As he flew aboard Air Force One to Chicago on his 49th birthday earlier this month, President Obama dialed three Christian pastors to pray with him.
On an airborne conference call, he kidded with the religious leaders about being abandoned by his wife and daughters, who were away on vacation and at camp. As he celebrated his birthday, he was in a reflective mood. He told them he wanted to pray about the year that had passed, what's really important in life and the challenges ahead.
"That was simply something that he wanted to do at his initiative because it was important to him," said Joel Hunter, an evangelical pastor who was on the call and who is part of a small circle of spiritual advisers who frequently talk to Obama by phone.
The prayer session, which was not publicized and which neither the White House nor the ministers sought to bring to light, reflects Obama's decision to keep his public expressions of religious faith to a minimum. Hunter said the president often reaches out to pastors for private spiritual conversation.
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I believe the results of the recent Pew institute poll showing a 18 percent of Americans think Obama is a Muslim derives in large part from racial bigotry. It is much more acceptable in America to say negative things about Muslims as opposed to negative things about African Americans. Witness the sinister statements by Reverend Franklin Graham, son the the famous evangelist Billy Graham who recently said Obama was “born a Muslim” because the religion’s “seed” is passed from the father". This statement clearly contradicts the express words of the bible he professes to believe in which says upon accepting Christ as your lord and savior "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" 1Peter 1-3 New American Translation. The problem with many evangelical pastors is that they tend to br poorly educated, poorly read and intellectually dead. As a result they are steeped in the same bigotry and prejudices as other similarly situated citizens. The problem is that many Christians and non Christians hear there statements and believe this is Christianity. These types of statements chase many people away from the church, good pople who do not want to be associated with this type of ignorance and bigotry. Reverend Billy Graham was notorious for his open support for the corrupt President Richard Nixon and also the unpopular and morally indefensible War in Vietnam. No wonder some many highly educated and well read people reject organized religion.
John H. Armwood
Though President Obama has explained in his memoirs that his father was indeed born a Muslim, according to a Time Magazine article by Barack Obama in 2006, Barack Obama Sr.'s deep skepticism of religion eventually led to his atheism:
My father was almost entirely absent from my childhood, having been divorced from my mother when I was 2 years old; in any event, although my father had been raised a Muslim, by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist, thinking religion to be so much superstition.
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