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.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200702090009

Tucker Carlson on Obama's church:
"[I]t's hard to call that Christianity"

During the "Obameter" segment on the February 7 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson criticized Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), a presumptive candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, for being a member of a church that Carlson claimed "sounds separatist to me" and "contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity," a subject Carlson said he was "actually qualified to discuss."

Carlson was referring to the "Black Value System" advocated by the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of which Obama is a member. A February 6 Chicago Tribune article reported that "conservative critics have seized on Trinity's 12-point Black Value System, especially the portion relating to 'middleclassness,' as evidence that Obama is a divisive candidate who rejects mainstream American values and is primarily focused on the black community."

Carlson pointed to the "disavowal of the pursuit of 'middleclassness' " in the church's tenets, calling the church's mission a "racially exclusive theology" and "a theology that ministers to one group of people, based on race." Carlson claimed that Trinity's theology is "racially exclusive" and "wrong," adding that "it's hard to call that Christianity."

Carlson also stated that Trinity's "Black Value System" "calls for congregants to be 'soldiers for black freedom.' " In fact, Trinity encourages parishioners to be "soldiers for Black freedom and the dignity of all humankind [emphasis added]."

The Tribune said that the church's "value system" was adopted in 1981 to hold "black Christians accountable for taking care of their own and for continuing to fight oppression." Further, the Tribune reported that according to Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, "the 'disavowal of the pursuit of middleclassness' is simply an argument against materialism and the pursuit of the American standard of wealth. Many white Christian churches also preach against materialism."

From the February 7 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:

CARLSON: Time now for the daily check of our "Obameter." On Saturday, in Springfield, Illinois, Senator Barack Obama will officially toss his hat into the presidential ring, which will mark open season for his political opponents and others to scrutinize just about every breath he's ever taken, or plans on taking, before he took those breaths, and what every one of them implies about him. Can he survive the unprecedented scrutiny?

Here to discuss it: Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez and former Democratic congressman from Maine and national director of Win Without War, Tom Andrews. Welcome to you both.

So Barack Obama is a member of a church called Trinity United Church of Christ. It's a predominantly black church in Chicago, that espouses something called the "Black Value System," which includes calls for congregants to be "soldiers for black freedom" and a, quote, "disavowal of the pursuit of middleclassness." Now, it would seem to me, Tom, not to make a broad sweeping statement here, but a racially exclusive theology, a theology that ministers to one group of people, based on race, kind of contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity, and is worth talking about. Wouldn't you say?

ANDREWS: Well, let's look at what those values actually are. We're talking about hard work, self-reliance, belief in God, and if you have made it to the middle class, you have an obligation to those who have not. Now, those sound like pretty good values to me, black, white, or whatever, and I think that Barack Obama should not be ashamed of having those values and being part of a church.

CARLSON: Again, those are great values, that I, you know, that I hope I embody.

ANDREWS: Good.

CARLSON: However, it's the word before them, black. It's making them racially specific. Again, Christianity -- this is something that I am actually qualified to discuss -- is, it seems to me, almost explicitly anti-racial. The idea is that we are all equal in the eyes of God. And when you espouse a theology that is racially exclusive, as this appears to be, it's hard to call that Christianity. I think it's pretty easy to call it wrong.

ANDREWS: Well, I don't think it's exclusive. I don't see anything exclusive about it. This is a church --

CARLSON: Soldiers for black freedom? How about -- what about soldiers for freedom for everybody. What does that mean?

ANDREWS: Well -- fine. Black white, whatever, but in this particular case, these are soldiers for black freedom, and belief in God, and hard work, and self-reliance, and helping your brother and sister. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. You knowthis -- I'll tell you: Opposition research is a growth industry.

CARLSON: Yeah, it is.

ANDREWS: And just fasten your seat belt, Senator Obama, because it's coming at you.

CARLSON: Well, I don't know. I mean, I could --

ANDREWS: It's coming at you.

CARLSON: I think this is fair, because I think this is -- trust me. I think a lot of opposition research, and I get a lot in my inbox -- it's crap -- but I ignore it, because who cares. But this is interesting because Obama has spoken so forcefully and so often about his own faith, and held up his membership in a Christian denomination as evidence of the pureness of his heart. He said, "Look, I'm a Christian, OK, period." So it's fair to take a look at his theology. And, you know, I like Barack Obama, and I don't think he's a scary guy, but this stuff sounds separatist to me, I have to say.

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