{"id":197,"date":"2008-12-12T11:04:30","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T11:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2008\/12\/the-faith-of-barack-obama-p1.html"},"modified":"2008-12-12T11:04:30","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T11:04:30","slug":"the-faith-of-barack-obama-p1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/12\/the-faith-of-barack-obama-p1.html","title":{"rendered":"The Faith of Barack Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Faithofobama\"<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Book Review of Stephen Mansfield's The Faith Of Barack Obama–written for UrbanFaith.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

I
\nstarted reading Stephen Mansfield\u2019s The Faith of Barack Obama <\/em>mostly
\nout of curiosity. I knew Mansfield had previously written The Faith of George
\nW. Bush, a sympathetic religious biography of the 43rd<\/sup> president, so
\nI wasn\u2019t sure what his approach would be to a political figure who lands
\ndecidedly on the other end of the ideological spectrum. However, I must
\nconfess, though I started the book out of curiosity, I continued with it out
\nof necessity. As he did with Bush, Mansfield offers a genuinely objective
\noverview of Obama\u2019s faith journey and how it might give clues about the way he
\nwill govern. But what largely drew my interest were the insights the book
\nreveals about embracing Christianity in today\u2019s society. For anyone who wants
\nto wrestle with the issues of faith in a postmodern context, this book is
\na must-read.  <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Mansfield
\nwrites:<\/span><\/p>\n

Religiously, the majority of America\u2019s young are
\npostmodern, which means they do faith like jazz\u2014informal, eclectic, and often
\nwithout theme.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Faith
\nin a postmodern era is largely about belonging. It has been said that in
\nthe past people believed before they belonged. That is, they would give their
\nlife to Jesus at a crusade by walking down the aisle during an altar call or by
\npraying the Sinner\u2019s Prayer with a friend. While the convert didn\u2019t understand
\nthe intricacies of Christian doctrine, it was an ascent to believe. Then the
\nsearch to belong would begin by joining a small group, attending Sunday School,
\nor shopping for a church. Postmodern searching follows the same path but in the
\nopposite direction: Belonging precedes believing.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The
\nlatter was true of Obama\u2019s faith journey as well. For him, disconnectedness was
\na way of life. He grew up disconnected from his absentee father and his country
\nbecause of the gypsy wandering of his mother. Identity was a hard-fought battle
\nfor connectedness. Was he Black or White? African or American? This produced a
\ndesire for harmony, reconnection … belonging.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Mansfield
\ndoes a masterful job of this phase of Obama\u2019s spiritual biography. On that
\nSunday when Barack was in tears at the end of the sermon and knelt before the
\ncross, he was belonging before he was believing. Mansfield writes, \u201c[I]t was a
\ndecision to enter a faith by joining a people of faith, to come home to a
\ncommunity and so come home to God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If
\nwe are going to do effective ministry today we must recognize that Obama is not
\nunique in this journey. <\/span><\/p>\n

Things
\nget messy when belief follows belonging in the conversion experience. Obama
\nappears to be \u201cworking out\u201d what he believes as he goes. At times he gives safe
\nanswers about issues related to religion and life that clearly do not satisfy
\nlisteners\u2014or Obama, for that matter. He goes away and reworks his answer, and
\nthe next time he\u2019s asked the question it is obvious that he has spent time in
\nthe woodshed refining his true beliefs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other
\ntimes he says things that seem to deny or call into question core Christian
\nteaching. Like when he and his daughter, Sasha, were having a conversation
\nabout death and he was unable to give her assurance about heaven. On another occasion he
\nquestioned the traditional view of hell. Perhaps the most troubling of all of
\nhis statements is when he said that, though he was \u201crooted in the Christian
\ntradition,\u201d he believed that \u201cthere are many paths to the same place …\u201d When
\npressed about Jesus saying, \u201cI am the way, truth and life,\u201d he responded by
\nsaying that was only a \u201cparticular verse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What
\ndo we do with doubters in our midst? Do we say that they are not one of us
\nuntil they believe the right thing? Do we refuse to let them call themselves
\nChristian until they can pass an exam on basic Christian doctrine? Mansfield
\npoints out that Obama took his step of faith toward Jesus from a \u201cfoundation of
\ndoubt,\u201d because of the skepticism of Unitarian Grandparents and an atheistic
\nmother.  <\/span><\/p>\n

What
\ndo we do with those who are simultaneously doubting and worshiping Christ? Perhaps
\nwe can take our cue from Jesus \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they saw him, they worshiped him; but some
\ndoubted….\u201d  (Mt. 28.17)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Can you get past the
\nfirst two words of The Lord\u2019s Prayer?<\/span><\/em> If I ever meet President Obama, that\u2019s the
\nquestion I want to ask him. As a man who never had a daddy, I know firsthand
\nwhat it\u2019s like to discover God as your father. When I pray the Lord\u2019s Prayer, I
\nrarely get past the words, \u201cOur Father\u201d without having to pause for a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

On
\nthe one hand God meets the father void of the fatherless, but He gives us a
\nfamily. Jesus didn\u2019t teach us to pray, My<\/em>
\nFather but Our<\/em> Father. Our Father
\nknows that we need to belong to a family\u2014a community of faith\u2014so that we can
\ntruly believe in His love, grace, and mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mansfield
\nsays this of Obama: \u201cThough he came to faith as a man, he carried the soul of a
\nboy who yearned for a father and a tribe to call his own.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nfather void and the identity crisis that that produced may be the crux to
\nunderstanding the faith of Barack Obama. Why did he cling to Rev. Jeremiah
\nWright? Could it be as simple as the fact that Wright was his spiritual father?
\nI think so. Why does Obama cling to a Christianity that he questions? Could it
\nbe that while he doesn\u2019t understand it all, he knows in his heart that God is
\ncalling him to belong to this community that is bigger than him?<\/span><\/p>\n

In
\nhis bestseller, The Audacity of Hope,<\/em>
\nObama writes of his conversion experience:<\/span><\/p>\n

It
\nwas because of these newfound understandings\u2014that religious commitment did not
\nrequire me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic
\nand social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and
\nloved\u2014that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church
\nof Christ one day and be baptized. It came about as a choice and not an
\nepiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath
\nthat cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God\u2019s spirit beckoning me. I
\nsubmitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mansfield
\ndoes a good job of helping us understand the roots of Obama\u2019s pursuit of God\u2019s
\ntruth. If you\u2019re interested in understanding the faith of our president-elect,
\nor perhaps that of your postmodern neighbor next door, The Faith of Barack
\nObama is worth a read.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Review of Stephen Mansfield's The Faith Of Barack Obama–written for UrbanFaith.com I started reading Stephen Mansfield\u2019s The Faith of Barack Obama mostly out of curiosity. I knew Mansfield had previously written The Faith of George W. Bush, a sympathetic religious biography of the 43rd president, so I wasn\u2019t sure what his approach would be to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-music-movies"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Faith of Barack Obama - The Jazz Theologian<\/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\/jazztheologian\/2008\/12\/the-faith-of-barack-obama-p1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Faith of Barack Obama - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Book Review of Stephen Mansfield's The Faith Of Barack Obama–written for UrbanFaith.com I started reading Stephen Mansfield\u2019s The Faith of Barack Obama mostly out of curiosity. 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}