{"id":532,"date":"2009-06-09T12:40:52","date_gmt":"2009-06-09T12:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html"},"modified":"2009-06-09T12:40:52","modified_gmt":"2009-06-09T12:40:52","slug":"barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama: Prophet of our civil religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Obama<\/span>And he’s channeling Abraham Lincoln. At least that’s my angle, in a piece at PoliticsDaily titled, “The Gospel According to Barack.”<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Secularists worry that Obama has imbibed Bush’s faith-based Kool-Aid, conservatives rail that he’s (again) exalting himself as a false messiah, while religionists wonder if Obama is trying to pull a fast one by pretending to beliefs that he really doesn’t share.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A more tenable reading, however, is that Obama is trying to recover the lost gospel of America’s civil religion — the doctrines of tolerance and of personal responsibility for the common good, of shared truths and national ideals always imperfectly realized but always worth pursuing. This vision was outlined in the <\/strong>“social contract” <\/strong><\/a>that Jean-Jacques Rousseau proposed in the 18th century and was broadened and re-defined for the American context four decades ago by <\/strong>Robert Bellah<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/strong> <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I also marshal some actual smart people to my thesis: <\/p>\n

\n

Obama’s gospel is also a coherent evocation of the ideas of another hero, Abraham Lincoln, who the Harvard theologian <\/strong>Ronald F. Thiemann <\/strong><\/font><\/a>calls “our greatest public theologian.” (See in particular the <\/strong>Second Inaugural Address<\/strong><\/font><\/a>.) Like Lincoln, Obama can alternate between the rhetoric of an Old Testament prophet and the idealism of the New Testament evangelists to “establish the articles of a purely civil faith, not exactly as dogmas of religion but as sentiments of social commitment,” as Rousseau put it. “Unlike many presidents who have used theological language for rhetorical flourish or to curry favor with religious supporters, Lincoln used theology to shape his political sentiments into powerful analytical and persuasive arguments,” Thiemann writes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And Obama aspires to a similar goal…<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read on<\/a>…<\/p>\n

<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And he’s channeling Abraham Lincoln. At least that’s my angle, in a piece at PoliticsDaily titled, “The Gospel According to Barack.” Secularists worry that Obama has imbibed Bush’s faith-based Kool-Aid, conservatives rail that he’s (again) exalting himself as a false messiah, while religionists wonder if Obama is trying to pull a fast one by pretending…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-history","category-politics","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nBarack Obama: Prophet of our civil religion - Pontifications<\/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\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Barack Obama: Prophet of our civil religion - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"And he’s channeling Abraham Lincoln. At least that’s my angle, in a piece at PoliticsDaily titled, “The Gospel According to Barack.” Secularists worry that Obama has imbibed Bush’s faith-based Kool-Aid, conservatives rail that he’s (again) exalting himself as a false messiah, while religionists wonder if Obama is trying to pull a fast one by pretending…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-09T12:40:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama%20Votive.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Gibson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Barack Obama: Prophet of our civil religion - Pontifications","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\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Barack Obama: Prophet of our civil religion - Pontifications","og_description":"And he’s channeling Abraham Lincoln. At least that’s my angle, in a piece at PoliticsDaily titled, “The Gospel According to Barack.” Secularists worry that Obama has imbibed Bush’s faith-based Kool-Aid, conservatives rail that he’s (again) exalting himself as a false messiah, while religionists wonder if Obama is trying to pull a fast one by pretending…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html","og_site_name":"Pontifications","article_published_time":"2009-06-09T12:40:52+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama%20Votive.jpg"}],"author":"David Gibson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html","name":"Barack Obama: Prophet of our civil religion - Pontifications","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama%20Votive.jpg","datePublished":"2009-06-09T12:40:52+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-09T12:40:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/122b0877ab87552bb8f14c366dd43e71"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama%20Votive.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/Obama%20Votive.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/barack-obama-prophet-of-our-ci.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Barack Obama: Prophet of our civil religion"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/","name":"Pontifications","description":"Catholic Faith and Culture","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/?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\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/122b0877ab87552bb8f14c366dd43e71","name":"David Gibson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/19b\/19bb39c535cd2d776c73c7941f42622cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/19b\/19bb39c535cd2d776c73c7941f42622cx96.jpg","caption":"David Gibson"},"description":"DAVID GIBSON is an award-winning religion journalist, author, filmmaker, and a convert to Catholicism. He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}