Behind Obama's Ideas on Faith, Government, and Politics
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Religion News Service has an enterprising story on Barack Obama's participation in the Saguaro Seminar—an ongoing, '90s-era series of powwows on American civic life led by Robert Putnam, a Harvard professor and author of Bowling Alone—and the lasting impact the experience seems to have had on the president, especially on matters of faith, government, and politics.
The architects of George W. Bush's faith-based office, which Obama has expanded, attended Saguaro with Obama. So did former Christian Coalition chief Ralph Reed. And the Saguaro sessions were where Obama met progressive evangelical leader Jim Wallis, now a top White House faith-based adviser.
Wallis recently told me about befriending Obama at Saguaro:
Robert Putnam had a group of about 20 people get together one or two days every three months. And one of the least famous people in the group was this lowly young state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. We talked about three things. One, we were Christians and he was clearly self-consciously Christian like I was. But we were progressively Christian in the era of the Religious Right, so we also talked about that. And we were both older dads and we'd each had our first kids by then. So we talked about parenting all the time and how you balance that with the public stuff.
A few years later, Obama featured Wallis as one of three guest speakers at the launch event for his first political action committee.
It's interesting to note that the president isn't the only one who appears to have been influenced by the faith talk at Saguaro. The title of Robert Putnam's next book is American Grace: How Religion Is Reshaping Our Civic and Political Lives.
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Tags: politics | Barack Obama | religion | Obama administration
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Reader Comments
You Too, Jordan?
Wow, the threadjacking is fierce here on USNews, isn't it? Why not post these questions on an an article about the actual incident? Or do you think the president had something to do with this?
(1) Why was a Black guard and not White Jewish guard shot?
**Maybe because he was closest?
(2) Do they hire Jews to guard their own museum? Just how many guards are Black and how many guards are White? Is that a wrong hiring practice?
**Who cares? They probably contract with an external vendor to provide security, and the company sends whoever they choose?
(3) Did the Black guards forced out all the White guards that no White guards, especially Jews, could find jobs in Washington DC?
**Probably not. How is this relevant to thie original article here?
(4) Was the gunman against Black or Jews? What was his motives?
**Apparently against Jews. He shot up the Holocause museum, not the National Civil Rights Museum. This stuff shouldn't be hard to figure out.
(5) What kind of affirmative actions is that?
**Is what?
Those are important questions that need to be answer.
**No, these are a paranoid waste of bandwidth.
Threadjack Much, John Warren?
Um, John Warren? You do understand that your reactionary, hate-filled, violent, compassionless agenda (you know, the one through which we just suffered for eight agonizing years) is what lost John McCain the last election, right?
You seem really big on helping people die (pro-gun, pro-military-spending)--unless they want to, I suppose-- and really against helping people who need help.
You talk about an "unintrusive government," but then want to turn around and have that same government push "God and Christianity, traditional and Judeo Christian values, Bible reading and prayer in our public schools, and Creationism." Sounds pretty intrusive to me. People who aren't Christian (there are lots of us in this country, and the same First Amendment keeps the government from foisting *your* religion on us keeps *us* from foisting ours on you. Well, that and my religion doesn't proselytize anyway, but remember that "traditional American values" includes freedom of religion and a State that does not establish religion. That inconvenient Constitution thing, you know? And those of us who really know even a smidgen about science know that Creationism is a fine subject for study, in the Social Studies/Current Events classes, but not in science classrooms. Judges seem to understand it too, since they keep slapping down people who try to sneak it into science classes one way or another.
I've found that people who espouse the things you do generally don't really want a small government, they want a government that is plenty big/instrusive when it serves your personal "moral" agenda, but not when it might actually help protect our environment (pro nuclear) or push for equality and justice (unless things like "pro marriage" and "pro traditional values" *don't* mean "against equal rights for gay couples").
You oppose arms agreements with Russia, and you're anti-Communist: you are aware that this is 2009, not 1959, right?
You go right ahead and vote for Romney/Palin in 2012. Find out what it's like to get your butt handed to you *again.*
Oh, and the next time you want to post a screed like this, you might consider posting it somewhere where it's actually relevant to the subject at hand.
Faith based questions raised about the Holocaust Museum Shooting.
Faith and ethnic based questions raised about the Holocaust Museum Shooting.
(1) Why was a Black guard and not White Jewish guard shot?
(2) Do they hire Jews to guard their own museum? Just how many guards are Black and how many guards are White? Is that a wrong hiring practice?
(3) Did the Black guards forced out all the White guards that no White guards, especially Jews, could find jobs in Washington DC?
(4) Was the gunman against Black or Jews? What was his motives?
(5) What kind of affirmative actions is that?
Those are important questions that need to be answer.
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