Is President Obama a Christian?\u00a0 And, should Newt Gingrich reconsider using Saudi Arabia as a standard-bearer for religious freedom in light of their eye for an eye paralysis punishment?\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 What a week for the collision of law, politics, and\u00a0religion!\u00a0<\/p>\n
President Obama’s on-again, off-again, on-again support of the Ground Zero mosque has continued to dominate the news cycle this week, not only within the secular press, but within the Baptist blogosphere as well.\u00a0 The proposed 13-story Muslim Cultural Center (including mosque),\u00a0referred to\u00a0as 51 Park by its supporters and the Ground Zero mosque by its opponents,\u00a0will be a radioactive issue with most politicians, especially vulnerable House and Senate\u00a0Democrats, all the way up to this Fall’s elections in November.<\/p>\n
President Obama’s clumsy handling of this issue has not only affected other politicians fortunes as they scramble for cover, but has also affected how Americans view the 44th President.\u00a0 According to a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center<\/a>, the number of Americans who believe President Obama is Muslim has risen\u00a0by 7 points in the last 2 1\/2 years while those who believe Obama is a Christian has fallen by 14 points.\u00a0 And please note, this poll was conducted before the President’s remarks on Friday, August 13 in which he\u00a0voiced initial support for the Ground Zero mosque.<\/p>\n Adding fuel to the fire, the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the famous evangelist, Billy Graham, gave what can only be considered a tepid endorsement of Obama’s Christianity.<\/a>\u00a0 Because Obama’s father was a Muslim, Graham believes that the President “was born a Muslim” and somehow received the “seed” of the Muslim faith through his father, similar to how Jewish people\u00a0inherit their faith through their mothers.\u00a0 However, I believe that Rev. Graham is conflating ethnicity with religion.\u00a0 Judaism is both a religion and an ethnicity, in the sense that many, but not all\u00a0who practice Judaism, would also consider themselves Jewish or Hebrew ethnically speaking.\u00a0 There are obviously some Gentiles — born neither to\u00a0a Jewish mother or father — who have converted to Judaism.\u00a0 However,\u00a0they were not born Jewish.\u00a0<\/p>\n While I may not agree with many of President Obama’s policies or with how he understands the Christian faith, I think we begin to\u00a0walk on dangerous ground\u00a0when we make\u00a0pronouncements about someone else’s\u00a0self-professed faith.\u00a0 However, I think that President Obama, through some of his\u00a0own\u00a0words and actions, including his outreach efforts to the Muslim world, his seeming indifference\u00a0and\/or hostility to Israel,\u00a0his cancellation of the National Prayer Breakfast for two years in a row, and his lack of church attendance while President, has contributed to people’s misunderstandings about his religious background, both past and current.\u00a0 You know that the misperceptions are at critical mass when the White House has to issue a press release confirming that Obama is a Christian who prays daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course, the President’s handling of the Ground Zero mosque has been one of the chief reasons why more people are beginning to have doubts about his claims of being a Christian.\u00a0 Mark, over at Here I Blog, has an interesting post regarding Christians and the Ground Zero mosque<\/a>.\u00a0 Don’t miss the comments which have been lively.\u00a0 And, check out Charels\u00a0Krauthammer’s articles, “Sacrilege at Ground Zero<\/a><\/em>,”\u00a0 and “Moral myopia at Ground Zero<\/a><\/em>” for a spot-on analysis of this hot-button issue.<\/p>\n