The Brody File Reacts to Barack Obama's Faith Speech
June 25, 2007
The headlines from Barack Obama’s faith speech this weekend centered on how he ripped leaders of the religious right. We’ll get to that in a moment. But this speech was a lot more than just that.
Read the CBNNews.com article and watch the video here.
Let’s first start with this. Besides Obama, how many times have you seen a presidential candidate get up in front of a large crowd and talk in depth about his salvation? I’ll give you the answer: Zero. For Obama to stand up and talk about how Jesus changed his life, my friends that takes guts. You may disagree with everything he’s about, you may disagree with his policy goals but as Christians, shouldn’t we like it when someone talks about Christ being the missing ingredient in his life? The excerpt below won’t make it into the AP article. Check it out from his speech:
It wasn’t until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma. In a sense, what brought me to Chicago in the first place was a hunger for some sort of meaning in my life. I wanted to be part of something larger. I’d been inspired by the civil rights movement – by all the clear-eyed, straight-backed, courageous young people who’d boarded buses and traveled down South to march and sit at lunch counters, and lay down their lives in some cases for freedom. I was too young to be involved in that movement, but I felt I could play a small part in the continuing battle for justice by helping rebuild some of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods.
So it’s 1985, and I’m in Chicago, and I’m working with these churches, and with lots of laypeople who are much older than I am. And I found that I recognized in these folks a part of myself. I learned that everyone’s got a sacred story when you take the time to listen. And I think they recognized a part of themselves in me too. They saw that I knew the Scriptures and that many of the values I held and that propelled me in my work were values they shared. But I think they also sensed that a part of me remained removed and detached – that I was an observer in their midst.
And slowly, I came to realize that something was missing as well – that without an anchor for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.
And it’s around this time that some pastors I was working with came up to me and asked if I was a member of a church. “If you’re organizing churches,” they said, “it might be helpful if you went to church once in a while.” And I thought, “Well, I guess that makes sense.”
So one Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called “The Audacity of Hope.” And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.
It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works.
That, ladies and gentlemen is called a conversion experience. No other candidate is relaying that type of story. Now, as for the religious right comments, first, let’s reset and read exactly what he said below:
Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it’s because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us. At every opportunity, they’ve told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design. There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich. I don’t know what Bible they’re reading, but it doesn’t jibe with my version.
Barack Obama seems to want to bring the country together as best he can on this issue of faith and politics. His heart appears as though it's in the right place. To “call out” leaders of the Christian Right like that seemed a little too broad for my taste. (watch those comments here )He blanketed a lot of people with one broad brush. If you really look closely at those leaders of the Christian Right, it doesn’t seem fair to pigeonhole all of them in the same category and to say all they care about are abortion, gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design. These leaders have spoken out and taken action on issues like the genocide in Darfur, poverty in America, torture techniques, helping people after devastating natural disasters, etc. Do they focus on abortion and gay marriage more than progressives? Yes but is that such a crime to believe that God would be against it?
To me though, the criticism of the religious right was a small part of the speech. I saw it more as an uplifting speech that can bring people of faith together. For example, Obama talked about how God SHOULD NOT be removed from the public square: He said:
So doing the Lord’s work is a thread that’s run through our politics since the very beginning. And it puts the lie to the notion that the separation of church and state in America means faith should have no role in public life. Imagine Lincoln’s Second Inaugural without its reference to “the judgments of the Lord.” Or King’s “I Have a Dream” speech without its reference to “all of God’s children.” Or President Kennedy’s Inaugural without the words, “here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own.” At each of these junctures, by summoning a higher truth and embracing a universal faith, our leaders inspired ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things.
Here’s what it comes down to. Obama’s view of his faith calls for social justice. Moral issues like immigration, minimum wage, healthcare, etc are all part of that equation. (watch more on that here) Social conservatives see the pressing moral issues as abortion, gay marriage, etc. So how can you bring both sides together? Maybe you can’t. But if religious conservatives are willing to engage in some of these other “moral issues” that Obama talks about, then Obama and the progressives might also need to be willing to engage on the abortion and gay marriage issue. For example, nobody expects Obama to all of a sudden become pro-life, but will he be able to move towards the middle on issues like parental notification or a congressional bill that warns would be mothers that their fetus will feel pain if aborted after 20 weeks?
At the end of the day, Obama’s most important line didn’t have to do with any issue. It had to do with Jesus. Read below:
There’s a hunger that’s deeper than that – a hunger that goes beyond any single cause or issue. It seems to me that each day, thousands of Americans are going about their lives – dropping the kids off at school, driving to work, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets, trying to kick a cigarette habit – and they’re coming to the realization that something is missing. They’re deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.
They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They’re looking to relieve a chronic loneliness. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them – that they are not just destined to travel down that long road toward nothingness.
In his life, Obama says that somebody is Jesus. And as Christians, that’s something we can all agree on.
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