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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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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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"Is Obama the Wrong Kind of Christian?–CNN
Is CNN the wrong kind of news?
They have an agenda to keep Obama in office. Afraid it may not come to pass for them this time around.
Of corse he's the wrong sort of US style Christian. He is fundamentally decent, intelligent, thoughtful, considerate and compassionate and and BTW, black.
To all those "compasionate conservative white evangleicals not only is Pres. Obama the "wrong" kind of chrizzjun" but he's also the wrong color to be living in what they consider their "White-Only House" on Pennsylvania Ave.
Anyone who thought that electing our first non-white POTUS was progress on race has been proven wrong...Even though he was elected it only proved to shine a spot light on how really, really deep, vile and raw the hate of white christians runs for people of color.
Thank God that S/He gave us The Buddha!
Obama is never a Christian, just pretend to be one. He was raised as a muslim and influenced by his father who hated the white (although he had one as wife) and the western culture. Obama's policy is anti-christian and everything he does and says illustrate this, but on the other hand, he embraces the muslims . He can't stop apologizing for what U.S.A is supposed to be guilty of. Did he voice any condemnation and anger when the muslims burned the Chistian churches in Egypt and other muslim countries? Nop! However, he was outraged when somebody made any negative comment on Islam and Mohammed, and rushed to apologize again to the muslims. I have never seen the President of U.S.A apologizing to the muslims so frequently and regularly. U.S is supposed to be the only Superpower left!!
Obama's policies are designed to change America to a Socialist State by increasing state control of all walks of life, redistributions of wealth by stealing (taxing) from the hard working people and handling out to those who think those who have should share with them. If Socialism is a great system, you would not have seen the collapse of Soviet Union and China changing its system to free enterprise one. Withe the Socialist system, , China was in a state of near collapse with poverty strife and famines. Now, since it changes to the Capitalist one, it has emerged to the second world economic power with rising national wealth. When you kill the incentive to work hard and the government takes away wealth from those who have to redistribute to the have-not, you would see at the end of the day, a society where there will be equality – everybody will be poor!! If Obama continues his failed policies for four more years, U.S.A will be like one of those western countries such as Greece and Spain.
make love elsewhere
The only kind of "trickle-down" that actually works:
"newterminator" degenerates to:
"Douglas" degenerates to:
"pervert alert" degenerates to:
"Taskmaster" degenerates to:
"Ronald Regonzo" degenerates to:
"truth be told" degenerates to:
"Atheism is not healthy ..." degenerates to:
"tina" degenerates to:
"captain america" degenerates to:
"just sayin" degenerates to:
"nope" degenerates to:
"WOW" degenerates to:
"!" degenerates to:
and many other names, but of course I prefer to refer to this extreme homophobe as
the disgruntled Evangelical Fortune Cookie Co. writer boot camp flunkie.
The religious right is the reason I became an atheist.
Ignorance seems to be a hallmark of the 'faithful'.
This is a load of garbage. All Lies. If you think that it is a Christian value to allow the Republican party to fill your head with propaganda– you are wrong.
Obama shows us every day by his actions that he is, in fact, a Christian. Romney is not a Christian, and doesn't act like one.
The President is exactly the right kind of Christian – one who actually follows the words of Jesus Christ. Read Matthew 25 if you don't know what I mean. Also read the Sermon on the Mount and the rest of the Gospels.
What billionaire on Romney's side bought and paid for this article? Trying to make Religion a bigger wedge issue? Keep the magic out of the show, lets keep it real for the kids.
Did you even bother to read the article?
I did not vote him but the reason was not based on his religion or his color. It was based on the fact that he did not emit the right type of loyalty to the United States as a nation. Since then he has done every thing in his power to bring Islam to the United States. When a faction of people say they want to ANNIHILATE the United States, Great Britian, Jews and Christians, I would say they are telling us that they are the enemy. And so my gut said this man would undermine the very foundation of the United States and he has. He has passed many important pieces of legislation without proper steps... usurping his power and creating situations where many Americans can be isolated and imprisoned... a genocide. He has introduced a Health Bill no one understands, but every one will bear the financial burden to try and pay of a national debt that he has increased to where your head spins in disbelief. I didn't vote for him the first time, and I won't vote for him now.
Loved the article. It encompasses what I have always thought of Obama. He is a true champion of the poor and middle class. We should be lucky to have him in office watching our backs!
You don't have to be a Christian to have a moral code-Obama has neither a religion nor a moral code! His beliefs in doing ANYTHING–to promote himself politically-goes against every organized religion that I know of and most pagan belief systems as well!
You must be very much in with Satan's crowd by the sound of your relationships
Without reading the comments I imagine there will be quite a few posts referring to the time when he called himself a Muslim
And had to be corrected by the pundit interviewing him.
Take that as you will but the church in Acts; sold all of thier possessions and lived with one another dividing it up
To each as he had a need...sounds pretty socialist to me...
He seldoms attends church, unless he and Michelle want a photo op holding hand while walking across the park to the closest church. His church is usually the golf course at 9:00 am on Sunday mornings.
Poor excuse to call himself a Christian.
Will do anytihing for publicity
The only kind of "trickle-down" that actually works:
"James" degenerates to:
"pervert alert" degenerates to:
"Taskmaster" degenerates to:
"Ronald Regonzo" degenerates to:
"truth be told" degenerates to:
"Atheism is not healthy ..." degenerates to:
"tina" degenerates to:
"captain america" degenerates to:
"just sayin" degenerates to:
"nope" degenerates to:
"WOW" degenerates to:
"!" degenerates to:
and many other names, but of course I prefer to refer to this extreme homophobe as
the disgruntled Evangelical Fortune Cookie Co. writer boot camp flunkie.
Good description of the Bush's.
Get your number tatooed on your forhead at the Republican Taliban office nearest you.
All hail the lord our savoir Barack Hussein Obama, He will deliver us from the Evil capitalist empire that oppresses Those who believe in him. He is the Christ! Kneel and pry for his forgiveness!
The only kind of "trickle-down" that actually works:
"Theseeker" denerates to:
"Douglas" degenerates to:
"pervert alert" degenerates to:
"Taskmaster" degenerates to:
"Ronald Regonzo" degenerates to:
"truth be told" degenerates to:
"Atheism is not healthy ..." degenerates to:
"tina" degenerates to:
"captain america" degenerates to:
"just sayin" degenerates to:
"nope" degenerates to:
"WOW" degenerates to:
"!" degenerates to:
and many other names, but of course I prefer to refer to this extreme homophobe as
the disgruntled Evangelical Fortune Cookie Co. writer boot camp flunkie.
"Judge not, lest ye be judged??? After not even reading this article – that's all that comes to this 'programmed' mind! and I won't read this input, still.
Who cares what kind of fantasy he believes in? Religion brings hatred, bigotry, war, and ignorance into the world. Those who partake in organized religion only further these problems.
Atheism sucks.
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 privileges without a smidgen of guilt.
Pretty accurate.
Peace...
Very true. The christianity practiced in America these days is only a fraction of what is in the bible. Funny how christians claim to follow the teachings of the bible yet they pick and choose which ones they like.
Oh good Lord....only this kind of garbage is a "story". I'm sure Bush was the right kind of Christian, with his pointless war killing MILLIONS of innocent people.
It's a good thing we're all going to die in 2 mos 😀
@me
Yes... let's not forget about that pesky Mayan Calendar ! 😀
Peace...
Not so fast, it's not Bush's fault. God told Bush to go to war.
@Ting
Excellent ! 😀
Peace...
I dont care if he is a Chrisitan or not, I care that he sold me a bag of lies in 2008, has been Bush 2.0 when it comes to war mongering and being a puppet of Wall Street and I care that he promised to cut the deficit in half and we are now over 16 trillion in debt. These are the important issues.
Haven't read the other posts yet, but wanted to thank the author for helping me understand why the faith I grew up has turned into a culture of separation and dislike. I gave up membership in the organized church years ago, they were too judgmental and divisive, but never lost my faith. As a senior woman I would never have thought to embrace the African-American church, but clearly I have been looking in the wrong places. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can only pray Mr. Obama and others like him will lead us back into the light
I'm not hypocritical enough to BE religious. Without religion, we'd be a much happier world!
All hail the lord our savoir Barack Hussein Obama, He will deliver us from the Evil capitalist empire that oppresses Those who believe in him. He is the Christ! Kneel and pry for his forgiveness!
HE IS NOT A CHRISTIAN!!! Christians dont bow before the Saudi King!!!
so trueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
How right you are. True Christians bow to the Princes of Wall Street.
The only kind of "trickle-down" that actually works:
"k" denerates to:
Alejandaa degenerates to:
"Douglas" degenerates to:
"pervert alert" degenerates to:
"Taskmaster" degenerates to:
"Ronald Regonzo" degenerates to:
"truth be told" degenerates to:
"Atheism is not healthy ..." degenerates to:
"tina" degenerates to:
"captain america" degenerates to:
"just sayin" degenerates to:
"nope" degenerates to:
"WOW" degenerates to:
"!" degenerates to:
and many other names, but of course I prefer to refer to this extreme homophobe as
the disgruntled Evangelical Fortune Cookie Co. writer boot camp flunkie.
It's called showing respect, idiot.
But I'm sure you're ALL about that, right...
Not many US leaders respect the ninth commandment.
AMEN !!!!!!!!!
Actually, a true Christian would show respect to the culture of any country they are a guest in. A polite person visiting any monarchy and meeting it's ruler would bow out of respect. Just because someone is from a different culture does not mean they are of less worth or that their customs should not be observed. "when in Rome..." If the Saudi King met the Pope, the same courtesy would be expected...
Stop blaming just Obama.All of you Americans are fake christians. You have no idea thae meaning of god.
No honey, they hold hands with them......
using Pastor Cass's analogy in a different way. Just because you go to church and call yourself a christian does not make you a true follower of Jesus Christ and in today's churches there are very few real followers of Christ.
Plenty of video showing Shrub bowing to and holding hands with King Fahd. Don't hear anybody on the right calling out treason.
It does not matter what kind of Christian he is he still worships a mass murdering terrorist.
"And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead." (Exodus 12:29-30)
(terrorism – killing those with no political power to force political change by those with political power)
Terrorism includes hurting or harming, not just killing. And you just defined the US political system and "Citizens United".