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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Rob of MA 10:39AM June 15, 2009
Rob of MA 10:33AM June 15, 2009
Jordan C. Fan, Prophet of Environment. 8:10AM June 14, 2009