The religious affiliation of President H(ussein) Barack Obama is unclear. Before the election, he was a member of a sectarian church in Chicago whose pastor gained notoriety by shouting God d*m* the United States from the pulpit. To recite a prayer at his inauguration, Obama chose a homosexual Episcopal cleric, who had “married” his boyfriend in his parish church. On his first Sunday in the White House, he attended St. John’s Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square, which calls itself The Church of the Presidents because so many chief executives have attended it over the years. Since then, Obama has not darkened the door of any Washington church, although when at Camp David, he as taken part in so-called non-denominational services in its rustic chapel.
Americans are not particularly interested in the religious belief’s of their political leaders, many of whom are of the in name only variety. John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic president, went out of his way to assure prospective voters that his religion would not influence his political decisions – including, apparently, his moral behavior. He was a noted womanizer, ordering his minions to recruit woman who caught his eye. Some of our better presidents, Lincoln and Reagan for example, were quite vague about what they believed.
What can be affirmed, however, is that they all grew up in what might be called a Christian Garden. They breathed in, so to speak, a Christian world-view, and how one ought to behave in it.
There are, of course, other influences at work. In Obama’s case, there is the ethos of the south side of Chicago, not noted as particularly principled. The lesbian/homosexual sub-culture has recently been emboldened by Obama’s statements, and a huge number turned out for the Gay Pride marches in large blue-state cities.
Speaking of “blue states”, what is there about the East and West coasts which spawn a plethora of radicals and liberals? The real Americans (if one can use that term) live in the so-called Heartland – where conservative and traditional and religious attitudes still survive. But the acids of modernity are eating away at those attitudes, and it is only a question of time before they fade away and are forgotten. What will it be like to live in thoroughly Secular-Pagan world? – Secular in the sense that it is godless and it is believed that this world is all there is; Pagan, because newly-invented idols will take their place – because Nature abhors a vacuum. Humans must worship something, or someone.
