Raised in an atheist/secular humanist family Obama became a Christian at age 37

[papau]

Raised in an atheist/secular humanist family Obama became a Christian at age 37 – will this be an advantage for the 45 year old Senator in the coming Presidential race in 08? “In a celebrated speech this past summer in Washington, the senator chided his party for asking “believers to leave their religion at the door.”

“When we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome — others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends,” Obama said.”

Or will the atheists say he converted just to get ahead in politics, as the religious say he is faking his conversion?


http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/living/religion/15799247.htm

With the help of a ‘dozen,” Democrats could learn to get religion
by Daniel Burke, Kevin Eckstrom, and Peter Sachs
Kansas City Star 10-21-2006

WASHINGTON | Maligned as hostile to faith and forsaken by swaths of religiously minded voters in recent elections, Democrats have spent the last two years wringing their hands over how to “get religion.”<snip>

Still, there are signs of change on the religious and political landscape, according to pollsters and political thinkers. More Democrats, for example, are voicing public discomfort with abortion, while more Christians are heeding a call for environmental protection under the banner of “Creation care.” Increasing numbers of evangelicals, meanwhile, express frustration about being taken for granted by Republicans. <snip>

Though they draw on different faith traditions, Reps. James Clyburn, D-S.C.; Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.; and David Price, D-N.C., possess a common goal: to get fellow Democrats talking about moral values. <snip>

Fiery yet friendly DeLauro, 63, is a cradle Catholic and the daughter of Italian immigrants whose slog against poor working conditions animates her inner underdog. Though she carries the banner on the church’s concern for social welfare (POSTER'S NOTE – Evangel in Evangelicals refers to Jesus saying he brought good news for the poor – Evangel is the word for Good News) , the Connecticut lawmaker supports abortion rights, a stance that has drawn considerable criticism from Catholic leaders.<snip>

[niallmac]

1. "...became a Christian at age 37..."

Why?

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Probably So he Could Run For Office

Look, I know that I'm probably too cynical - but Obama strikes me as a little too slick.

[Erika]

4. Wasn't W 40 before he "got religion"

I think we should promote Obama to the Fundies. They like these reform stories.

[Alcibiades]

22. I think they are called "conversion narratives"

in the jargon of those who care about such things, but I could be wrong.

[niallmac]

7. No, I'm with you there. I am sick to death of the professional

politician. I read that Time cover article on Obama and thought:
"Gee maybe he's a great guy after all. " Well, maybe he is but it
isn't obvious.

[mitchum]

8. Not too cyncal at all

I suspect that you are absolutely correct

[StoryTeller]

14. I understand your cynicism...

...I haven't followed Obama enough to know if I agree of your assessment of him or not. But with ANY person who claims any type of faith, all you can do is watch what that person DOES. And then see if it lines up with what he or she claims to believe.

As one who has been a Christian for over 28 years, I can tell you that if someone has truly decided to begin following the teachings of Jesus, it will affect their actions. It's a process of transformation--not an instant change in most people. But you should be able to detect a trend of moving toward the key teachings and attitudes of Jesus--loving one's neighbors as well as one's enemies, humility, a desire to serve others, compassion for the marginalized and oppressed, a love of what is true, a dedication to justice, a slowness to pass judgment on others, and a genuine love for God. I probably have left out some others--these are just some of the hallmarks that came to my mind first, based mostly on Jesus' own words.

So, if Mr. Obama, or any other Senator or politician or even the person down the street claims a conversion experience, the most fair and reasonable thing you can do is look for the evidence that there is a process of change occurring in their life that is bringing their actions more in line with the teachings of Jesus. You can't look for a perfect track record or instant transformation. But the overall trajectory should be one of moving TOWARD a truly Christ-following way of life and not AWAY from.

Looking at it this way keeps us all from being guilty of judging one person (in this case Obama) on the basis of the bad example of other people (like, say, Bush or someone). I know that I have to fight the cynicism, too, but that's why God gave us the ability to reason and think logically.

Do they walk their talk? That's what you have to go by.

[Mythsaje]

17. Funny

<<loving one's neighbors as well as one's enemies, humility, a desire to serve others, compassion for the marginalized and oppressed, a love of what is true, a dedication to justice, a slowness to pass judgment on others, and a genuine love for God. I probably have left out some others--these are just some of the hallmarks that came to my mind first, based mostly on Jesus' own words.>>

Except for the "genuine love for God" this fits me, a semi-agnostic pantheist humanist, as well, or better, than most Christians I've ever met.

Ironic, isn't it?

[StoryTeller]

23. Well, my answer to that is...

...at least from the perspective of one who believes in God and that humans were created to represent God on earth (which I totally respect if you differ on that belief--this is just where I'm coming from)...

I believe that the reason you and many other people beyond just those in the Christian faith exhibit these commendable qualities and characteristics is because this is how HUMANITY was designed to function. At our finest, humans DO love each other and want to help each other and see justice done, etc.

I don't believe these are solely "Christian" traits. I believe that the Christian faith, in its essence, is meant to help us return to what we as human beings were designed to be.

And there have been many tremendous examples of people from other faith traditions, or people who have chosen not to affiliate with a particular faith, who have demonstrated these traits. I think that's wonderful. It shows that these qualities are human characteristics and are not the sole possession of any group of people or faith community.

The point of my first post was simply to say that if someone claims to be following Christ, you have to look at his or her behavior and actions to see if they match the claim. And I specified some certain behaviors because the definition of "Christian" has gotten so distorted recently that a lot of people may not be aware of what it is really supposed to look like.

[L A Woman]

27. you have allowed THEM to define Christianity for you

THEY are fake Christians. Jesus would not have supported this war or their war on the poor or the elderly or the sick, etc. A real Christian is a person who lives his or her life based on the ideals of Jesus. And a real liberal does just that. Only the Republicans have used Jesus JUST to get elected. And they sure have shit all over Christianity to do it!

[Mythsaje]

31. I, not being a Christian, haven't allowed them to do anything...

It's not my job to define what is or isn't 'Christian.'

If you're a Christian...it's yours.

[stopbush]

32. Each person's experience is different.

I was brought up as a Lutheran and got "saved" when I was 18. That lasted for a few years, but by the time
I hit my 40s, I had pretty much abandoned religion.

I'm a much happier, tolerant and more honest person as an atheist than I ever was (or possibly could have hoped to
become) as a Xian. For all the Bible reading and studying I did, I held a lot of prejudices against people who were
different than myself, even if I never let those feelings out or expressed them openly to others. Since I chucked the
religious babble, I've become the person I always hoped I'd be. I used to have problems with gays - I tolerated them rather
than loving them. As an atheist, I have become quite the champion of gay rights. In fact, since I fit a certain profile (white,
male over 50, married with kids) I often find myself in situations where my fellow whites just assume that they are talking
to a Republican who shares their prejudices and fears. There have been many, many times where I have had to stop people
in their tracks and rebuke them for their anti-gay (or black or Democratic) rants. Their shit will not stand with me, and I don't
really care if that means I'm not invited to parties or the local country club.

I believe that there are many religious people who are just as tolerant, honest and happy as myself. I just don't share their
delusion of what is guiding them morally and ethically. In my book, God didn't give us the ability to reason, it's a complex chemical
reaction - courtesy of evolution.

[L A Woman]

16. well....i don't know....

I was an agnostic until I was 38. Now I am a Christian. It came after a lot of soul-searching and it came after realizing that my liberal ideology is a Christian ideology. It is imperative that the Democrats embrace the real message of Jesus, which, even if you don't believe he existed, is clearly more in line with the way we think than with the way the gun-toting right wingers think. Even if you believe he is fictional character like Santa Claus, you have to agree that his message was a liberal one. Period. And SOMEBODY had better explain this to Mr. and Mrs. Middle America.

I am not so sure Obama just did it to get elected, but I understand the tendency for cynicism.

[beaconess]

21. This is unbelievable!

We're supposed to be a party of tolerance and understanding and respect for others. Yet when someone professes religion, the first thing that some of you do is spit on him.

Obama has given you absolutely no reason to doubt his sincerity about his religion. He speaks about his faith openly, but doesn't rub it in anyone's face and always refuses to use his religion as a way to judge or demean others. He has demonstrated no hypocrisy. So why are some of you attributing the worst motives to him?

There is nothing unsual about people converting to - or in Obama's case finding - religion in their 20s or 30s or later. It happened to me personally. In fact, I would think it more likely that a conversation in one's mid-30s would be a thoughtful one, not taken as a result of family indoctrination or peer pressure but as a result of true introspection and self-knowledge.

It must be nice for some of you to be so all-knowing in your judgments and comfortable in your sanctimony. But some of you sound just like the kind of people that right-wing conservative nutcases accuse Democrats of being.

[StoryTeller]

26. I can understand it

See my post above. But even though I've been a Christian most of my life, watching how Bush and other politicians have raped my faith and distorted it beyond recognition makes me tend to be cynical of ANY political leader's mention of faith.

So the cynicism here doesn't surprise me or offend me. But as I explained in my previous post, I don't think cynicism OR blind trust is particularly useful in these sort of situations. I think we need to suspend judgment or opinions until we can assess whether the person's life matches up to their claim of faith. If it does, then there's no reason to distrust that claim. If it doesn't, then our doubts as to the sincerity and motivation of the claim is justified.

But I really don't think we should get upset with people for being cynical. After the way faith has been exploited in our country the past many years, it's totally understandable.

[beaconess]

29. I hear you - but I am neither skeptical nor blinded by faith

Since, frankly, I don't think that Obama's religion is any of my damned business. If he says that he converted at 37, fine. In my view, it doesn't really mean anything politically. If it helps to inform his politics and his approach to it, more power to him. Now, if he starts bleating about his religion and then behaves like the current crowd, I'll slam him - not for his religion, but for his hypocrisy and demagoguing. But I think it's very nasty and unbecoming - and downright sad - that the religious hypocrisy of Bush and his cronies have driven some of us to be so cynical that we would go out of our way to criticize a man and in so many words call him a scheming liar using religion for craven political purposes.

This kind of nastiness makes it seem like the other side has managed to so jade us that they've dragged us down into the gutter with them. I don't give Bush and company that kind of power of me and my values and approach to other people. I'm not them and never will be.

[StoryTeller]

30. Yes! I agree!

I felt the same way when I watched the video of John Kerry's Pepperdine speech a few weeks ago. I had that cynical reaction, and then it made me angry because it made me aware of how jaded I've become because of Bush and Co's hypocrisy.

And I agree that a public leader's personal faith is really not our business. In other words, they don't owe us an account of their faith one way or another. But I do appreciate knowing where they're coming from and what is motivating them--whether it's a faith tradition or a deep conviction based on personal experience, or whatever. If it proves to be genuine, I consider it a gift to be given that insight into who they are. If it's just an attempt at manipulation, they can shove it, because it tells me all I need to know.

[Vidar]

33. My feelings as well.

[Tesha]

36. Bingo. A political calculation. (NT)

[w4rma]

10. Why: His mother's teachings, his work with pastors and the congregation.

…
It is only in retrospect, of course, that I fully understand how deeply this spirit of hers guided me on the path I would ultimately take. It was in search of confirmation of her values that I studied political philosophy, looking for both a language and systems of action that could help build community and make justice real. And it was in search of some practical application of those values that I accepted work after college as a community organizer for a group of churches in Chicago that were trying to cope with joblessness, drugs, and hopelessness in their midst.

My work with the pastors and laypeople there deepened my resolve to lead a public life, but it also forced me to confront a dilemma that my mother never fully resolved in her own life: the fact that I had no community or shared traditions in which to ground my most deeply held beliefs. The Christians with whom I worked recognized themselves in me; they saw that I knew their Book and shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me remained removed, detached, an observer among them. I came to realize that without an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith, I would be consigned at some level to always remain apart, free in the way that my mother was free, but also alone in the same ways she was ultimately alone.

In such a life I, too, might have contented myself had it not been for the particular attributes of the historically black church, attributes that helped me shed some of my skepticism and embrace the Christian faith.

For one thing, I was drawn to the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change. Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation. It had to serve as the center of the community's political, economic, and social as well as spiritual life; it understood in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities. In the history of these struggles, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; rather, it was an active, palpable agent in the world.

And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship, the grounding of faith in struggle, that the historically black church offered me a second insight: that faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts, or that you relinquish your hold on this world. Long before it became fashionable among television evangelists, the typical black sermon freely acknowledged that all Christians (including the pastors) could expect to still experience the same greed, resentment, lust, and anger that everyone else experienced. The gospel songs, the happy feet, and the tears and shouts all spoke of a release, an acknowledgment, and finally a channeling of those emotions. In the black community, the lines between sinner and saved were more fluid; the sins of those who came to church were not so different from the sins of those who didn't, and so were as likely to be talked about with humor as with condemnation. You needed to come to church precisely because you were of this world, not apart from it; rich, poor, sinner, saved, you needed to embrace Christ precisely because you had sins to wash away—because you were human and needed an ally in your difficult journey, to make the peaks and valleys smooth and render all those crooked paths straight.

It was because of these newfound understandings—that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved—that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.
…
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1546298,00.html

[papau]

35. True - his parents gave him good values - including respect for the Bible's...

call to help the poor.

I am impressed that he changed - as to faith in God - at age 37. As oft noted at DU, one can have good values without religion. His secular humanist mother is called "spiritual", albeit after he stresses just how secular humanist she was, in his book.

His conversion sounds very real to me, based on my life experiences.

[Mythsaje]

3. If a person manages to make it to age 37 without religion

I can't help but wonder if it WAS a false conversion.

[Erika]

5. Like W? n/t

[Mythsaje]

9. Case in point...n/t

[Der Blaue Engel]

13. Either that or mental illness

My father had a "born again" conversion (from garden variety Presbyterian) in his mid-thirties after a life-threatening illness. I have always felt it was a kind of psychosis, into which he drew the entire family, like a violent alcoholic who controls the reality of the people around him, using his disease to distort their view of the world in order to make himself feel powerful or safe.

I have never met anyone who converted to Christianity after puberty who did not seem to suffer this psychosis.

[Mythsaje]

15. Well, I know I'VE grown only more agnostic since my teens...n/t

[L A Woman]

25. you have now n/t

[Der Blaue Engel]

28. Well, no, I haven't met you

I can only speak from my personal experience.

Best of luck to you, though. If Christianity works for you, that's terrific.

[Indiana_Dem]

6. i think his late conversion could be identifiable with many

because there are many out there who've had the same experiences. I know I grew up without organized religion but found my faith while trying to "find myself" in my early 20s....having lived a fairly promiscuous life before this period in my life. I do believe there are many, many people like that around. I'm now 42 and not as outwardly fervent about my faith as when I first discovered it but it still subsides within me. I can truly identify with his experience--whether it's political for him or not. I do believe he also lived some wild times in his life as well from what I've read---truly identifiable on a personal level. His experiences might be to his advantage politically.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Yes, I've known people who converted or returned to faith as adults

Every year my church has some adult baptisms by people who are totally obscure and have nothing to gain by it in the secular world.

I don't know what Obama's motivations were, but I wouldn't rule out hishaving a genuine conversion, and I'm not even a big fan of his.

[papau]

19. Converted age 37, first ran for office - state senate - at age 35 - so he was

elected as a non-Christian.

http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060628-call_to_renewal_keynote/index.html

Call to Renewal Keynote
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Printable Format

Senator Obama spoke at the Call to Renewal Conference sponsored by Sojourners earlier to day. He spoke of the role of religion in politics.

[papau]

12. That was my take also - but I also expected the other reactions from DUers

:-)

[madrchsod]

20. no shit

i don`t get all pissy cause they don`t believe in what i do. i guess that`s just being tolerant of other`s opinions

[papau]

34. Some at DU seem to give "tolerance" to the religious but reject tolerance

by the religious toward their thoughts/beliefs/lack of beliefs - seeming to feel, it appears, that since they are right, folks should accept their "rightness" and not just tolerate them. Obama may have a problem getting their vote - as can be seen above.

I don't know if I'd call these types "pissy" - but I guess it is as good a word as any other.

[madrchsod]

18. god i really love those christians

that believe i should believe as they do. they think that my belief is not as pure as theirs. i do share some doubts about obama but i do not see that there was such a big leap between secular humanism and believing in what christ had to say.as for the rituals and all that, what ever one needs to do to get thru the day. i`m not comfortable with wearing one`s religion on one`s sleeve after all one will be judged by one`s deeds not one`s words.

[Erika]

24. As an atheist, one judges him/herself on their own deeds

and how they've affected others. Some delusion of an after life does not exist.

[Totally Committed]

37. WHO CARES?

Seriously. Can he govern? That's all I want to know!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2906866

TC