Obama: I Take Christian Faith Seriously

0211dv-australia-obama 0210dv-obama-2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Sunday he does not think voters have a litmus test on religion, whether evangelical Christianity or his childhood years in a largely Muslim country.

"If your name is Barack Hussein Obama, you can expect it, some of that. I think the majority of voters know that I'm a member of the United Church of Christ, and that I take my faith seriously," Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"Ultimately what I think voters will be looking for is not so much a litmus test on faith as an assurance that a candidate has a value system and that is appreciative of the role that religious faith can play in helping shape people's lives," he said.

In the interview, Obama also said his race might be a "novelty" this early in the presidential contest, sparred with the prime minister of Australia over Iraq, and said he has a higher burden of proof with voters because of his relative inexperience. Obama formally announced his candidacy in Illinois on Saturday and made a beeline for Iowa, site of the first nominating contest next Jan. 14.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii, lived in mostly Muslim Indonesia with his mother and stepfather from 1967 to 1971. He subsequently returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents.

He attends a Chicago church with his wife and two young daughters. The 2008 presidential field also includes Republican Mitt Romney, a Mormon, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., an evangelical Christian who converted to Catholicism in recent years.

Obama's leading rivals for the Democratic nomination are far better known to voters, the U.S. senator from Illinois said. He was elected in 2004.

"At least two of my fellow candidates have been campaigning nationally for years," Obama said, referring to New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. "They have an infrastructure and name recognition that are higher than mine so there will probably be a higher burden of proof for me."

Few minorities reside in early voting Iowa and New Hampshire but Obama said his race - his mother is white, his father is black - will not play a determining role.

"I think that early on it may spark some curiosity or a sense of novelty, but I think very quickly people will be judging me on the merits. Do I have a message that resonates with people's concerns about health care and education, jobs and terrorism?" he said. "And if they do, then I think race won't be a major factor."

At a press conference later in Ames, Obama said he was proud to have opposed the Iraq war from the start while Clinton and others authorized the U.S.-led invasion.

"I don't think there is a more significant set of decisions than the decision to go to war," Obama said. "I think the war was a tragic mistake and it never should have been authorized."

Obama made a habit of stressing his position at every stop, to loud applause. Clinton, meanwhile, ran into some tough questioning while campaigning over the weekend in New Hampshire. One man demanded that she repudiate her 2002 Senate vote to send U.S. troops into battle.

Obama told reporters he thinks his early opposition to the war shows "it was possible to make judgments that this would not work out well" and that it speaks "to the kind of judgment that I will be bringing to the office of president."

The senator has called for capping the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and then beginning to withdraw them on May 1. He wants a complete pullout of combat brigades by March 31, 2008.

Clinton says she is working to pass legislation capping troop levels and bring to a vote a resolution disapproving of Bush's planned troop increase.

"I am not clear on how she would proceed at this point to wind down the war in a specific way," Obama said. "I know that's she's stated that she thinks the war should end by the start of the next president's first term. Beyond that, though, how she wants to accomplish that, I'm not clear on."

In his speech before thousands at Iowa State University, Obama did not mention Clinton, but he did draw a clear comparison. "We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged," Obama said to cheers.

In the AP interview, Obama laughed off criticism Saturday from Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who said Obama's plans for Iraq "encourage those who wanted to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq."

"It's flattering that one of George W. Bush's allies feels obliged to attack me," Obama said.

Obama said that if Howard did not think enough was being done in Iraq, he should consider sending more Australian troops to the region. Australia has about 1,400 troops in Iraq, mostly in noncombat roles.

The senator dismissed concerns about his own security, but would not answer directly when asked if he had received death threats. The Rev. Jesse Jackson drew early Secret Service protection because of violent threats during his campaigns for president in the 1980s.

"I face the same security issues as anybody," he told the AP. "We're comfortable with the steps we have taken."

Obama campaigned in Cedar Rapids and Waterloo on Saturday after his kickoff announcement in Springfield, Ill. On Sunday, Obama met with party activists at a private home in Iowa Falls and attended the Ames rally.

He won the endorsement of two top state officials - Attorney General Tom Miller and Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald. Miller called Obama "a once in a generation talent."

On Sunday night, Obama returned home to Chicago, where he was greeted by a roaring crowd of more than 7,000 people.

"I am an imperfect vessel for your hopes and dreams," Obama told the crowd during a raucous rally at the arena of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

From Washington, Obama came under criticism from a presidential rival, 26-year veteran Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, for his lack of experience.

"I think experience matters to people. The stakes are very, very high right now," Dodd said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "This is not a time for on-the-job training."

At the house party in Iowa Falls, Obama said, "I'm going to have to be run through the paces, people are going to have to lift up the hood, kick the tires and be clear that I have a grasp of the issues that are of utmost importance in people's lives."

In that vein, Obama said he has quit his cigarette habit and now chews nonprescription Nicorette gum all day.

My transcription of (Obama's Pastor) Rev. Wright’s remarks:

God Has Got To Be Sick Of This Shit!
[Joined in progress] … Justice is ignored. When women are treated like, or are permitted by this society to be called publicly "bitches," justice is ignored.
And on that note, on that note, let me paraphrase Dr. Anthony Campolo, one of the nation’s greatest preachers.
He said something to this effect.
Fact number one: we’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college.
Racism is alive and well. Racism is the American way.
Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run.
No black man can ever be President. I don’t care how hard you run Jesse.
No black woman will ever be considered for anything outside of what she can give with her body.
Fact number three: America is still the number one killer in the world.
We invaded Grenada for no other reason than to get Maurice Bishop. We destroyed Panama because Noriega would no longer dance to our tune anymore.
We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training professional killers.
We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children, while trying to turn public opinion against Castro and Qaddafi.
Fact number four: we put Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there.
We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God.
Fact number five: we supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians, and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic.
Fact number six: we conducted radiation experiments on our own people. You’re just finding out about that. We care nothing about human life, if the end justifies the means.
Fact number seven: we do not care if poor black and brown children cannot read and kill each other senselessly. We abandoned the cities back in the sixties when the riots started, and it really doesn’t matter what those nnn… [niggers] "natives" do to each other.
We gave up on them and public education for poor people who live in the projects. We with VCRs, DVDs, CDs and portable phones have more homeless than any nation in the world.
Fact number eight: we started the AIDS virus, and now that it is out of control we still put more money in the military than in medicine. More money in hate than humanitarian concerns.
Everybody does not have access to health care. I don’t care what the rich white boys in the cities say.
[Garbled] listen up. If you are poor black and elderly — forget it.
Fact number nine: we only able to maintain our level of living by making sure the Third World people live in grinding poverty.
Fact number ten: we are selfish, self-centered ego egotists, who are arrogant and ignorant.
We pray at church and do not try to make the kingdom that Jesus talked about a reality.
And, and, and… in light of these in fact God has got to be sick of this shit!

I wonder if he said this to Barack?

No black man can ever be President.

In light of Reverend Wright’s remarks, read this article from the Chicago Tribune:

Pastor inspires Obama’s ‘audacity’
By Manya A. Brachear
January 21, 2007
When he took over Trinity United Church of Christ in 1972, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. was a maverick pastor with a wardrobe of dashikis and a militant message.
Six years later, he planted a "Free South Africa" sign on the lawn of his church and asked other local religious leaders to follow his lead.
None took him up on the invitation.
The sign stayed until the end of apartheid, –long enough to catch the eye of a young Barack Obama, who visited the church in 1985 as a community activist. Obama, was not a churchgoer at the time, but he found himself returning to the sanctuary of Trinity United. In Wright he had found both a spiritual mentor and a role model.
Wright, 65, is a straight-talking pragmatist who arrived in Chicago as an outsider and became an institution. He has built a congregation of 8,500, including the likes of Oprah Winfrey and hip-hop artist Common, by offering an alternative to socially conservative black churches that are, Wright believes, too closely tied to Chicago’s political dynasties…
Obama says that rather than advising him on strategy, Wright helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated.
"What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice," Obama said. "He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics."
The rebellious son of a Baptist minister, Wright was hired by Trinity United when he could find no Baptist church to take him. The congregation on 95th Street, then numbering just 87, had recently adopted the motto "Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian." They did not mind his fiery red Afro and black power agenda…
[Wright] eventually returned to Howard University to finish bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English with a focus on African spirituals. At the University of Chicago Divinity School, he earned another master’s in the history of religions with a focus on Islam…
In his 1993 memoir "Dreams from My Father," Obama recounts in vivid detail his first meeting with Wright in 1985. The pastor warned the community activist that getting involved with Trinity might turn off other black clergy because of the church’s radical reputation.
When Obama sought his own church community, he felt increasingly at home at Trinity. Before leaving for Harvard Law School in 1988, he responded to one of Wright’s altar calls and declared a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Later he would base his 2004 keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention on a Wright sermon called "Audacity to Hope," –also the inspiration for Obama’s second memoir, "The Audacity of Hope."
Though Wright and Obama do not often talk one-on-one often, the senator does check with his pastor before making any bold political moves.
Last fall, Obama approached Wright to broach the possibility of running for president. Wright cautioned Obama not to let politics change him, but he also encouraged Obama, win or lose…

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