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 President Obama is not just a racial trailblazer, but some say a religious pioneer as well. No president has ever shared his type of Christianity, historians say. Some say he may revive a form of Christianity that once dominated America.
October 21st, 2012
06:59 AM ET
The Gospel according to ObamaBy John Blake, CNN President Barack Obama was sharing a pulpit one day with a conservative Christian leader when a revealing exchange took place. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a conservative Christian who has taken public stands against abortion and same-sex marriage, had joined Obama for an AIDS summit. They were speaking before a conservative megachurch filled with white evangelicals. When Brownback rose to speak, he joked that he had joined Obama earlier at an NAACP meeting where Obama was treated like Elvis and he was virtually ignored. Turning to Obama, a smiling Brownback said, “Welcome to my house!” The audience exploded with laughter and applause. Obama rose, walked before the congregation and then declared: “There is one thing I have to say, Sam. This is my house, too. This is God’s house.” Historians may remember Obama as the nation’s first black president, but he’s also a religious pioneer. He’s not only changed people’s perception of who can be president, some scholars and pastors say, but he’s also expanding the definition of who can be a Christian by challenging the religious right’s domination of the national stage. When Obama invoked Jesus to support same-sex marriage, framed health care as a moral imperative to care for “the least of these,’’ and once urged people to read their Bible but just not literally, he was invoking another Christian tradition that once dominated American public life so much that it gave the nation its first megachurches, historians say. “Barack Obama has referred to his faith more times than most presidents ever have, but for many it’s the wrong kind of faith,” says Jim Wallis, head of Sojourners, an evangelical activist group based in Washington that focuses on poverty and social justice issues. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter “It is not the faith of the religious right. It’s about things that they don’t talk about. It’s about how the Bible is full of God’s clear instruction to care for the poor.” Some see a 'different' kind of Christian Obama is a progressive Christian who blends the emotional fire of the African-American church, the ecumenical outlook of contemporary Protestantism, and the activism of the Social Gospel, a late 19th-century movement whose leaders faulted American churches for focusing too much on personal salvation while ignoring the conditions that led to pervasive poverty. No other president has shared the hybrid faith that Obama displays, says Diana Butler Bass, a historian and author of “Christianity after Religion.” “The kind of faith that Obama articulates is not the sort of Christianity that’s understood by the media or by a large swath of Christians in the U.S.,” says Bass, a progressive Christian. “He’s a different kind of Christian, and the media and the public awareness needs to reawaken to that fact.” Some Christians, however, still see Obama as the “other.” He doesn’t act or talk like other Christians, says the Rev. Gary Cass, a conservative Christian president of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. “I just don’t see or hear in his accounts the kind of things that I’ve heard as a minister for over 25 years coming from the mouths of people who have genuinely converted to Christianity,” says Cass, pastor of Christ Church in San Diego. Cass says he’s never heard Obama say he’s “born-again.” There’s no emotional conversion story to hang onto. Obama talks about his faith and attends church, but Cass says that doesn’t mean he’s a Christian. “Joining a church doesn’t mean you’re a Christian. “You can put me in the garage, but that doesn’t turn me into a car.” The origins of Obama’s faith The suspicion about Obama’s faith may seem odd at first because he’s written and spoken so much about his spiritual evolution in his two autobiographies, “Dreams of my Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.” Other books, like “The Faith of Obama” by Stephen Mansfield, also explore Obama’s beliefs.  The 1925 “Monkey” trial of John Scopes, a high school biology teacher who taught evolution, drove fundamentalists underground, some say. Mansfield says Obama is the first president who wasn’t raised in a Christian home. Obama’s mother was an atheist and his grandparents were religious skeptics (Obama’s family has challenged the description of his mother as an atheist. Obama called her “the most spiritually awakened” person he’d ever known, and his sister called their mother an agnostic). CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories Mansfield called Obama’s boyhood a “religious swirl. He was exposed to Catholicism, Islam, and strains of Hinduism and Buddhism while growing up in Indonesia during the 1960s. “In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology,” Obama said in Mansfield’s book. “On Easter or Christmas Day, my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.” Obama became a Christian while he was a community organizer in Chicago. He joined a predominantly black United Church of Christ. The UCC became the first mainline Protestant denomination to officially support same-sex marriage in 2005. Obama’s faith showed many of the elements of a liberal Protestant church: an emphasis on the separation of church and state, religious tolerance and the refusal to embrace a literal reading of the Bible. In a 2006 speech before a Sojourners meeting, Obama talked about his approach to the Bible: “Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?” When many people think of Obama’s religious experience in Chicago, though, they cite his exposure to the angry sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and “black liberation theology,” a movement that emerged in the late 1960s and blended the Social Gospel with the black power movement. Bass, the church historian, says another black pastor shaped Obama’s theology more: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He attended liberal Protestant seminaries where he learned about the Social Gospel’s concern for the entire person, soul and body.  Obama has reached out to evangelical leaders like Rick Warren, seen here praying at Obama’s inauguration, but many still doubt his faith. King once wrote that “any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them …is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.” But King and the black church also fused the Social Gospel with an emotional fervor missing from white Protestant churches, Bass says. Other presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were influenced by the Social Gospel, but they weren’t shaped by the black church. “This is the first time we’re hearing the Social Gospel from the perspective of the black church from the Oval Office. It makes it warmer, more emotive, more communal," Bass says. "There is less fear of linking the Social Gospel with the stories of the Bible, especially the stories of Exodus and Jesus’ healings.” The emphasis on community uplift - not individual attainment - may strike some Americans as socialist. But the emphasis on community is part of King’s “Beloved Community,” Bass says. King once wrote that all people are caught up in an “inescapable network of mutuality… I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be.” “When I listen to Obama, I don’t hear communism, I hear the Beloved Community,” Bass says. “But a lot of white Americans don’t hear that because they never sat in those churches and heard it over and over again. It’s the whole theology that motivated MLK and the civil rights movement.” Obama is not a Christian, some think For some, Obama’s actions in the Oval Office seem to contradict Christianity. Jesus was nonviolent. Obama has ramped up drone attacks in Afghanistan that have not only removed terrorists, but killed civilians. The Bible talks about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. Obama invoked Jesus when he came out in support of same-sex marriage. “The thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule," Obama told ABC News during his announcement. Jesus talked about helping the poor. But he never said anything about creating a massive health care law that taxed the rich to help the poor, some Christians argue. But Wallis of Sojourners says Obama’s push for health care was a supreme example of Christian faith. A situation where 50 million Americans don’t have health insurance is “a fundamental Christian problem,” Wallis says. “Health is such a Gospel issue. Jesus was involved in healing all the time, and to have some people excluded from health care because they lack wealth is a fundamental Christian contradiction.” Wallis has been one of the most persistent defenders of Obama’s faith. But no matter how much Scripture he and others cite, doubts about Obama’s faith have followed him throughout his political career. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson once said that Obama distorted the traditional understanding of the Bible “to fit his own world, his own confused theology.” The Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, publicly questioned Obama’s faith, then later apologized. Conservative Christian books and websites are filled with stories of Obama allegedly trying to suppress the nation’s Christian heritage. The Rev. Steven Andrew, author of “Making a Strong Nation,” says Obama is trying to change the national motto from “In God we Trust” to “Out of Many, One,” and he’s ordered the Pentagon to remove biblical verses from its daily report. “That’s the most serious thing someone can do to a nation, trying to separate a nation from God,” he says. “He seems to be trying to change the Christian laws our Founding Fathers made.” Andrew says Obama is actually an enemy of Christianity. In his book, Andrew argues that the Founding Fathers were Christians who created a “covenant Christian nation” and calls for a “national repentance.” “I think he’s an anti-Christ,” Andrew says. Cass, of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, says Obama’s emphasis on helping the poor through social justice isn’t Christianity. Christians who talk about “social justice” are often practicing “warmed-over Marxism,” Cass says. “Do I believe in caring for the poor and oppressed? Yes. But you don’t do it along the lines of communistic redistributing.” Obama’s support of same-sex marriage and abortion rights also disqualifies him from being a Christian, Cass says. “It’s the most pro-abortion administration in the history of America. On every social issue – the sanctity of life and of marriage between men and women – Obama is on the wrong side of every moral issue,” he says. He says a progressive Christian is a contradiction. “No Christian says I believe in Jesus Christ and I reject the Bible,” Cass says. “These progressives who say they’re Christians are liars. They’re using Christianity as a guise to advance their own agenda.” Cass says he doesn’t know what Obama believes. “He’s conflicted,” Cass says. “He has Muslim sympathies from his upbringing." How progressive Christianity lost the public square There was a time when Obama’s brand of Christianity would have been understood by millions of Americans, historians say.  Obama along with first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha leave church after attending a Sunday prayer service. The Social Gospel and progressive Protestantism dominated the American religious square from the end of the 19th century up to the 1960s. At times, the traditions blended together so seamlessly that it was hard to tell the difference. The Social Gospel rose out of the excesses of the Gilded Age in the 1880s, when urban poverty spread across America as immigrants crammed into filthy slums to work long hours in unsafe conditions. Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist pastor in a New York slum, urged the church to take “social sins” as seriously as they took individual vices. Churches began feeding the poor and fighting against other social ills. “The notion that religious people should be about feeding the poor and helping the homeless is a carryover of the Social Gospel,” says Charles Kammer, a religion professor at Wooster College in Ohio. The Social Gospel was adopted by many Protestant churches in the late 19th and early 20th century, says Bass, the church historian. Some of the Social Gospel churches grew popular because they provided the poor with everything from English classes to sewing instructions and basketball leagues. “The first American megachurches were liberal, Social Gospel urban churches,” Bass says. The Social Gospel, though, sparked a backlash from a group of pastors during World War I. They were called fundamentalists. They published a pamphlet listing the “fundamentals of the faith:” Biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth, Adam and Eve. But the fundamentalists lost the battle for public opinion during the “Scopes Monkey Trial” in 1925. John Scopes, a high school science teacher, was tried for violating a Tennessee law that prohibited the teaching of evolution. Though Scopes lost, fundamentalist Christians were mocked in the press as “anti-intellectual rubes,” and a number of states suspended pending legislation that would have made teaching evolution illegal, says David Felten, author of “Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity.” The trial drove fundamentalists underground where they created a subculture, their own media networks, seminaries and megachurches, he says. That subculture thrives today, Felten says, and has infiltrated the political arena. It has created an “alternative intellectual universe” that denies science, rational thought – and any beliefs that violate their definition of being a Christian, Felten says. “They have millions of adherents who believe in a literal six day creation and a literal Adam and Eve – so it’s not a stretch to believe that President Obama is a Kenyan-born secret Muslim bent on destroying the country,” Felten says. Progressive Christians eventually lost the messaging wars to this fundamentalist subculture, Bass says. Their nuanced view of faith couldn’t compete with the “spiritual triumphalism” of conservatives. “If you get up and say we’re right and we have the truth, then you have a powerful public message,” she says. “They have a theological advantage in the public discourse. It’s comforting to have things clear, to have things black and white.” The result today is that the Protestant tradition that shapes much of Obama’s Christianity is fading from public view. The share of Protestant Christians in the United States has dropped below 50% of the population, according to a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. White mainline Protestants make up only 15% of the nation’s population, the survey revealed. The study also found that the fastest growing "religious group" in the country is people who are not affiliated with any religion. Another generation of Christians, though, may bring a new version of progressive Christianity back. The lines between younger conservative Christians and progressives are blurring, says Marcia Pally, author of “The New Evangelicals: Expanding the Vision of the Common Good.” Pally spent six years traveling across America to interview evangelicals. She says her research revealed that more than 60% of young evangelicals support more governmental programs to aid the needy, as well as more emphasis on economic justice and environmental protection issues. “What’s interesting is that these values, associated with Obama and the black Protestant tradition are now also the values of a growing number of white evangelicals,” she says. Her perspective suggests that Obama’s faith may be treated by history in two ways: He could be seen as the last embodiment of a progressive version of Christianity that went obsolete. Or he could be seen as a leader who helped resurrect a dying brand of Christianity for a new generation. soundoff (8,626 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 Next »
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  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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"he doesn't talk or act like other Christians"...yeah, he can actually hold a coherent logical conversation freely utilizing his God given rational mind, using advanced vocabulary and complex well organized thoughts that have been influenced by the world around him.
Exactly correct. That's how he has gotten as far as he has ....... by double talking people and getting them to help him. I learned early on that as long as he was not an "angry" black man, people would help him because it made THEM feel good. No matter how he did it, he is still actually anti-American and is doing his best to make the Muslim countries stronger than we are.
You're right, it just begs the question, why can't he do any of those things??
It's foolish to believe that a Man's religious beliefs should not be considered when he is running for a public office of any kind. You may never know who the person really is or his true values. At least knowing his religion you have some sort of concept of what he believes in. I find it very sad days in the U.S.A. when we have stooped to a new low of voting for the party and not the man. For decades Mormonism has never been considered a denomination or any form of a Christian church. The opinion of this group has always leaned more towards it being an occult. You average Christian is going to vote for Republican with out asking and researching the simple questions of what is Mormonism? Who is Joseph Smith? Yet we are going to get into a argument over Obama's belief's in caring for his fellow man and call this belief socialism. Ignorance is at a all time high when it is so easy to find good solid information on all religions,
I live in Louisiania, and in the South, Mormonism has ALWAYS been considered a cult. I never thought I'd see the day when a candidate who says he is a Christian is summarily dismissed for not only a Mormon, but a PROUD MORMON, who dares anyone to speak of his faith.
Obama the antichrist? Apparently, those accusing him of being such has never read the Bible, neither have they read the Book of Mormon. If anything, the Mormon White Horse Prophecy comes a heck of a lot closer to heralding the coming of an antichrist from their flocks than many realize. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe.
I couldn't disagree more. Most religious beliefs exist in order for leaders to overcome a follower's proper conscience. e.g. "Christian soldiers". Most US religions only teach their own "cut and paste" version of the bible, so that they can enjoy their excess wealth, contrary selfishness, prejudice and privledges without a smidgen of guilt.
I couldn't agree more. Simply reading this article and remembering that people of faith are questioning another persons faith is like a kick in the gut. ""Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."" How do you question a person who states I am a Christian, and lives that life? And why?
I am a white 58 year old southerner who has seen and heard more racism in my lifetime than I care to remember and will always believe that the hate for the President is deep seated racism, a core belief and shock that someone can be non-white and elected.
president
My BELIEF, as the article starts out as, is that that man is NOT representing the Americans, be they Black, White, Red, Brown, or Yellow. He is a puppet of the Brain Bridge Group, the Triad Group, and New World Order. He was groomed by them, supported by them, and put into office by them. Even Greenspan, Clinton, Gore, Bushe's, and George Sorous and about 250 other world individuals who are multibillionairs are members of the Brain Bridge Group who are the Banking Ruling Class that is taking over World Political Control of each country. Look around you and see what is happening. It is not money they are after, it is the power.
Ask the media how they were shuffled onto the press planes and diverted away from a meeting of the Brainbridge Group in Washington DC with a lie that Obama would be on board and then at departure time when everyone was on board, they shut the doors and away they go without him. Is that not kidnapping? This group does not, like the FED, does not answer to the same laws that we do, they ignor them and have their own security to keep us away from their power meetings where world events are created and controlled by them.
THE ARTICLE STARTS WITH:
" Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a conservative Christian who has taken public stands against abortion and same-s-ex marriage, had joined Obama for an AIDS summit. They were speaking before a conservative megachurch filled with white evangelicals.
When Brownback rose to speak, he joked that he had joined Obama earlier at an NAACP meeting where Obama was treated like Elvis and he was virtually ignored. Turning to Obama, a smiling Brownback said, “Welcome to my house!”
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What an absolute fvcking idiot (Gov. Sam Brownback).
Good grief.
Peace...
I used to trust the media
To tell me the truth, tell us the truth
But now I've seen the payoffs
Everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyones a crook?
Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Revolution calling you
there's a revolution calling
Revolution calling
Gotta make a change
Gotta push, gotta push it on through
~Queensryche nuff said...
This is my last post for CNN. I'm going to delete my CNN app from my phone. They can no longer be trusted as a reliable source. Clearly, they were paid off by the Republicans to smash Obama; I mean really, this is headline news? Whatever, you're not fooling me...
We need to grow up and out of religion.
Your headline for this piece is offensive. There is no "WRONG" kind of Christian. I don't believe any two Christians are exactly the same in their beliefs.
Some ways to balance the budget:
How much money would the following save the US taxpayers ?: And how many “souls” would be saved?
Saving 1.5 billion lost Muslims:
There never were and never will be any angels i.e. no Gabriel, no Islam and therefore no more koranic-driven acts of horror and terror LIKE 9/11.
– One trillion dollars over the next several years as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will end.
– Eighteen billion dollars/yr to Pakistan will stop.
– Four billion dollars/yr to Egypt will end.
Saving 2 billion lost Christians including the Mormons:
There were never any bodily resurrections and there will never be any bodily resurrections i.e. No Easter, no Christianity!!!
– The Mormon empire will now become taxable as will all Christian "religions" and evangelical non-profits since there is no longer any claim to being a tax-exempt religion.
– the faith-based federal projects supported by both Bush and Obama will be eliminated saving $385 million/yr and another $2 billion/yr in grants.
– Saving 15.5 million Orthodox followers of Judaism:
Abraham and Moses as best one can determine never existed.
– Four billion dollars/yr to Israel saved.
– All Jewish sects and non-profits will no longer be tax exempt.
Now all we need to do is convince these 3.5+ billion global and local citizens that they have been conned all these centuries Time for a YouTube,Twitter and FaceBook campaign!!!!
Amazing how a rational person would believe that we are "saving" money by ending wars that we borrowed the money to pay for. I didn't borrow $100,000 today, so therefore I saved $100,000?
Even more amazing that a "rational" person would perpetuate the lie regarding the inscription on the President's ring – right ?
The borrowing for paying for all aspects of the federal government stops therefore the principal on our current loans no longer increases and we start paying down our debt currently in the range of $16 trillion.
Conservatives, give up. Obama is far more of a CHristian than you will ever be. He had/has only 1 wife, never divorced, unlike Newt Adulterich, et al.
Yes, because Newt is everyone's favorite GOP huh? Just got home from watching Newt in my pulpit! Please! Glad you picked Newt out of that. We all consider Weiner the Democrat posterchild like you consider Newt.
ONLY FOR THE NEWCOMERS:
Bottom line: Romney is Mormon because he was born Mormon. Should we hold this against him? After all, Obama also believes in "pretty/ugly wingie thingies, bodily resurrections and atonement mumbo jumbo.
Warren Buffett, THE AGNOSTIC, for President !!!!
Bill Gates, THE AGNOSTIC for VP !!!!
One should be voting based on rational thinking. Believing in angels, satans, bodily resurrections, atonement, and heavens of all kinds is irrational.
Apparently, BO and MR have been severely brainwashed in their theologically and historically flawed Christianity and they are too weak to escape its felonious grip.
one of the biggest reasons i'd vote for Obama over Republicans is he's not a christian fundamentalist. the right wing these days are the Christian equivalents to the Taliban, altho less extremist but not too different in their blanket views of how everyone should abide by their beliefs. the problem with these 'types' are they can't confine their beliefs to themselves and want to make them law that everyone must abide by. our Christian right are scary, in fact the most ignorant voter base in our country.
Exactly! And also, lke the Taliban, thy don't practice what they preach. Gingwich divorced and married multiple times (where's the family values?) unlike Obama – a family man. Bible belt states have highest divorce rates and teenage pregnancies (adultery and fornication).
You really need to travel outside the U.S. and find out for yourself how the Taliban really behave.
This is almost like saying don't hate me because I'm black, only it's instead saying don't hate me cause I'm Christian. Instead of important facts about Obama's short downward track record, we get a 'C'mon guys! I'm one of you!' articles. Next time, I suggest you bring the pom poms. The only factory workers you see that go against romney(in numbers) are the ones in unions that have bloated costly systems that cater to over paid ceos and commissions.
Obama is not the Pope. Obamacare was a clear violation of church and state when they required Catholic organizations to pay for things like sterilization, something the church is morally against. Even members of his staff (mainly Panetta) were against it. But he went “forward”. He only backed off after he realized he would lose the Catholic vote in Ohio where there are still lawsuits outstanding. As President Madison once said: “Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or to infringe the rights of conscience.”
And Pope is not Jesus – a mideastern man.
idiot.
To some CNN is the "wrong" kind of news. What a pile of cr-p for an article.
Wow.. So disappointed in CNN and John Blake for this "news article". Even if a similar article was posted about Romney's religious belief (and there should be an article), John Blake's article is EXTREMELY judgmental and bias.
All I can say is WOW... CNN's creditability is definitely out the door. It appears John wanted to impress his Howard University alumni and classmates with this article on Homecoming weekend.
Sorry though, this is an embarrassment to CNN, Howard University (IS THIS what they taught you about journalist reporting?) and John... really sad..
I would prefer not to know what religion he exercises seeing how religion has no place in politics or government.
Worrying about someone else's religion is EXACTLY what's wrong with religion...
"Conservative Christian" (which is almost synonymous with Capitalist Christian) is an oxymoron and is really the ultimate in hypocrisy.
"Beyond the universe there is nothing and within the universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist. Of all deceivers who have plagued mankind, none are so deeply ruinous to human happiness as those impostors who pretend to lead by a light above nature. Science has never killed or persecuted a single person for doubting or denying its teachings, and most of these teachings have been true; but religion has murdered millions for doubting or denying her dogmas, and most of these dogmas have been false." George. P. Spencer
Tribalism is the basis of all religion. Tribes demand conformity, reject nonconformists, and hate other tribes.
This article is an embarrassment to CNN. I don't know why you want to give voice to the religiously intolerant by blasting "Some call him the anti-Christ" on the front page of your website. It's really quite ridiculous. The faith of a sitting president is a fair news topic, but the timing of this article is suspect, as well as the emphasis on the "wrong" or "different" faith that totally ignores all of the complicated angles of religious faith. Mr. Romney is also not evangelical Christian, but I don't see your "news" organization giving a platform for nutjobs who call him the "wrong" kind of Christian (much less the anti-Christ).
EVERY kind of Christian is considered the WRONG kind of Christian by some OTHER kind of Christian.
If Christianity were really true, wouldn't there be only one flavor of it that they all believed in? Word of God and all that?