Obama’s faith

Although bigotry from the right was expected, the Republican nominee-to-be Senator John McCain publicly upbraided a TV host for repeatedly referring to Obama’s middle name.

Obama’s rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, however, could not muster similar grace. When asked on a TV show whether there was basis for believing Obama was a secret Muslim, Clinton rebutted those charges somewhat weakly by adding the caveat, “as far as I know”.

Obama has clarified that he is a devout Christian. Although his Kenyan father was a Muslim, he was raised in an agnostic household. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama talks movingly about his “adult conversion experience” to Christianity when he worked as a community organiser in Chicago’s African American neighbourhoods.

Obama belongs to the Trinity United Church of Christ, a congregation that calls itself “unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” The pastor who influenced him deeply, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is acknowledged as one of America’s top black preachers.

The God vote

Nearly a quarter of the American adult population describes itself as ‘evangelical’ or ‘born-again’ Christian and has had a decisive influence in many previous elections. The white evangelicals have been the bed-rock of Republican support, and have fought extended culture wars with the liberals on such issues as abortion, gay rights, and the role of religion in school education.

Although dubbed collectively as the ‘Christian Right’, the evangelicals have always been diverse. Latest indications are that the fissures within them are deepening. Some of them now focus on domestic poverty and global warming that are perceived to be liberal causes.

Jim Wallis, one of the better known progressive evangelicals, says, “poverty is the principal Biblical political issue”.

Wallis, whose recent book The Great Awakening: Reviving Politics in a Post Religious-Right America, has made waves, argues justice, especially economic justice, has always been a major Christian concern.

While the majority of the white evangelicals might vote Republican in November, Obama has the potential to wean away at least some of them who had never voted for Democrats before. This could help Obama win some crucial states in the general elections. As Wallis argues, “there are millions and millions of moderate evangelicals who simply are not in the pocket of the religious right”.

Beyond secularism

Obama has also taken to heart the main message of Wallis’s previous best seller, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. Unlike most Democratic leaders, who have been uncomfortable dealing with sensitive issues of religion and politics, Obama has sought to break out of the restricting confines of liberalism.

For one, he is uninhibited about his own religious beliefs. For another, he is at ease quoting from the scriptures. He recently cited the Sermon on the Mount, to challenge the religious opponents of gay rights. His exalted rhetoric often summons the Biblical metaphor.

Obama rejects the traditional liberal argument that public discourse must be stripped of all references to religion. “If we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice”. Obama also insists that “secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square”.

As on so many other issues that have divided Americans deeply, Obama is aiming to bridge the liberal-believer divide on abortion and gay rights. Obama argues that his endorsement of women’s right to abortion does not make him any less Christian. “I think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat in Washington”, Obama said.

Many evangelicals agree that the time has come to redefine the bitter debate on the right to life. Wallis, for example, advocates practical methods to make abortion rare, by better support to poor women. That reminds us of the deep roots of

American pragmatism.

The writer is professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore iscrmohanntu.edu.sg