{"id":2400,"date":"2010-11-02T17:54:57","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T17:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church.php"},"modified":"2010-11-02T17:54:57","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T17:54:57","slug":"obama-meets-prays-with-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church","title":{"rendered":"Obama Meets, Prays with Church Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adelle M. Banks
\nc. 2010 Religion News Service
\nWASHINGTON (RNS) Twenty-one Christian leaders met and prayed with
\nPresident Obama on Monday (Nov. 1), discussing joint concerns about
\npoverty, U.S.-Cuban relations and peace in the Middle East.
\nLeaders from the National Council of Churches thanked the president
\nfor the passage of health care reform and voiced concern from the pews
\nabout stubborn unemployment rates.
\n“We weren’t going there saying `You need to do this for us, you need
\nto do that for us,”‘ said the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the NCC’s general
\nsecretary, on Tuesday (Nov. 2). “We were also asking `What can we do for
\nyou?’ This is a spiritually demanding job and we are spiritual leaders.”
\nAt the close of the 40-minute meeting in the White House’s Roosevelt
\nRoom, leaders said Obama asked for prayer, which was led by Bishop
\nThomas Hoyt of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
\nFor a president who made faith an integral part of his 2008
\ncampaign, Monday’s meeting was decidedly low-key, with no public
\nstatements or photos released by the White House.
\nNCC leaders, who represent Orthodox, historic African-American and
\nmainline Protestant denominations, raised other concerns, including the
\nplight of the dwindling Christian population in the Middle East and
\nlimitations on travel to Cuba by U.S. religious leaders.
\n“On a day when you would imagine he could be quite distracted (by
\nthe midterm elections), he was very focused on the things that were
\nbeing said and responded with questions and with comments of common
\nconcern,” Kinnamon said.
\nThe Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the
\nReformed Church in America, offered Bible verses that speak against
\n“disorder and wickedness” amid concerns over the country’s rancorous
\npolitical climate.
\n“We commented that we were all elected people,” said the Rev. Gradye
\nParsons, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA). “He reminded us
\nthat we didn’t face midterms.”
\nThe meeting, brokered by NCC President Peg Chemberlin, a former
\nadviser to the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood
\nPartnerships, came after the leaders had invited Obama to their meeting
\nnext week (Nov. 9-11) in New Orleans to mark the 100th anniversary of
\nthe modern ecumenical movement. Obama is scheduled to be in Asia during
\nthe New Orleans meeting.
\nIt marked the first time a delegation from the ecumenical
\norganization had met with President Obama, and the first time since the
\nClinton White House that such a delegation had been invited to the White
\nHouse.
\nCopyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of
\nthis transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written
\npermission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adelle M. Banks c. 2010 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) Twenty-one Christian leaders met and prayed with President Obama on Monday (Nov. 1), discussing joint concerns about poverty, U.S.-Cuban relations and peace in the Middle East. Leaders from the National Council of Churches thanked the president for the passage of health care reform and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nObama Meets, Prays with Church Leaders<\/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\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama Meets, Prays with Church Leaders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Adelle M. Banks c. 2010 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) Twenty-one Christian leaders met and prayed with President Obama on Monday (Nov. 1), discussing joint concerns about poverty, U.S.-Cuban relations and peace in the Middle East. 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Banks c. 2010 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) Twenty-one Christian leaders met and prayed with President Obama on Monday (Nov. 1), discussing joint concerns about poverty, U.S.-Cuban relations and peace in the Middle East. Leaders from the National Council of Churches thanked the president for the passage of health care reform and…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2010-11-02T17:54:57+00:00","author":"aroan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church","name":"Obama Meets, Prays with Church Leaders","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-11-02T17:54:57+00:00","dateModified":"2010-11-02T17:54:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/c6e65092118456e72064bc1332984cfc"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/11\/obama-meets-prays-with-church#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama Meets, Prays with Church Leaders"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?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\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/c6e65092118456e72064bc1332984cfc","name":"aroan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f35\/f3587d75a20cb88f1c76fd277ee82fc5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f35\/f3587d75a20cb88f1c76fd277ee82fc5x96.jpg","caption":"aroan"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/aroan"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}