Here's what President Obama said about his personal religious beliefs at today's National Prayer Breakfast:
"I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I’ve ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as I would want done.
I didn’t become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck – no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God’s spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose – His purpose. "
There will be a lot of people analyzing these remarks.- A Muslim becomes an atheist.
- Methodist and Baptist grandparents who didn't participate in church.
- A mother who was skeptical of organized religion. (I am too, and so was Jesus, who was actually against the organized religion of his time.)
- Obama becomes a follower of Jesus after he sees and joins with other Jesus-followers who take the gospel seriously.
How about - let's pray for him?
