Sen. Obama's beliefs about the relationship between politics and religion...
...are of interest to more than a few people and have been under a lot of scrutiny lately. They are also rather inconsistent and heavily biased against religion, writes Dr. Francis Beckwith over on the "What's Wrong With the World" blog, who analyzes a 2006 address given by Sen. Obama and concludes:
He seems to be telling us that in order for religious citizens to fully participate in our democratic regime they must use the language of those who are hostile or indifferent to their faith. Notice that the senator does not say that democracy demands that the secularist translate his policy proposals into the language of theology so that his religious neighbors could be appropriately convinced and thus not be marginalized from the public conversation. For Senator Obama it is a one-way street: the religious citizen must acquiesce at every turn to the rules provided to him by the secularist. And if he objects to this arrangement, he must offer arguments in the language and grammar of the secularist. For Senator Obama, we should, in the words of Jesus, "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and given unto God what is God's," but with one small caveat: the authority who has absolute discretion over the two spheres is Caesar, who may only be spoken to in the language of Caesar.
• The Case Against Abortion | An Interview with Dr. Francis Beckwith (Ignatius Insight, Dec. 2007)
• Answering The Call To Full Communion | An Interview with Dr. Francis Beckwith (Ignatius Insight, June 2007)
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