![]() ![]() Fully 43% of weekly churchgoers voted for Obama, as did 67% of those who never attend worship services, for an “attendance gap” of 24 points. Similarly, a sizeable gap existed between those who attend religious services regularly and those who attend less often. Still, a sizeable gap persisted between the support Obama received from white evangelical Protestants and his support among the religiously unaffiliated. Among nearly every religious group, Obama received equal or higher levels of support compared with support for Kerry in 2004. Obama’s outreach may have paid off on Election Day, according to a Pew Forum analysis of early exit polls. In the 2008 election, Obama made a concerted effort to reach out to evangelical Christians and other people of faith who tended to vote Republican in past presidential elections. Obama answers questions from religious leaders at a faith and values forum at George Washington University on June 4, 2007.Īt a 2006 Sojourners/Call to Renewal conference, Obama said that the “fear of getting ‘preachy'” may have led some on the political left “to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.” He described himself as “somebody who really has insisted that the Democratic Party reach out to people of faith.” Bush, who made religious language a hallmark of his campaigns and presidency. John McCain of Arizona, appeared less comfortable talking publicly about faith than his GOP predecessor, George W. At the same time, Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who told journalists at a 2007 Pew Forum event that he could have done a better job explaining his faith. Slightly more than one-in-four Democrats (27%) and independents (27%) completely agree it is important that a president have strong religious beliefs, compared with more than four-in-ten Republicans (45%).ĭuring the 2008 presidential horserace, Obama was far more willing to speak publicly about his faith and the positive impact religion can have on public life than was the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. However, Democrats and independents are less likely than Republicans to say they completely agree with this view. According to an August 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, more than seven-in-ten Americans (72%) agree it is important that a president have strong religious beliefs this is virtually unchanged from recent years. The religious turning point Obama experienced in Chicago also provides a spiritual narrative that many voters find appealing in their presidential candidates. senator from Illinois and 2008 Democratic presidential candidate established his spiritual roots and began to develop his unabashedly progressive philosophy of how religion can intersect with public life for the betterment of the common good. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.” ![]() But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God’s spirit beckoning me. “It came about as a choice and not an epiphany the questions I had did not magically disappear. “It was because of these newfound understandings - that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved - that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized,” Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope. In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote that in the course of his work he came to realize that “I had no community or shared traditions in which to ground my most deeply held beliefs.” He decided that, despite significant doubts, he could embrace Christianity as it was presented to him in a dynamic black church on Chicago’s South Side. Obama was drawn to the motivating component of faith, seeing the civil rights movement as evidence of religion’s potential to spur social change. So it was somewhat surprising when, in 1985, two years after graduating from Columbia University in New York City, Obama, then a self-described skeptic, went to work for a faith-based community organizing group in Chicago. “In time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.”Īlthough his given name means “blessed” in both Swahili and Arabic, president Barack Obama was not raised in a particularly religious household. ![]()
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