{"id":4216,"date":"2011-05-08T15:33:18","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T19:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4216"},"modified":"2011-06-01T09:04:36","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T13:04:36","slug":"the-wrong-kind-of-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/05\/08\/the-wrong-kind-of-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"The wrong kind of Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most significant textures shaping the 2012 presidential campaign is the nature of the Christian faith of the two odds-on frontrunners.<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama spent much of his adult life as a member of the Trinity Baptist Church in Chicago, a mostly-black congregation whose pastor, Jeremiah Wright, became a talking point in the 2010 race.<\/p>\n

Conservatives have attacked Mr. Obama for belonging to a church that espoused what they view as anti-white perspectives.\u00a0 A growing number of right-leaning voters also suspect that the president may be a closeted Muslim.<\/p>\n

But questions about Mr. Obama’s faith don’t just linger on the right.<\/p>\n

Gays and lesbians have been increasingly confrontational with black church leaders who make up a significant part of the progressive coalition in America.<\/p>\n

Many African American churches have opposed gay rights — and same-sex marriage in particular.<\/p>\n

Over the last three years, LGBT groups have pushed Mr. Obama<\/a> to abandon his opposition to gay marriage, which they describe as “religious-based bigotry.”<\/p>\n

So depending on who you ask, the president is too Christian, the wrong kind of Christian or not Christian at all.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the aisle, meanwhile, you have Mitt Romney, the telegenic and well-spoken former Massachusetts governor — who also happens to be a Mormon.<\/p>\n

Politico has a front-page story<\/a> on their website today suggesting that Romney’s faith is a big problem for some core conservative voters, especially in key GOP-primary states such as South Carolina.<\/p>\n

The article quotes one politically active pastor as saying, \u201cI don\u2019t think Mormons are Christians \u2013 I don\u2019t think they see Jesus Christ as a deity.”<\/p>\n

Publicly, most conservative voters say a candidate’s religious faith won’t determine their vote, but many political experts say they’re unsure about the impact once the voting-booth curtain closes.<\/p>\n

In an effort to lock down his base, Romney has tacked to the right on many social issues.\u00a0 After campaigning for governor as a pro-choice candidate, he has now embraced the right-to life movement.<\/p>\n

So here again, he may not be Christian enough for some voters, but in moderate parts of the country such as New England — and among female voters — he may appear “too Christian” or too conservatively Christian.<\/p>\n

Lurking behind this political debate is the much larger issue of what “being Christian” means in America.\u00a0 The white-anglo-saxon-Protestant consensus fractured long ago.<\/p>\n

While most of us still describe ourselves as Christian, that umbrella term now incorporates a vast array of doctrines and dogmas, as well as national and racial overtones.<\/p>\n

Also at play is the fact that a growing number of Americans are no longer Christian at all:\u00a0 we are either agnostic, atheist or “other.”<\/p>\n

And it makes some voters uncomfortable when issues central to our lives — whether we can choose to have an abortion, say, or get married — could be shaped by someone else’s faith.<\/p>\n

So what do you think?\u00a0 Should religious faith play this large a role in our politics?\u00a0 Do Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney fall within your comfortable definition of\u00a0 “Christian”?\u00a0 And if not, does it matter?<\/p>\n

Comments welcome and, as always, keep it civil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most significant textures shaping the 2012 presidential campaign is the nature of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4790],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4217,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4216\/revisions\/4217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}