Elizabeth Tenety has the full report, but here’s the relevant excerpt in which the President defends his faith against critics who doubt his sincerity.
“These past two years they have deepened my faith. My Christian faith then has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years, all the more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time. We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us, but whether we’re being true to our conscience and true to our God.”
Read the rest of Tenety’s coverage here.
6 Comments
Tom Bryant
I’m not sure about his faith, but that last prayer at the Washington Post site sounded a resonance in my heart about praying that his daughter’s skirt would get longer as she goes to a dance. That sure sounded like any father!
Chris
This made me want to step up my prayers for our President–to pray diligently that he will finish well! This is what I posted at the Tenety article, too.
I’m grateful that our President’s first priority is to seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness! We all fall short in many ways, but as we let Jesus lead us, he refines us. We have his Word to teach us what righteousness really is. This article made me think of Isaiah 58 and it’s admonition:
“not to hide yourself from your own flesh…”
I think of all the unborn babies, whose moms are pressured or deceived into doing away with their own flesh, and our President’s stated determination to let this continue. It will be tragic if he does. But history is full of leaders who turned around. Many are unhappy with how President Obama began his term, but it is how he finishes that will matter most!
Derek
I don’t think Obama is a Muslim, but I don’t know how you can be a Christian and say this: “So, I have a deep faith. I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place.” In this same interview, he went on to quote John 14:6, so he can’t claim ignorance about that passage.
By the way, I’ve critized G W for making similar comments. Obama is a universalist, like many other presidents before him.
Christiane
Hi Derek,
I don’t believe that the Christian concept of ‘exclusiveness’ as expressed by many Southern Baptist conservative Christians is the norm for Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, and some mainline Protestant denominations.
I, myself, never heard of the concept of the ‘exclusiveness’ of Christ before reading about it on a Baptist blog.
Likely, President Obama’s Christian upbringing did not follow the doctrine of ‘exclusivity’.
Josh Bramer
Christiane,
Your assertion about ‘exclusiveness’ being exclusively a Southern Baptist teaching is just false. The doctrine of exclusivity is foundational for literally ALL of the denominations you mentioned.
Let’s take Lutherans for example, the IV Article of the Augsburg confession states specifically that it is by faith in Jesus Christ that one is saved. I know many Catholics (my wife being raised as one), who were taught that doctrine growing up. I am in a “mainline Protestant denomination” and I have heard that my whole life.
The idea that there are “many paths to God” is out of line with orthodox Christianity.
Derek
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
– Acts 4:12