{"id":50,"date":"2010-04-05T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html"},"modified":"2010-04-05T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T07:00:00","slug":"obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama Family Chooses Black Church for Easter Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

The First Family has decided not to join a church — President Obama says they decided their presence, and the security required, is too disruptive and distracting to the others on a weekly basis — but they did attend Easter Sunday services again, this time choosing a historically black Methodist Church <\/a>in Southeast Washington, a neighborhood struggling with poverty and crime. The Washington Post reported <\/a>that a crowd began to form outside the Allen Chapel AME Church just before 3:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

From Politics Daily<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

The Obama family were longtime members of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago before quitting in 2008 during the presidential election in the wake of the controversies swirling around its former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Though they said at the time they would join another church, they never did.<\/p>\n

The last time the Obama family attended church in Washington was Jan. 17, at Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, although when they are at Camp David they worship in the presidential retreat’s chapel. Last Easter, the Obama family took communion at St. John’s Episcopal Church across Lafayette Square from the White House.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

GetReligion <\/a>had wondered which church the Obamas would visit yesterday, and also when they would start attending services regularly. Personally, although I’m a religion reporter and understand that faith makes up an integral part of Obama’s politics, I don’t see the big deal — it’s completely understandable that any First Family would prefer to worship in private at Camp David <\/a>(as did the Bush family and other previous White House residents), nevermind the additional security risks that Obama has to worry about. (Am I the only one still reeling from the sight of armed protesters at town hall meetings about health care reform last summer?)<\/p>\n

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n

*Click here to <\/span>subscribe to Belief Beat <\/span><\/strong><\/a>and <\/span>click here to <\/span>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The First Family has decided not to join a church — President Obama says they decided their presence, and the security required, is too disruptive and distracting to the others on a weekly basis — but they did attend Easter Sunday services again, this time choosing a historically black Methodist Church in Southeast Washington, a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nObama Family Chooses Black Church for Easter Service - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama Family Chooses Black Church for Easter Service - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The First Family has decided not to join a church — President Obama says they decided their presence, and the security required, is too disruptive and distracting to the others on a weekly basis — but they did attend Easter Sunday services again, this time choosing a historically black Methodist Church in Southeast Washington, a…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-05T07:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama Family Chooses Black Church for Easter Service - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama Family Chooses Black Church for Easter Service - Belief Beat","og_description":"The First Family has decided not to join a church — President Obama says they decided their presence, and the security required, is too disruptive and distracting to the others on a weekly basis — but they did attend Easter Sunday services again, this time choosing a historically black Methodist Church in Southeast Washington, a…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-04-05T07:00:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html","name":"Obama Family Chooses Black Church for Easter Service - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-04-05T07:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-04-05T07:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/obama-family-finds-a-church-for-easter.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama Family Chooses Black Church for Easter Service"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}