surprised when your actions have consequences. Oh, and don't complain about the refs; trust me, they don't care if your team wins or not.