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Gullible Gospel

By Sean Higgins on 8.15.08 @ 12:06AM

(Page 2 of 2)

But wait. If there wasn't an epiphany, then how could he truly submit himself to God's will? Obama doesn't explain.

As John K. Wilson put it in Barack Obama: This Impossible Quest, "For Obama, Jesus isn't a magical creature to be worshiped blindly; he's a real person to be imitated for his moral example. What's important to Obama about Jesus is not the Night of the Living Dead aspects of a Christian belief in resurrection, but the moral lessons about self-sacrifice for a larger cause."

Personally I never made the connection between Jesus and George Romero's flesh-eating zombies before (If there is a Second Coming, should we shoot Zombie Jesus in the head?) but Mansfield passes over the passage with little comment.

MANSFIELD'S CRISPLY WRITTEN essay does do a solid job sorting through the various contradictory strands of Obama's singular religious journey. For people looking for a good one-volume summary of Obama's religious beliefs, this is about as good as you'll find.

(I came away with no idea what Mansfield's politics are, by the way. He is also the author of The Faith of George W. Bush. Make of that what you will.)

Where it falters badly is in the analysis. What is one to make of the candidate who confesses that when tucking his daughter into bed he responds to her questions about what happens after we die by saying he doesn't know if there is heaven?

Why not just tell the kid there is a heaven and let her get a good night's sleep? "Obama's own church lists heaven among the benefits of salvation in the altar calls that close its services," Mansfield notes.

Mansfield concedes that Obama is "the product of a new, postmodern generation that picks and chooses its truth from traditional, much as a man customizes his meal at a buffet." That this doesn't say much for Obama (or his generation) does not seem to bother the author.

He argues that "Obama had found the answer to his soul's need and only a cynical heart would refuse the possibility of a lonely black man in his twenties finding faith through the preaching of God's word."

Perhaps, but only the gullible would ignore that the fact that Obama was also an ambitious young politician and Rev. Wright was a well-connected and charismatic Chicago leader.

THE BOOK'S WEAKEST chapter deals with Obama and his relationship with Wright. One gets the distinct impression that the bulk of the book was written before their falling out and sections had to be hastily rewritten.

Mansfield cites as proof of Obama's dedication to Trinity and its message that "he initially stayed." Obama "initially" weathered the political storm because "he had found a faith, a people, the vessel for belief that he had longed for."

Trinity, you see, "had become the font of his political vision" and helped to frame his "sense of professional calling."

Maybe. But it wasn't so fundamental that Obama couldn't drop Trinity like a bad habit after Wright's infamous National Press Club appearance. Mansfield simply blames it all on Wright and assures us that the decision "came with sadness, with grief for the loss of years and the pain that politics presses into private life."

Despite all of this Mansfield concludes with a glimpse into the brighter future that awaits us: "One can imagine, in an Obama presidency, White House conferences on Faith and Poverty or Religion's Responses to Racism that are more than time-wasting mockeries of national ills."

Yes, that is a hopeful vision. One might even call it... audacious.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Barack Obama, Religion, Law