Posted on 02/03/2011 12:25:42 PM PST by jazusamo
Complete title: Obama Cites Faith in Buttressing Support for Government Programs, Calls for Civility at Prayer Breakfast
Washington (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama invoked faith on Thursday to justify the need for government programs he said can accomplish things that churches, non-profit groups, and businesses cannot accomplish in fulfilling God’s call to care for the needy.
“There’s only so much a church can do to help all the families in need, all those who need help making a mortgage payment or avoiding foreclosure, making sure their child can go to college,” Obama said this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton.
“There’s only so much that a non-profit can do to help a community rebuild in the wake of disaster,” Obama said. “There’s only so much the private sector will do to help folks who are desperately sick with the care that they need. That’s why I continue to believe in a caring and in a just society. Government must have a role to play.”
“Our values, our love, and our charity must find expression not just in our families, in our places of work and in our places of worship, but also in our government and in our politics,” said the president.
The annual prayer breakfast is sponsored by the Fellowship Foundation, a Christian group. Obama said early in his speech that almost every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has spoken at the event.
Obama asked for prayers about the turmoil in Egypt and recited what he had said in the past about his personal faith journey. He recounted that his father, who he met only once, was a non-believer, while, “My mother, whose parents were Baptist and Methodist, grew up with a certain skepticism about organized religion, and she usually only took me to church on Easter and Christmas – sometimes.”
He further said, “A call rooted in faith is what led me, just a few years out of college, to sign up as a community organizer for a group of churches on the south side of Chicago. It was through that experience, working with pastors and lay people, trying to heal the wounds of hurting neighborhoods that I came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace him as my lord and savior.”
Religion has been a contentious issue for Obama. During the 2008 presidential campaign he dropped his membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where he had attended for two decades, because the anti-American sermons delivered by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright became a political liability. Obama maintained that he was unaware of the inflammatory sermons.
Since becoming president, Obama has not picked a church in Washington, D.C., though he attended St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House on Easter. Obama also has attended Sunday services at Camp David’s Evergreen Chapel with Navy Chaplain Carey Cash “fairly regularly,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in late 2009.
During his speech at the prayer breakfast, Obama stressed the importance of faith in his life and presidency.
“It is my faith then, that biblical injunction to serve the least of these, that keeps me going,” Obama said. “And it keeps me from being overwhelmed. It’s faith that reminds me that despite being just one very imperfect man, I can still help whoever I can, however I can, wherever I can for as long as I can, and that somehow God will buttress these efforts.”
Obama also called for expanding the federal government’s involvement with faith-based organizations, an initiative started under President George W. Bush and continued by Obama.
“Sometimes faith groups can do the work of caring for the least of these on their own,” said the president. “Sometimes they need a partner, whether it’s in business or government, and that’s why my administration has taken a fresh look at the way we organize with faith groups, the way we work with faith groups, through our office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.”
“And through that office we are expanding the way faith groups can partner with our government,” he said. “We’re helping them feed more kids who otherwise would go hungry. We’re helping fatherhood groups give dads the support they need to be there for their children.
“We’re working with non-profits to improve the lives of people around the world. We’re doing this in ways that are aligned with our constitutional principles. And in this work, we intend to expand it in the days ahead, rooted in the notions of partnership and justice and the imperatives to help the poor.”
The president further stressed the need for humility as a means of calming heated political discourse.
“One side’s version of compassion and community may be interpreted by the other side as an oppressive and irresponsible expansion of the state or an unacceptable restriction on individual freedom,” Obama said. “That’s why a second re-occurring theme in my prayers is a prayer for humility.”
“In this life of politics, when debates have become so bitterly polarized, and changes in the media lead so many of us just to listen to those who reinforce our existing biases, it’s useful to go back to scripture to remind ourselves that none of us has all the answers,” Obama said. “None of us, no matter what our political party or station in life, the full breadth of human knowledge is like a grain of sand in God’s hands, and there are some mysteries in this world that we can’t fully comprehend.”
President Obama on Thursday called his Christian faith a "sustaining force," especially in the face of those who have publicly doubted it.
The president said he feels strengthened in his religious convictions when his detractors question them - a nod to those who incorrectly assert that Obama is Muslim.
"My Christian faith has been a sustaining force for me over the years, all the more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned," Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast.
The president reflected on how his faith and prayers had been particularly helpful for him in the wake of recent tragedies: the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) last month, as well as the ongoing turmoil in Egypt.
Faith in what?
Prayer to whom (what)?
Government will only make things worse — but then, that is what Hussein wants.
These are not the statements of a follower of the Jewish Messiah.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
Hey, Zero. What does Allah have to say about things these days? Same old rape, pillage, and cut off heads?
He needs to be told that “Civility is as civility does”.
Well said, that’s exactly what he wants.
Yes, and it's role is defined in the Constitution.
Harvard didn't teach you this, Mr Obama, but we in America live under the freedom of the Constitution, the rule of law, and not under the tyranny of the rule of man.
Did he mock Leviticus and the Sermon on the Mount as he did back in ‘06? And didn’t he skip the prayer breakfast last year?
Obama would be hampered by our Constitution so he ignores it.
He found out they weren't going to pray to him.
Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) called on him to skip it last year but don’t know if he did.
Does this mean the Obama administration and Obamamedia have stopped calling the American citizenry,
‘cowards’, ‘racists’, ‘stupid’, ‘Nazi’s’, ‘enemies’, ‘angry white mobs’,’homophobes’, ‘Islamaphobes’. etc.???
I didn’t think so.
He's a muzzie through and through.
Absolutely...Over the years he’s used religion as a tool and he’s still doing it.
My Faith tells me to realize the federal government cannot help me only take from me, Faith in God, not government teaches me to help myself and others..
Clinging to God and guns, I don’t see uhbummers federal government on the list of things worth having..
“There’s only so much a church can do...”
Church CAN do.....(ability to do?)
“There’s only so much that a non-profit can do...”
Non-profit CAN do....(ability to do?)
“There’s only so much the private sector will do...”
Private sector WILL do...(those evil business people have ability but they are not willing!)
Fargin icehole.
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