Instead, he has worshipped at various churches in the Washington, D.C., area, including the Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, and St. In office, though, Obama has not attended one church regularly. He would place it right beside him, in the small compartment in the passenger side door of the SUV, so he could refer to it often," reported journalist David Mendell in his 2007 biography Obama: From Promise to Power.Īfter the falling-out with Wright, Obama said he intended to find a new church once the campaign was over. "Along his Senate campaign trail (in 2004), Obama would never fail to carry his Christian Bible. Several independent reports have documented Obama's church membership and faith life. The break between the two men was over Wright's comments about American foreign policy and race relations, not tenets of Christian doctrine. The pastor of Trinity then was Jeremiah Wright, the minister from whom Obama distanced himself in the 2008 presidential campaign, after video of some of Wright's more controversial sermons were aired on television and the Internet. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth." But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. "It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. "It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith," Obama said in a 2006 speech. Obama said the churches there impressed him with their commitment to social justice and the hope they gave to the poor. He became a Christian when he was in his 20s while working as a community organizer in Chicago. According to the president's memoirs and independent biographies, Obama was not raised in any particular faith. Our fact-checking also showed clear evidence that Obama is a Christian. All three earned our lowest rating, Pants on Fire. PolitiFact has done extensive fact-checking on Obama's faith and has debunked false claims in chain e-mails that he attended a radical Islamic school, that his political rise mirrored a biblical tale about the Antichrist, and that he took the oath for U.S. "Part of it may just be people being down on Obama and attaching themselves to any label that is perceived as negative." Pollsters say people's beliefs about his religion may actually be an effort to equate him with a faith they dislike.īrendan Nyhan, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, has found that when people are fiercely partisan, they are less likely to change their minds when presented with factually correct evidence that contradicts their views.Ĭalling Obama a Muslim has "become a stand in for 'I don't know who he really is,'" Nyhan said. Americans with the strongest dislike of the Democratic president and his policies are much more likely to say Obama is a Muslim. A Time magazine poll also released last week found even more - 24 percent - said he was a Muslim.ĭig deeply into the polls, however, and you see the roots of misunderstanding and some revealing patterns. The Pew Research Center last week reported that 18 percent of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009. He has worshipped in Christian churches, prayed with Christian ministers, and recounted how he knelt beneath a cross and felt God's spirit.Īnd yet, a surprising number of Americans keep telling pollsters they believe he's a Muslim. President Barack Obama has declared himself a Christian.
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