Ben Witherington's Blog

Hey everyone,

This is a post from Ben Witherington's blog. Witherington is one of the most prolific scholarly writers of our time. He is well-respected as one of the top New Testament scholars of recent decades and, for the record, is also a very politically conservative guy. But here's one of his recent posts:


Despite repeated denials, there are still many conservative persons, including many conservative Christians who think the President of the United States is a Muslim. One can only imagine that his recent remarks about the proposed mosque in N.Y. near ground zero will only further fuel such opinions. There has been a recent Pew Research poll done on opinions about Obama's faith----- here is the link to an article about it. See what you think.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/19/obamas-religion-still-at-issue-for-many-americans-a-fifth-say/?ncid=AOLDSN00280000000031

As for my opinion, I think that Barack Obama is most certainly a self-professed African American Christian. I am in no position to judge what is in the man's heart so I must take what he says, and what various of his friends like Rick Warren, say as the truth unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary, which there definitely is not.

What bothers me about the persistence of this sort of discussion is that it involves fear-mongering and all sorts of emotive rhetoric without any sound basis in facts. If a person does not like the President's politics, that is one thing. The attempt to link his political views to his religious views is a two edged sword. There are plenty, indeed I would say millions of devout Christians in American who mostly share Obama's political views. Does this make them somehow, not Christian? Surely not. So more circumspection is called for in making pejorative statements about Obama's Christian faith, based on pure suspicions and a dislike for his politics. Let the vituperative ones take the log out of their own eyes first, before trying to extract the perceived speck in someone else's eye.


Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/the-faith-of-barack-obama.html#ixzz0xG2ntgVq

-Matt