Obama's Faith

I was on a train in Casablanca where I got into a conversation about Barack Obama’s faith. The man I was talking to brought up Obama’s middle name, Hussein, and tried to tell me he was Muslim and even a radical one at that. This person, who was from Australia, kept insisting that Obama was a Muslim and that his upbringing did not involve faith and that he was no Christian.

So, to set the record straight, here is what Obama tells us about his beliefs:

"One Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called “The Audacity of Hope.” And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, he would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth and carrying out his works."

Not a bad explanation (or “defense” as St. Paul says) of the hope that is within him, if you ask me.