President Obama, Christianity and Pluralism
President Obama’s religious faith continues to be a topic of discussion in the mainstream press. A recent article discussed an interview in which he said he is a “Christian by choice.”
Interestingly, at the end of the article, Obama said this:
“This is a country that is still predominantly Christian. But we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists and that their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own.”
The perspective is interesting; Americans United for the Separation of Church and State made a point of saying that Obama “got it:”
[Obama] clearly gets the basic constitutional concept of religious liberty for all…
To be accurate, religious liberty is a human freedom, not a Constitutional concept, though it is protected in the US by the Constitution. Still, this begs an interesting question:
Does the value of religious freedom or the tradition of American liberty dictate that citizens “revere and respect” others’ “paths to grace” as much as their own?
Respect? Yes. Revere? No.
Citizens will do what their heart tells them. Paths to grace are different for every person. The President was being graceful when he said “revere and respect as much as our own”. I doubt this will be the case for most, as they believe their religion [beliefs] superior to others.
The philosophical concept of religious liberty as a “human freedom” wasn’t of one’s own choosing or nonexistent until sometime after the protestant reformation; and still limited for a good longtime in some places.
For the United States, the concept of the individual as having certain natural rights that could not be denied or taken away by society or by any external authority, rights that Thomas Jefferson spoke of in the Declaration of Independence as “unalienable” and that were embodied in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.
This I believe, as the ultimate basis for the US not being founded as a christian nation, but sealed religious freedom for american citizens and as a constitutional right.
watchtower,
‘paths to grace are different for every person’? That’s relativism and relativism destroys truth. I’m not the expert on truth, but I know false when I see it. A Nazi’s path to grace is not anything close to real grace.
OK Dealer, if that’s how you feel, but you make it sound like a conspiracy…”destroy truth”. I don’t believe in absolute truth. We all know that Nazi’s were bad, but so are a lot of others…you know, like people who use say um water boarding.
watchtower,
how can you say both “paths to grace are different for every person” and “Nazi’s were bad.” Either you have absolutes or not.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a symptom of cultural and corporate weakness.
Thomas Jefferson even has a quote on it: “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” I consider Jefferson strong and while flawed, still worthy of respect.
I am with you watchtower.