From MSBC.com
From MSBC.com
President Obama delivered an intense reflection on his Christian faith last week, telling hundreds gathered at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington how religion sustains him amid the trials of the office — and against attacks on his faith — and providing both an explanation and a defense of how Christianity informs his view of the bitterly contested role of government in society.
In elaborating on the practices and tenets of his personal faith life — something the president is increasingly doing to combat suspicions that he is not a Christian or a genuine believer — Obama said his daily prayer has deepened during the travails of the first two years of his term.
And the first thing he prays for, he said, is “to help those who are struggling.”
The president said he grounds that prayer in the biblical injunctions of the Old Testament prophets and the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels, and explained how the Scripture-based struggle for social justice by churches on the South Side of Chicago first brought him into public service.
That combination of faith and activism, he said, continues to shape his political outlook and his approach to the economic challenges facing the country. While reiterating his support for government promotion of faith-based initiatives, Obama argued that goodwill and good intentions are too limited by the resources and expertise of private groups.
“There’s only so much a church can do to help all the families in need — all those who need help making a mortgage payment, or avoiding foreclosure, or making sure their child can go to college,” the president told the politicos and pastors gathered at the Washington Hilton. “There’s only so much that a nonprofit can do to help a community rebuild in the wake of disaster. There’s only so much the private sector will do to help folks who are desperately sick get the care that they need.
“And that’s why I continue to believe that in a caring and in a just society, government must have a role to play; that our values, our love and our charity must find expression not just in our families, not just in our places of work and our places of worship, but also in our government and in our politics,” he said.
Obama pointed out that the role of government in these areas has sparked fierce debates “as one side’s version of compassion and community may be interpreted by the other side as an oppressive and irresponsible expansion of the state or an unacceptable restriction on individual freedom.”
That is why, he said, the second thing he prays for is humility.
“God answered the prayer early on by having me marry Michelle,” he said, one of several lighthearted asides that drew laughter. (The president also said he prayed that the hem on his daughter Malia’s dress would grow longer as he watched her head off to her first dance.)
But humility is especially important in politics, he said, “when debates have become so bitter,” because we must recognize that “none of us has all the answers.” He repeatedly cited Scripture to reinforce his belief that only God has perfect knowledge.
“The challenge I find then is to balance this uncertainty, this humility, with the need to fight for deeply held convictions, to be open to other points of view but firm in our core principles. And I pray for this wisdom every day,” he continued.
“I pray that God will show me and all of us the limits of our understanding and open our ears and our hearts to our brothers and sisters with different points of view, that such reminders of our shared hopes and our shared dreams and our shared limitations as children of God will reveal a way forward that we can travel together.”
That message played into the theme of civility in public life that has been a constant trope for Obama, but one that has gained prominence and urgency since last month’s shooting rampage in Tucson that killed six people — one of them a 9-year-old girl — and left 13 wounded, including the accused shooter’s prime target, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Obama’s sermon-like speech at a memorial service in Tucson a few days later was very well-received, and many conservatives singled out for praise the president’s biblically-inspired message.
Giffords, who survived a bullet through the brain, is currently in a rehabilitation facility in Houston, and on Thursday her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, provided the emotional ending to an intense morning by offering the closing prayer.
