Today in American Dharma: Obama Lays the "Secret Muslim" Rumor to Rest

This story was brought to my attention by a great blog called Deacon's Bench featured on Beliefnet.com : Obama: I'm a Christian By Choice and also the linked article in that blog that features the video of the President addressing the issue of his own personal beliefs, which I will reproduce here for a bit of a quick thought:



Over and over again, we always come back to the President and religion. There may be a lot of things he does or doesn't do that you do and don't agree on, but I have to say I'm always interested in the ways in which President Obama approaches religion and how it is distinctly different from the previous administration. I have mentioned before the idea of Obama as the "Theologian in Chief" and how his approach to embrace other religious traditions has been markedly different from the Bush administrations (not saying that the Bush family did not hold the annual Eid and Diwali celebrations at the White House, but that somehow no one seemed to notice).

There's a few things that are interesting about this whole encounter. The first is the statistic that CNN presents which says that 1 in 5 Americans are convinced that Obama is a Muslim (up from 1 in 10 from last year). As I've previously mentioned, what bothers me always is why if he was a Muslim would be a bad thing, but that is another issue of tolerance in this country perhaps for another time. Focusing on the above video, what is so interesting to me is how the woman who asks approaches the question and pairs it with the abortion question. I'm interested also in the fact that this question is even something that is appropriate to ask (or is it?).

This just points out an interesting idea about religion in this country, that it is not like that enlightenment ideal of it being pushed into the private sphere (though Obama does mention "personal belief" so we are still talking that language), but rather religion is something that we are increasingly having to deal with in our public lives (particularly this current hot button issue of the Park51 community center also known, problematically, as the "Ground Zero Mosque"). Religion and its public manifestations are so obviously important to so many Americans, otherwise, why would anyone question the President's faith at all. I have been reading some very interesting books (in particular Robert Wuthnow's America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity) that speak of drawing a public sort of common belief structure out of the woodwork. Peggy Levitt calls this the "golden rule" religion, and I think this was the sentiment that President Obama was going for: trying to appeal to the supposed commonality among all religions and yet distinguishing himself as a Christian in his own right (how could you doubt after such talk of grace and salvation?).

I was very interested in the association of his faith with the idea of public service esp considering that he came to Christianity through public service during his community organizing days (I read Dreams from my Father, so sue me! lol). I also enjoyed how gracefully (no pun intended) the President flipped his ideas of social justice and finding one's own Grace to a comment on tolerance and respect for other Christian and non-Christian Americans. Each piece of his statement was so embedded with this ideals of American religiosity (the struggle of the individual (and the choice of the individual to "find their own Grace"), the ideal of freedom of religion, and the emphasis on service (I'm thinking of Bellah's community service people)), it boggles my mind that anyone could doubt that the president is anything but American when, disagree or agree with his policy decisions, his rhetoric screams American ideology and sometimes hints of American ideals of religiosity as well.

Part of me would be interested to see what the 24/7 fear media machine does with this, part of me continues to enjoy the presidents verbal expression, despite what I think of his policy or not.