Obama

I've been looking for a really good article on the faith of Barack Obama for a while. I've seen a couple that were either too generic or too clearly slanted to be of much use. I don't have time to read his books (my reading pile is so large I won't be finished it by next year's elections), but I was interested in the faith that he mentions. Is it "of course I'm a Christian" cultural faith? Is it "I'm running for office and therefore need to go to church" political faith? Is it the real deal?

This article in the New York Times is the most balanced thing I've seen so far. It's still hard to know what's going on in his heart, but at least this article pulls together different snippets from other articles and addresses some of the issues.

I highly recommend reading it.

In reading the article I thought of the article in Newsweek last fall that traced the relationship between the evangelical church and politics. The pattern of groups gaining favor with the evangelical church, getting in bed with politicians to advance their agenda and then having a harsh fall is pretty well documented in the article.

Now we see Obama moving towards power and preaching at Saddleback Church, working with Jim Wallis and speaking at his own super church. I'm all for a truly dedicated man of God being in power, but I think we have to look long and hard at the man, determining if this is really "of God" and then look at what the costs are of getting that close to power. History indicates that those who get close to power get burned.

If you haven't read the NYT or Newsweek articles, I strongly encourage you to take a look. I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts on the faith of the 2008 candidates.