Obama praised – and pummeled – on matters of faith
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-religion-20120408,0,355391.storyFew presidents have spoken more often or more articulately about their religious beliefs — or faced such hostility from some quarters about their policies on church issues.
By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times
April 7, 2012, 4:40 p.m.
President Obama stood before an audience of distinguished Christian clergy and lay leaders and took on the mantle of pastor in chief.
"I have to be careful," he joked at the White House's annual Easter prayer breakfast. "I am not going to stand up here and give a sermon. It's always a bad idea to give a sermon in front of professionals."
With that, he gave a sermon, telling the story of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane and his eventual crucifixion, a sacrifice that "puts in perspective our small problems relative to the big problems he was dealing with."
Few presidents have spoken about their religious faith as often, as deeply or as eloquently as Obama. "We worship an awesome God in the blue states," he declared at the 2004 Democratic convention, and he has sought since then to rebuild ties between the Democratic Party and the world of faith.
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And that doesn't even get into the stupidy of an annual White House Easter Prayer Breakfast. 
Religious faith and government is toxic, always has been, always will be. I have no problem with a President or any other government official using religious metaphors -- they are indelibly etched into our culture. Churchill used Biblical allusions in many of his speeches. FDR even prayed on D-Day. (Although I would draw the line there. The President has no business doing that.)
The reason why I am offended by Obama's overt religiosity is not his religious expression, per se. It has to do with two important facts which I feel we will all eventually have address.
1. The Republican party is using religion to further their agenda. Some would say that this is mere exploitation, but I would disagree. It is not a fact that the Republicans are using the religious. Quite the contrary. The Republican party, beginning in the late 70's were taken over by a cabal of religionists from the precinct level up. It took them a couple of decades to substantially complete the task. It started with Pat Robertson's presidential candidacy where his loony religionists took over the MI Republican party by running their candidates for precinct delegates throughout the state, effectively taking over the Republican machinery.
Robertson won MI. He didn't go very far beyond that. But it showed that a party takeover was possible. I saw this in action in KS in the 80's and 90's when some KS Republican organizations were publishing monthly newsletters which read more like a religious tract than a political one. Jesus this; Jesus that! This organization method has been duplicated across the country.
The Republicans are not using religion. They are a religion. And it is expressly fundamentalist Christian.
2. Obama's religiosity is a mere response to the Republicans' overt and smarmy religiosity. If the Republicans didn't have the power they do today, Obama would not have to pander to them.
I have little doubt Obama is religious. But most Presidents have not made such expression so much a part of their office. If Kennedy had done so, the Protestants would have gone crazy about it. FDR did it because the country was fighting a global war against some seriously evil foes. Churchill got away with it because he was Churchill 
.
Allusions are one thing, but prayer breakfasts and bullshit like that have no place in governance. The scary fact is that if Obama did not attend the prayer breakfast he would be drummed out of office faster than you can say, Jack Robinson. (I know that's an old one. So am I.)
I think it is safe to say that neither Jefferson nor Madison would have stood for such a thing. And probably not Washington nor John Adams, either.
The question we all have to ask ourselves, whether we believe in god(s) or not, is whether we find the current situation acceptable. I emphatically do not.
I very strongly think that we have to address this issue vigorously. We need more prominent people speaking out about it. This can only happen if we all join together to start that process.
