Obama is looking for a church in Washington. If he were Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, it might be a little easier. As it is, every church in town is vying for presidential membership.
But this is not a Jones-move-to-Knoxville type of search. There’s more at stake here: the irony is that what’s at stake is political, not religious.
Mr. Obama’s search for a church home has touched off a frenzied competition among ministers of various colors and creeds who are wooing the first family. The president, in turn, has sent emissaries to observe worship services, interview congregants and scrutinize pastors. (His aides even searched YouTube to vet one local minister.) […]
Apparently, Obama is eager to avoid another Wright, and I suppose he’s wise to do so. No one wants to be explaining the racial comments of his pastor while trying to pass an enormous budget, working to get banks lending, or deciding which CEO to fire next — all the traditional jobs of a president.
There are many things to consider: the racial and economic demographics of the church are among the most important, according to some.
But the president’s spiritual quest has also revived the awkward questions that often simmer in a city where blacks and whites, rich and poor still live in largely separate worlds: Will the nation’s first black president join a predominantly black church or a predominantly white one? Will he pray in a wealthy community or in a neighborhood that is less prosperous?
“He is anxious to bridge those divides,” said Terry Lynch, director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations here. “But it’s a difficult process. Wherever he goes to church is going to be a public issue.”
Maybe being a non-believer is the best option. It wouldn’t have nearly the political baggage.
Oh, on second thought…
Via Washington Churches Eye a Prize, the Obamas – NYTimes.com.
Time will tell if our president attends church to advance his political agenda or to worship his creator. Only he, along with his creator,will know the answer to that question. A Christian is one who follows Christ and there is no distinction between races.
When you’re president, everything you do is political, no matter your real intentions.
I don’t see anything overtly political in his desire to go to church; the politics enters regarding the method of selection. But then again, since everything a president does is political, one can’t be too careful.
So, in Poland, one does not talk much about religion. At least not in the Warsaw I grew up in. Here, too, for different reasons, it’s not a topic to put out on the table for a friendly back and forth. So… how is it in your household? (After much thought, I have admitted on my blog that I am… well, I guess a heathen. At the same time that I have one Catholic daughter, one silent mom-like daughter, one agnostic (I guess) ex husband (I could never figure that one out for sure) and one Jewish-heathen current partner. Nice mix, don’t you think?)
Where’s the Buddhist, Nina? You’re letting us all down.
Re: talking about religion in our household, I talk about religion; K usually listens, rolls her eyes, and nods.
It’s interesting that religion is so much less obvious in the public sphere in Poland, isn’t it? Here’s a country that is 97% Catholic (at least professing), yet we don’t hear the same kind of things we hear in America. Perhaps that’s the pluralism? If all your neighbors believe the same thing, what’s the point of talking about it all the time? Maybe it’s something deeper?
I take it you lean toward Buddhism? I respect Buddhism. But then, I respect many religions. Which, of course, is different than embracing any of them. Sigh. I always, always feel I disappoint those around me when I say it.
No, not particularly. Buddhism was the first thing that came to mind. Taoism, Sikhism, and Wicca are coming to mind now — go figure.
I lean more toward “I don’t know/I have doubts about everything,” but that’s not a religion. I guess if there were a religion that I could come closest to embracing, it would be Buddhism, particularly Theravada Buddhism.
Generally speaking, though, I’m content to be a mild skeptic.
“Mild” is good. It offends no one and it allows you to be tolerant of anyone’s approach to faith of any sort.
BTW, my (Polish) sister (who has a Hare Krishna son) tells me that in today’s Poland, only 75% align themselves with Catholicism. I suspect that’s not entirely true, but I’ve not seen reliable data to refute it.
I understood the 97% referred to baptism/heritage and such. Certainly there’s not 97% of the Polish population in Mass every Sunday (except in rural areas, and then the remaining 3% are only at home because they’re sick). Still, 75% is a large chunk.
Re: mild is good and it “offends no one and it allows you to be tolerant of anyone’s approach to faith of any sort.” I’m not sure it’s a good thing. Why should I worry about offending people regarding their beliefs? It’s one thing to walk up to a stranger and say, “Hey — you’re an idiot for believing this.” It’s quite another to hold back a thought while in conversation for fear of offending.
I think offending religious sensibilities can be a good thing: we should want people thinking about their beliefs, and why they believe this and not that, and “offending” can accomplish that.
I put the word in quotes because it’s a slippery word. After all, most Muslims were deeply offended by drawings of Muhammad, and some in the Western world were advocating the execution of the cartoonists. I say, “You live in a society with free speech. If you don’t what a paper prints, don’t buy that paper. If you don’t like free speech, go somewhere that doesn’t have it. Saudi Arabia and Iran come to mind…” Some Christians are offended by “Happy Holidays” or whatever the heck it was that was not sufficiently Christian for them. Again, I say the same thing. “Free country; free speech; deal with it.” The Washington Post has an article on this.
Can you be offended regarding religion? I know I certainly can’t. I can’t think of a single thing anyone could say to me about religion (except “convert or die”) that would cause me any offense at all.
Your points are all good. Still, (I’m going to offend feminists here) many women feel very uncomfortable when they offend or challenge. I suppose there is a residual social side of me that still wants to please.
I was in a store yesterday, buying a gift for a Polish wedding that I’m going to soon. As the clerk was wrapping the gift, the subject of Easter came up. Ed, my non-religious buddy said — is that the holiday where the dead guy comes back? I took him aside and told him that this could be seen as hugely offensive to someone of faith. He was genuinely surprised. Rising from the dead is a good thing, no? – he challenged. And then he asked — could a Catholic say that and not sound offensive?
If I tell someone I do not believe in God it is more than saying I do not believe in your God. It’s saying also that I view the world differently than they do. That my values stem from other spheres, that religion is subjective and born of fertile imagination. So I can see that it may offend. So I don’t say it.
Ironically, I’m not a fan of discussing my lack of religion with atheists. I’m not a crusader and it seems that self-professed atheists often are.
I write all this on Easter. Hmmm. I like Easter. Happy Easter! (Beautiful photo of the flowers, babka and basket!) I love observing the traditions of others!
In saying “I believe in this” or “I don’t believe in that,” we are de facto saying, “And I also believe everything not-this is wrong.” We can’t go about providing everyone with our entire, nuanced worldview all the time, and so we have to go about bumping people theologically if we make off-the-cuff religious remarks. (And we don’t even have to make an overtly religious remark: many times, things are taken religiously that were not meant in that light at all.)
I think Ed’s comment was perfect, especially given the fact that he meant to offense. It’s comments like these that force people to step back from their beliefs for just a moment and think about them. It’s not that I’m suggesting that they’ll abandon them, but the more thinking one does about one’s beliefs, the better. The knee-jerk reaction, though, will probably stop that from happening. The individuals willing to do the heavy lifting about beliefs have already done it by the time Ed comes along and frames Christianity in such a simple way.
I like traditions as well, and traditions only take hold, it seems to me, if there is some religious, mystical grounding. Look at how May Day parades in Communist Europe worked. A new shining tradition to celebrate the glory of…yeah, yeah, yeah. Without the mystical, temporal distance between the participant and the initiation of the activity, the man behind the curtain pulling the levers is all too visible.
(The babka is amazing — lemony goodness!)
If you’re looking for a spiritual home, given what you’ve said here I suspect Unitarian Universalism is a good match. I’ve been quite content to call myself pagan in cosmology but primarily UU in religious identification because the UU are very pluralist.
I think the real difference with the UU is that they are concerned more about ethical and moral issues than they are the cosmology that attends them. Buddhists can sit next to pagans who can sit next to Christians and they can all participate together because what is really important is how we treat each other, not which ritual we do our how we speculate the wider world works.
So, in other words, UUs are more likely to split over issues like “is the death penalty acceptable?” than they are “was Jesus born of a virgin?”
I suppose if I were looking, UU would be a decent match; for Obama, I don’t think it would fly all that well…