Barack Obama's Call to Conscience

I read an article in the Hartford Courant that gave me hope and encouragement. The front-page article was simply an account of Barack Obama’s visit to Hartford on Saturday, where he spoke at the United Church of Christ’s annual conference. However, the article detailed some of the things Obama said and his thoughts stirred me with optimism and inspiration.

I do not follow politics closely and i don’t know much about Senator Obama but it is clear that he is a man who has some important things to say. Like many people, i feel that there is way too much attention being given to potential presidential candidates this early in the election cycle and i am not eager to add to the media orgy by commenting on Obama but i think that his remarks reflect a deeper truth and that they are worth considering even if they are offered in the context of a political campaign.

The focus of his speech at the UCC in Hartford was “the link between faith and politics”, a subject that has captured my attention for several years. Indeed, this has become more and more of a hot topic in America as it has become evident that the Bush clan has deliberately attempted to capitalize on the religious sentiments of Middle America and transform that into political power. The convolution of religion and politics that we have witnessed over the last seven years is perhaps most symbolically represented by the religious and moral undertones that pervade US aggression in the Middle East. Like God, the President stands before us and announces that we have been harmed by a group of “evildoers” who must be punished. The details are unimportant; his moral authority is all that matters.

This clumsy confusion of religion and politics has naturally sparked outrage among liberals and among all people who value a secular society. People feel a justified sense of concern that the conservative Christian politicians are leading us backward to a place where only one religion and one set of moral beliefs are accepted by the State. However, in their effort to counterbalance the extremism of the neo-conservatives and maintain the separation of Church and State, i think that many liberals have gone too far in their rejection of the union of religion and politics. They have taken the pragmatic slogan “the separation of church and state” and interpreted it as an absolute mandate: religion and politics should never be mixed.

This idealistic separation of powers would certainly make life easier if it could be achieved but it is too simplistic and impractical. The fact is that we will never be able to completely separate our religious beliefs from our political action because they are interrelated: our spiritual beliefs inform the hows and whys of our action in the world and our political actions create conventional norms through which our spirituality expresses itself. There are political considerations in every religion and every politician’s decision-making is influenced by his spiritual beliefs. The separation of church and state is an axiomatic principle in any secular society but this simply means that any particular religious view is not endorsed as official state policy; it does not mean that lawmakers must refuse to be religious.

Enter Barack Obama. For the last few years he has been making a name for himself by advocating the integration of religion and politics, not by condemning it. Unlike many other Democrats, he has realized that religion cannot be completely separated from politics and that the conservatives who have gathered support from their religious followers have hit upon a truth that liberals cannot ignore any longer: religion and politics are related. With this understanding, and with the knowledge that many liberal voters have strong spiritual beliefs that will influence their voting behavior, Obama has been appealing to religious believers – just like Bush did during his campaigns.

Of course, the big difference is the brand of religion that Obama endorses. Although they both devoted Christians, Bush and his conservative friends demand an unquestioning type of faith based on unwavering conviction and submission to the omniscience of authority. On the other hand, Obama promotes a faith based on reason and free choice.

"Faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubt," he said in 2006. Saturday, he described his conversion to Christianity at the age of 26 as a "choice, not an epiphany," and said "the skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish."

Like many people, i often get suspicious when politicians start talking like prophets at just the time when they need votes. So it is hard to tell whether Obama is really in touch with the heart of America or if he is just a shrewd campaigner who knows how to say the right thing at the right time. But, either way, his understanding of the relationship between religion and politics is perceptive and timely and i think many of us could benefit from it.