Barack Obama an Atheist?

Ann Coulter has a piece up at Town Hall arguing, in her unique, snarky manner, that Barack Obama is not a Muslim, but an atheist. Christopher Hitchens was the first public intellectual I heard assert Obama is a nonbeliever. Regardless of your opinion of Coulter and Hitchens, they represent polar opposites of the political and religious spectrum, yet ave drawn the same conclusion. That is significant.

I am not supposed to judge who is a Christian and who is not. One of the things that has irked me the most about the overtly Christian environments I have lived in a various times in my life is how quickly one’s human frailty leads others to doubt one’s Christianity. No one knows what is really in anyone’s heart but God. Even he has advised against outward shows of faith for the purpose of impressing others. That said, Obama does not seem to even subtly embrace Christianity, whether to impress others or not.

Obama wrote in Dreams From My Father that he had a highly secular upbringing after his early childhood experience with Islam. His father eventually became an avowed atheist. His mother was not religious and his stepfather expressed an opinion that religion was useless. This I the environment that shaped Obama during his formative years.

Obama wrote that he did not come to Christianity util his twenties when he worked with black churches. He noted then that Christianity was a catalyst for social change, so he converted. It is not unusual for people to come to religion because of such epiphanies.

But look where Obma wound up--in one of the largest church in Chicago. The church indulged in black liberation theology, lead by Jeremiah Wright, the reverend whom even progressives shy away from as a racist, anti-Semitic kook. Obma attended for twenty years, yet during the 2008 campaign denied he had heard any of Wright’s fiery condemnations of America. Odd, considering both he and Micelle have expressed shame over their country.

What about Obama’s attitude towards Christianity? He echoes his stepfather in claiming more ignorant people bitterly cling to it as a crutch. That sounds contemptuous and dismissive. In a interview with Matt Lauer last March, Obama said head his family would visit many different churches rather than find one of their own, which is about as political correct an answer oneca give on the subject. It is an example of the relativity embraced by may o the left--all religion is the same. Why choose one? Obama certainly souds like someone on the outside looking in.

All circumstantial evdece, but compelling. Obama does not seem to be putting up a front to pass himself off as a Christian at all, but is instead interested in political expediency and the political correct moral relativity that says all belies must be respected, no matter how much you want to snicker at them. For whatever reason, Islam has been grated special status among the progressive crowd who espouse this stuff, so no woner Oama has been accused of beig a Muslim. Regardless, it is all politics.

Like I said above, I cannot honestly judge Obama’s religious status, nor do I really care at this point. He is a dangerously incompentent man no matter what pew, if any, he worships from and we are stuck with him for two more years. That is the importat thing to worry--and pray--about.