Lord, I Believe, Help Thou My Unbelief
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Anyone who invokes Alan Keyes as an authority must be having a hard time proving his case, and I think that especially applies to Sean Higgins’ article that alleges that Obama is an agnostic (“The Unbeliever” is the title). Let’s be clear about something: Obama is a liberal Protestant, which means that by definition his kind of Christianity is not going to mesh with mine or Alan Keyes’ or most conservatives’, in part because his denomination emphasises the Social Gospel and the activism associated with that, but also because it belongs to a very different theological tradition. The unwittingly hilarious adoption of the very literalist idea that we should not place a period “where God has put a comma” is a perfect example of how the UCC almost makes a dogma out of the idea of evolving, adaptable religion. Obama has read and actually likes Reinhold Niebuhr, which I assure you is exceedingly rare among anyone who is not genuinely interested in Christian theology, however liberal its form. As a rule, agnostics would not bother to read Niebuhr or, having read him, would either become convinced atheists as a result of boredom or would become Christians. Everyone who knows much about Obama understands that he came to Christianity intellectually, as one might expect given his style and personality, and this is the one place where I am most sympathetic to Obama, because my conversion was similarly not produced by a blinding flash or light or a tolle, lege moment, but was the result of a gradual process of reflection, study and a slowly dawning understanding why God became man to save us. It’s true that there was a single moment when I understood that Christianity had to be true and that Christ was, is God, but even that came through reading a quote from Berdayev. Am I an agnostic because I was not thrown to the ground by a vision? This line of attack is misguided.
It seems to me that Obama was annoyed by Keyes for a couple of reasons: Keyes is an histrionic looney, who would annoy anyone who had to debate him for any length of time, and it is insulting to have one’s faith and integrity attacked by a ludricrous Pharisaical showman. I think Obama’s views on, and more importantly his votes and actions related to, abortion are entirely incompatible with faith in Christ, but we should be very clear that even this would make him at most a bad Christian, not an “unbeliever.” Unless we would play the role of the Pharisee, we should be careful not to declare someone to be agnostic because he does not live out that faith as he should (or, more to the point, as we think he should). As someone who came to the Faith by an intellectual and fairly academic route, I would say that arguments that assume that all conversions happen in the same way are going to get things badly wrong quite often. I grew up without much in the way of religious instruction, and I was educated at very secular private schools, and I went through the same syncretistic and multiculti phase that Obama did, so I think I probably relate to his conversion to Christianity better than most and I take umbrage at the suggestion that it is somehow less than genuine or phoney or staged for effect. If it is, there is no way that you or I can possibly know that; God alone knows. Let’s have some humility.
Update: Mr. Higgins offers this most unresponsive of responses. I’ll grant the point–Mr. Higgins wasn’t citing Keyes as an authority. He was employing him as a rhetorical club, which is a much more suitable role for Keyes to play. So, very well then, Higgins cited Obama about the exchange with Keyes, but this citation does not support the larger claim. If you were accused of a lack of faith by a bombastic clown, it would get under your skin, too. The overriding point that Mr. Higgins did not even begin to prove his case remains.
Filed under: politics, religion
11 Responses to “Lord, I Believe, Help Thou My Unbelief”
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For what it’s worth, I do think Keyes was basically right in saying that Christ wouldn’t have voted for Barack Obama. But He wouldn’t have voted for Alan Keyes, either. He almost certainly wouldn’t have voted at all.
That said, you’re absolutely right on the more general issue of Obama’s supposed agnosticism. Rod Dreher wrote something a while back – here it is – that made a similar accusation, using that same bedtime story anecdote as a springboard. He wrote:
I found, and indeed still find, this deeply offensive. What Obama was expressing – “I wasn’t sure whether …” – is far from agnosticism: not only is it possible to come to Christianity by way of something less than a “blinding flash”, it’s also possible to be a faithful Christian whose belief in such things as the resurrection of the dead is marked by severe doubts. (If not, I suppose I ought to start counting myself among the faithless.) That Obama has been willing to be honest about those doubts is, it seems to me, the best evidence of his Christianity that we could ask for.
Let’s be clear about something: Obama is a liberal Protestant, which means that by definition his kind of Christianity is not going to mesh with mine or Alan Keyes’ or most conservatives’, in part because his denomination emphasises the Social Gospel and the activism associated with that, but also because it belongs to a very different theological tradition.
That’s really very good.
And, as the quote in the above response implies, isn’t the question really whether or not Obama is an Atheist?
Does he understand as you do (and musn’t all Christians believe this?) that God became man to save us?
It seems quite possible that Obama has conflated his “return” to the black community with a Christian conversion…
That first para should be in quotes, sorry.
I suspect Obama’s an agnostic opportunist too. Joining Trinity UCC was obviously part of his ‘Am I black enough?’ angst and a way to cadge black votes in Chicago.
Nor does Ron Paul’s ex-Lutheran, ex-Episcopal, casual Baptist churchgoing with mine.
But in both his and Obama’s cases it doesn’t matter. The American system is supposed to be not secularist but secular, that is, impartial.
I’d vote for a partnered gay atheist who sticks with the Constitution and stays out of foreign wars.
A conservative blog for peace
Daniel,
If you take the position that one cannot be both a good Christian and pro-life, then how do you address the profound hypocrisy of Christian conservatives who opposes abortion on the one hand while supporting preventative war on the other?
I understand the position that one cannot be a good Christian and pro-choice–though I disagree with it.
But I find it disgustingly hypocritical for someone to passionately argue for the protection of fetal life and connect that to one’s religious bona fides and then in the next breathe advocate for the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children in the name of national interest. This is particularly poignant with neo-conservative Catholics (oxymoronic term if there ever was one).
The theo-cons do not “advocate for the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children in the name of national interest,” they would say that such casualties are not directly intended, but unintended.
It is best to stay with the critique of their justification for “preventative war.”
I’ve wondered about Obama’s religious faith for some time now, myself. I’ve never thought he was a secret agnostic; I believe that he is sincere when he describes himself as a Christian. However, I wonder how liberal a Christian he is; is he like John Spong, John Dominic Crossan, or Thomas Sheehan, all of whom consider themselves to be Christians, but all of whom are atheists (they don’t regard themselves as atheists, but they think God is not a being that exists whether or not people exist, but is instead something else–a way of life, I take it, or whatever attitude is manifested in a large group of positively-minded people)? Is he like Marcus Borg, he believes in some extra-material reality, that he calls God, but seems to be skeptical on the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and is in any case convinced that whether or not Jesus literally rose doesn’t matter? Anyone know? Is this in his book?
I’m always puzzled by Christians who think they know which practices in life are sacrosanct and which are not. I’m not aware of Jesus mentioning abortion, or describing when and how souls come into human bodies. My own view is that souls are not created at conception, and that they do not enter into association with the body until rather late in pregnancy, but I don’t see why that should make for social policy on issues of abortion, and I don’t see how one’s reading of the Bible or any other scripture can be anything but a single man or woman’s conscience at work. I believe in choice, because that I think is the central tenet of salvation – one is saved through conscious choice, not by obeying laws. Men make laws because they make agreements that make sense in life. Men are not saved by obeying the law, or by forcing others to obey laws. Abortion, whether it is against the law of God or not should not be against the law of man. We should have the choice to do with out own bodies as we choose, and pay the consequences ourselves if there are any. If a women goes to hell for having an abortion, so be it. If not, so be it. That is not the business of others to decide.
See Sean’s reply to this post here: http://jeremylott.net/?p=1485
Also the title of the article is, “The Audacity of What?” “The Unbeliever” was the cover line.
[...] led me to ponder the true nature of Obama’s religious belief, an argument that made a few small [...]
[...] Larison began his comment by saying: “Anyone who invokes Alan Keyes as an authority must be having a hard time proving his [...]