Obama's religion

It’s probably true that you could get 18 percent of the population to believe just about anything — the earth is flat, we never really sent anyone to the moon, aliens kidnapped the president and replaced him with a clone, etc. So when the Pew Research Center recently found that 18 percent of Americans think President Obama is Muslim, that wasn’t terribly startling to me.

Judging by some of the phone calls and letters I get here each day, I expected it to be much higher. But if you read the Pew study, you’ll find a bunch of interesting things.
The first is that the percentage of people who think Obama is a Muslim is rising (for the record, he is a Christian — remember the Rev. Wright controversy?). For another, a significant 34 percent of Republicans now believe he is a Muslim. This Christian Science Monitor piece examines what might be happening here.
What I found really interesting, however, is that the study revealed divided attitudes, and possible contradictions, about the way Americans feel toward religious expressions by their leaders.
For instance, 48 percent believe Obama relies on his religion to make important decisions about the right amount of time. Only 11 percent believe he relies on it too much, and 21 percent would like to see him rely on religion more. Are any of those who think he is a Muslim in that camp?
I wonder how many people are aware that Obama prays daily, as the White House said? How many believe it?
As for contradictions, 52 percent believe churches should stay out of politics, and yet 61 percent say they agree it is important for members of Congress to have strong religious beliefs, while 37 percent say politicians should express their faith more. Just tell your church to keep quiet, apparently.
And a much higher percentage of people who think Obama is a Muslim disapprove of how he’s doing than those who think he is a Chrstian (although a surprising 26 percent of the “he’s a Muslim” crowd do approve of him).
I’m trying to get a handle on when outward displays of religion became so important in politics. Jimmy Carter was the most outwardly religious president in my youth, but he was an exception. Ronald Reagan was religious but seldom said much about it. Richard Nixon? Well, he did use the Lord’s name a lot, as those tapes revealed.
But it’s clear today that, if you’re a politician, you’d better say a lot about your faith, and your faith had better be Christian.