Texas Faith : Does President Obama need to “own God?”

Presidents need not wear God on their sleeves, if God is natural to them; it will come through, if not so what? We are looking at their ability to keep Americans together and not run a theological seminary. Neither are we looking for them to make laws to establish or prohibit the free exercise of religion.

TEXAS FAITH: Does President Obama need to “own God?”

Sally Quinn minced no words after the presidential debate Wednesday. She wrote on the Washington Post’s On Faith blog that Barack Obama handed Mitt Romney “the God vote.”

Said Quinn:

“When Mitt Romney mentioned the ‘Creator’ in the debate Wednesday, he owned it. ‘We’re all children of the same God,’ he said. That’s about 85 percent of the country he was talking to. That should have been President Obama’s constituency but he let Romney have it as he let Romney have the debate.”

In the rest of her commentary, she gets into how Republicans have tried to “own God” like they once tried to own the flag. You can read it at this link.

The most provocative part, I thought, was her conclusion:” There was Obama– grim faced, nervous, fumbling his words and wearing his American flag pin — letting Romney, confident and aggressive and in control, roll right over him at every turn. But the God thing clinched it. If Obama wants to win the next debate, he needs to wear God, as much as it offends him to do so, the same way he captured the flag for this one.”

What do you think? Does the president need to “wear God?”

MIKE GHOUSE, PRESIDENT, FOUNDATION FOR PLURALISM

What happened in the first debate was an aberration; it was neither Romney nor Obama we knew. Indeed, God is part of their daily lives, and both of them will invoke God in the next debate as a part of their routine and not as a monkey see monkey do thing.

As a pluralist, I was pleased with Romney’s clarity about God, ““We’re all children of the same God,” indeed, it was a breath of fresh air to hear him talk in that tone.

President Obama firmly believes in God, and his speech on Faith and politics delivered on June 28, 2006 as a Senator is a testimony of his pluralistic credentials. Indeed, he opens his God umbrella to accommodate varying beliefs, and it is natural for him to address God in the most universalistic terms that are acceptable to most Americans.

A few abstracts from Obama’s speech, “We live in a pluralistic society, that I can’t impose my religious views on another that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois; I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people; I too came to realize that something was missing – that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart and alone; But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.”

The religious crowd that wears God on their sleeves prefers to be lied to than to be truthful, they like their God to be their exclusive property, and find it hard to universalize God.

Presidents need not wear God on their sleeves, if God is natural to them; it will come through, if not so what? We are looking at their ability to keep Americans together and not run a theological seminary. Neither are we looking for them to make laws to establish or prohibit the free exercise of religion.

This is the first time in two years that I missed the article on time, it instead appears in the comments column this time.

Texas faith is a weekly column, where panelists from different traditions respond to the issues of the day - for all the responses, please visit Dallas Morning News at http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/2012/10/texas-faith-does-president-obama-need-to-own-god.html/

Mike Ghouse is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a professional speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, civic affairs, Islam, India, Israel, peace and justice. Mike is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News and regularly at Huffington post, and several other periodicals across the world. The blog www.TheGhousediary.com is updated daily