America’s first secular president was Thomas Jefferson.

Black Adder IV,

I was thinking the same thing. Though I believe Thomas Jefferson had a much firmer grasp of Christianity than President-elect Obama does.

There have been plenty of secular presidents — what is perhaps more apropo is that Obama could be argued to be our first truly post-Christian president, both in terms of his philosophy and the base that brought him into office.

Obama ends the pretention about presidents and religion. Surveying the gents who held the office throughout our previous century, hard to pick out those who one would expect to occupy a church pew out of devotion rather than lookit me see how religious I am during campaigns. Jimmeh Carter is an obvious exception. I sense the lack of enthusiasm from most of you who just read that name. JFK was a hipper cooler kind of Catholic- more like James Bond than Devout Catholic Layman. Bush the Older, Ford, even the Gipper- liked talking to the Big Guy but maybe not formally. Nixon- way too weird. Slick Willie- snicker snicker. Say what you want about the late Jesse Helms, but he saw no need to frequent the Sunday morning chat shows that feature the same old secular humanists or say Nancy Pelosi mangling Catholic theology. Jesse really was in church. Would be fun to see if Rev. Wright becomes the Billy Graham for the new millenium. Stranger things are known to happen.

“Utterly ridiculous….”

Speculation on a President’s religious convictions is utterly ridiculous in what way? Or do you hold that the religious convictions of a leader plays no role in assessing how they will perform their duties and what policies they will adopt? Get used to this Mr. DeFrancisis. The election is over now and Obama is President Elect. Not only his adversaries will be asking probing questions about him now.

Didn’t know being secular was impeachable. But if so, let’s do it.

People too often confuse liberal Protestantism with secularism. Both are rather indifferent to theology and tradition, both advocate abortion and feminism, both preach the “social gospel,” both complain a lot about low-church Evangelical Protestants, both talk like they think Jesus is a Democrat, if not a socialist.

There are distinctions here. Arguably, secularism is liberal Christianity without God. Understand liberal Protestantism, and you understand a lot about secularism, but even then you must consider how differently they act with or without God.

“In the case of President-elect Obama, he has been enlightened by radical anarchists.”

Instead of learning the classics, he learns from Jeremiah Wrigth and Bill Ayers that helped form who he is today. (as examples, that and declining state of the US public education system).

“Though I believe Thomas Jefferson had a much firmer grasp of Christianity than President-elect Obama does.”
No doubt true, Tito, as a well-educated man of his day would have been–but based on my readings of some of his letters I’d say he also succumbed to some pretty flaky theology and questionable theories about Christianity. And his grasp of Christianity didn’t seem to dissuade him from an unseemly enthusiasm for the idea of violent revolt as political purgative.

“Obama ends the pretention about presidents and religion.”
Not sure how that works, Gerald–as far as I can tell the guy is a thorough secularist, yet he makes claim to being a Christian and seems to be able to quote chapter and verse when it suits him. Don’t know what to call that if not pretense.

“If you’re suggesting that black Christianity is a type of “liberal Protestantism,” you’re waaaay off. WAY off.”
Michael, while I make no claim to clairvoyance I think Kevin was suggesting Rev. Wright’s church is a type of liberal Protestantism–not really an arguable point if you ask me. I’ve lived most of my life in the South, myself, and it never occurred to me to view black Christianity as monolithic in anything except perhaps certain points of worship style. I’m not sure why you assume this view.

CMinor,

I agree on Jefferson’s ‘exploration’ of Christianity. He certainly had other influences that shaped his unique view on our faith.

Zach,

I believe there may have been other presidents that have been hostile, but I may be confusing anti-Catholicism with that.

Almost by definition, a UCC church would be the quintessential example of “liberal Protestantism.” Indeed, I was stunned when I first found out that there was a black UCC church — the UCC probably has fewer black people than any other denomination in existence. If not the fewest, they’re certainly in the running.

Anyway, if Michael is interested in “black Christianity,” he needs to widen his experiences. People like TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, etc., are much more representative of black churches in America.

But you labeled it as “black Christianity,” which is way too broad a brush.

“try to respond to what I actually said.”

Well, I did, and you dodged, Iafrate.

Your response to Kevin Jones
“If you’re suggesting that black Christianity is a type of “liberal Protestantism,” you’re waaaay off. WAY off.”
was a pretty obvious. attempt to change the argument. I don’t think you had any reason to assume that he was speaking about anything other than Obama’s specific church background (i.e. Trinity UCC) but you conflated the comment to encompass all of black Christianity. You then backpedaled from your own implication about black Christianity (i.e., that it was not liberal) although black Christianity encompasses many denominations and independent churches (to include some predominantly black urban Catholic churches) and certainly includes everything from the very conservative to the very liberal. I have to conclude that my comment about having never seen black Christianity as monolithic must have hit close to what you wanted to insinuate about Kevin, as your response was to deny having called them monolithic. Granted that you didn’t use that word youself: what you did, however, was to paint all of black Christianity as a single entity when it is not. I can only conclude that you did this because you could not adequately answer the point as it was presented.

I believe a couple of the gentlemen responding above have already dispensed with the issue of whether Obama’s home church qualifies as a “liberal” denomination, so I won’t belabor that point.

You might find your arguments are better received by readers here if you will subscribe to some basic principles of integrity in argumentation. Personally, I’m raising my third and fourth teenagers and am neither fooled by nor have much patience for standard adolescent dirty debate techniques, especially coming from adults.