God & Country

View Our Gallery: Obama's 10 Biggest 'Faith Moments' as President

April 23, 2009 RSS Feed Print

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

He has convened a council of faith advisers. He reminded Americans that he's "a person of faith" in signing an executive order on federally funded stem cell research. He's opening many of his public events with prayer. Is Barack Obama the "faithiest" president of modern times, even on the heels of George W. Bush, whom many saw as a faith-based president?

Check out U.S. News's new gallery of Obama's 10 biggest "faith moments" from the first 100 days of his presidency.

And let me know what moments I left out.

Tags:
religion,
Barack Obama

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I was most disheartened reading this article. Quote from Dan Gilgoff. "Barack Obama has embraced faith in a more visible way than any other president in recent memory." First of all, most of moments noted had nothing to do with "faith". I believe Dan needs a lesson in what faith is, and needs to rename this to Ten Memorable Obama Moments.

Where's the faith when our president chooses NOT to attend the National Day of Prayer breakfast, and instead decides to "observe privately"?http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/06/prayer-day-no-show/ Yet, he "has gone a big step further (than GW Bush) in embracing religion by opening many of his PUBLIC events with prayers ...." per D. Gilgoff. Oxymoron?

And granting "his first television interview as president to al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language network based in Dubai". What did that have to do with an Obama faith moment? NOTHING

Or VP Biden with ash on his head. Again, what did that have to do with an Obama faith moment? Definitely NOTHING

Or giving a commencement address at the University of Notre Dame? Again, NOTHING

And, "Among Obama's first executive orders was one lifting the ban on federal funds for family-planning groups abroad that endorse or offer abortions ... " a FAITH moment? Please, give me a break!

And I could go on about some of the other statements, but you're getting the picture here. The 'best' quote comes from his speech to the Muslim world from Turkey. "The United States is not at war with Islam". However, it seems he missed stating that 'It's Islam that is at war with the United States."

What a sad state of affairs all of this is. I am thankful my faith is place in the God of this universe, not the government of the USA.

Alfred of PA 7:42PM June 19, 2009

A.J from NY

"That being said, I think faith is something that should be exiled from all executive, legislative, and judiciary decision making arenas. I understand why Obama is doing it, but our government is supposed to be secular."

A.J. our country was founded on christian values. each law, each freedom, was given from God our Creator. Anytime lawmakers would make laws and if it went against what God said, it was a bad law. Now when 51% of the people vote and majority rules, it leaves 49% in oppression...

The Declaration of Independence states "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

How many unalienable rights have we lost in recent years. Have we lost some of our privacy? What about the life of the aborted? and there is many more.. We are becoming slaves by loosing one freedom at a time.

In the recent years of this country when separation of church and state became popular, people have been getting oppressed, now man has made some mistakes, like slavery etc.

Speaking of separation of church and state I wished I had the document handy, but when states applied for statehood they had to set up a Religion and other requirements. The religion that they set up was Christianity. Does that fit our definition of separation of church and state? I don't think so. The Amendment that pertains to that phrase is so that the government can't tell us how to worship ie. must pray 5 times a day facing a certain direction or you cannot eat fish on Fridays, etc. It had nothing to do with keeping God out of our of government.

And on top of that Our Government was set up as a Republic, where just about everyone feared God and the Government did not need to be as big as it is today. Students were told to stay away from bad boys as opposed what is happening today when the society has kicked God out of this country that He was very much apart of and now students bring weapons to school, etc and using them to kill students, teachers, etc. which now they need to have metal detectors at doorways. When God is kicked out of our country, Morals and Ethics are right behind, and now we have people killing people for just about no real reason at all.

Eric of PA 4:31PM April 28, 2009

I don't think it's possible to have more in-your-face-faith than "W." saying in press conferences that he is consulting with God to determine his policy decisions.

Obama is probably flaunting his faith in response to polls that show the majority of Americans consider him a muslim. This is the type of repetition that our voters need to compehend anything - it's kind of sad really.

That being said, I think faith is something that should be exiled from all executive, legislative, and judiciary decision making arenas. I understand why Obama is doing it, but our government is supposed to be secular.

As someone who is not a person of faith, I think it is also reprehansible to use your faith as a public relations tool. It is something that should probably be a personal connection with god and not cheapened by public flaunting.

A.J. of NY 4:14PM April 24, 2009

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Dan Gilgoff covers religion for U.S. News & World Report. He is the author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, and is a former politics editor at beliefnet. E-mail Dan at godandcountry@usnews.com.

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