Barack Obama's Faith Journey

Born to an Interfaith Couple

Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii to a white mother from a Protestant Christian background—Obama later called her a “lonely witness for secular humanism”—and a black father from Kenya. His father was raised a Muslim, but Obama has said that “by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist, thinking religion to be so much superstition.” Obama’s parents divorced when he was two and his dad returned to Kenya. He saw his dad only once more, for a month-long visit when he was ten, before his death.