Reconciling Faith and Politics? No thank you Obama

As the first African-American president of the United States, Barack Obama is naturally one of the most well known public figures in America. Obama, to some, may also be considered one of the most popular public intellectuals of our time. While some of this can be attributed to his respected views and speeches on current issues, a big chunk of his popularity as a public intellectual is due to the successful marketing and branding of his 2008 presidential campaign. Voting for Obama quickly became the “it” thing to do among new voters and wearing a shirt with his face on it became the new Hollywood trend. Regardless of the fabricated Obama hype, Barak Obama does remain a public intellectual worth listening to, even if you do not agree with everything he may say.

In June 2006, Obama, then senator of Illinois, delivered his “Call to Renewal” speech to an evangelical audience about his own personal religious beliefs and doubts, and about the role of faith in a pluralistic country. In the beginning of his speech, he discussed the problem America has with the finding the right balance of faith in politics:

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today … is between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

This excerpt from Obama’s speech touches on one of the longest on-going issues in the history of the United States - the separation of Church and State, or in my eyes, the lack thereof. As Peter Beinart of The New Republic argues:

What these (and most other) liberals are saying is that the Christina Right sees politics through the prism of theology, and there’s something dangerous in that. And they’re right. It’s fine if religion influences your moral values. But, when you make public arguments, you have to ground them – as much as possible – in reason and evidence, things that are accessible to people of different religions, or no religion at all. …In a diverse democracy, there must be a common political language, and that language can’t be theological.

I myself am a strong supporter of keeping religion and politics separate from each other; partly because I am not religious, but also because I believe politics should not be based on the Bible or the word of God, and rather on facts and concrete evidence. In examining past and recent history, the line separating church and state has become blurred. One reason for this is pretty simple; the majority of people in the United States are religious, thus probably don’t oppose blurring the line of separation as much as I do. Another reason for the blurring of church and state is that most of our public leaders and public intellectuals have come from a religious background. This point is discussed by Stephen Mack in his article “The Wicked Paradox Redux Again.”

American democracy has always depended on public figures—and public intellectuals—whose work has been animated by strong faith. Billy Graham’s efforts to promote racial harmony during the 1950s, and Reinhold Neibuhr’s work for economic justice throughout his career come quickly to mind.

One of these public intellectuals that Stephen Mack describes is our current president. As a person of faith, it is not Obama’s mission to keep the Church and State completely separated. Instead he hopes to achieve a balance between faith and politics in our pluralistic and largely religious country. He explains:

And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

However, as a politician and public intellectual advocating for a peaceful union of faith and politics, Obama is careful in choosing his words; he does not want to turn away supporters by being too radical with his message. He balances out his message by acknowledging the religious diversity in the United States:

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

In the end, while I do consider Barack Obama to be a public intellectual and I respect the majority of his views, he does not have my support on reconciling faith and politics. I understand that a majority of Americans are religious and thus do support bringing faith into politics, however many current issues we face today are the result of religion mixing with politics.