As John has noted, America remains unclear about President Obama’s religious affiliation. Thus, in a Pew Research survey, 43 percent (a plurality) said they don’t know which religion Obama practices.
John has offered some good explanations for this uncertainty, especially the misperception that Obama is a Muslim. But I think it is Glenn Beck who has the best explanation for why so many Americans don’t identify Obama as a Christian. Beck told Fox News that, “Obama is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor-and-victim” and “people aren’t recognizing his version of Christianity.”
I take Beck to be using the word “recognize” in its ordinary “perceptive” sense (as in, he didn’t recognize his long-lost childhood friend). This is to be distinguished from “recognizing” in the sense of formal acknowledgement (as in, the U.S. refused to recognize the new, breakaway Republic in Central Africa).
Obama’s problem is that the Christianity of Rev. Wright, whose congregation he attended for 20 years, and of less abrasive liberation theologists as well, just isn’t recognizable to a great many Americans as Christianity because it doesn’t much resemble the Christianity they are familiar with. If Obama lived in El Salvador, where liberation theology is more common, his Christianity would be less in doubt.
Beck himself, I believe, stands in a slightly different position than most Americans who can’t say Obama is a Christian. Beck recognizes Obama’s religion as a set of beliefs whose adherents call themselves Christians. But Beck does not acknowledge that this belief set actually is Christian. Accordingly, Beck isn’t scratching his head about Obama’s religious stance, but many Americans are.
I’ll leave to others the debate about whether liberation theology should be considered Christian. But I think Beck has put his finger on the reason why so many Americans don’t perceive Obama to be a Christian.
-
-
Most Read on Power Line
Donate to PL
-
Our Favorites
- American Greatness
- American Mind
- American Story
- American Thinker
- Aspen beat
- Babylon Bee
- Belmont Club
- Churchill Project
- Claremont Institute
- Daily Torch
- Federalist
- Gatestone Institute
- Hollywood in Toto
- Hoover Institution
- Hot Air
- Hugh Hewitt
- InstaPundit
- Jewish World Review
- Law & Liberty
- Legal Insurrection
- Liberty Daily
- Lileks
- Lucianne
- Michael Ramirez Cartoons
- Michelle Malkin
- Pipeline
- RealClearPolitics
- Ricochet
- Steyn Online
- Tim Blair
Media
Subscribe to Power Line by Email
Temporarily disabled
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.