Blogged

Losing his religion

Barack Obama has announced his and his wife’s departure from the church that has become so problematic to his presidential run. It’s the big topic of an otherwise slow weekend news cycle, and is somewhat sexier than the convoluted “all the delegates, half the votes” ruling by the Democratic National Committee’s (yawn) rules and bylaws committee. The Obama/Trinity schism should surprise precisely no one, and you needn’t ascribe cynical motives to Obama to understand why it was inevitable. Media and opposition focus on Trinity wasn’t about to end any time soon, and when even guest ministers feel free to spout inflammatory sermons in front of unblinking cameras, you can imagine that Trinity became a cross too heavy to bear:

“We don’t want to have to answer for everything that’s stated in the church,” the Democratic front-runner said. “We also don’t want the church subjected to the scrutiny that a presidential campaign legitimately undergoes.”

Fair enough - not that this divorce will immediately end the issue for Obama. The media will try to extract a pound or so of mortified flesh, and you can expect Obama’s opponents on the right and the not-so-left to join in.

A basic question came to me yesterday regarding this story, and I haven’t yet come up with an answer. You can see the political advantage of a Chicago politician like Barack Obama - born of a multicultural background and perhaps trying to forge an identity both for his own sake and for frankly political reasons - entering into a twenty-year fellowship with a church well-grounded in the community and strong on a race-based liberation theology. Political bases are founded in this way, and Obama was able to ascend to the Senate partly because of this support. A presidential campaign, however, is another arena altogether: national in a way that even a Senate run can never be, a broad leveling force hostile to anything not easily homogenized - like, say, race-based liberation theology.

My question: Is it really possible that Barack Obama - or any of those terribly smart people in his employ - did not imagine that this would become an issue? Did no one raise his or her hand at a staff meeting and say, “Sooner or later - right or wrong - we’re going to either stand up for Trinity, or else cut loose”?

Because it doesn’t really look as though anybody thought about that.

Note: The other famous O of Chicago - Oprah Winfrey - figured out what Obama didn’t about Trinity, and quite some time ago.

Similar posts:
Bad optics?
Time for some quiet reflection, Father
Jesus is late
Twenty-three hundred
Today on Denounce and Reject

© 2008 Philip Barron.  Log in  Monitored by SiteUptime