Liberal Media Bias: Obama a Christian?

Update: This post contains a lot of garbage, so read it primarily for entertainment.

I applaud the attempts of the mainstream media to set the record straight regarding Obama's religion. HOWEVER, in stating that Obama is a Christian, I think the media is overstepping its knowledge to reveal a liberal bias. More importantly, I think they are missing the point.

First, let it be established that the mainstream press takes it as fact that Obama is a Christian. The following quotes come from the first three recognizable news sources (excluding Fox) that showed up in Google News for this story (bold is mine):

• ABC: "The percentage of those asserting that the president is a Christian -- which he is -- has gone down ... "
• Washington Post: "The number of people who now correctly identify Obama as a Christian has dropped to 34 percent ... "
• BBC: "Among Republicans, that number was 34%. Just a third of those quizzed correctly identified Mr Obama as Christian."

Second, let it be established that whether Obama is actually a Christian is far from an easy question. Jesus taught his followers to sell all their possessions and take up a life of simple living and nonviolence. By this standard, no recent president, with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, even began to come close to being a Christian.

Granted, a minority of people who claim to be Christian do much better than the presidents, so let me take a step back and suppose that being Christian is more of a cultural affiliation. In that case it proves very interesting to consider the precise brand of Christianity that Obama affiliated with just prior to the presidency: His pastor was Jeremiah Wright, who is widely perceived as anti-American and anti-Semitic.

"Christian" can mean many things, and yet to many of those calling Obama un-Christian, "Christian president" means "George W. Bush." By this standard it is no wonder that some say that Obama is not a Christian, and by their definition of Christianity, they are absolutely correct, contrary to the claims of the liberal media. As one close relative with a capacity for nuance put it, "I think that Obama is more Muslim than he is Christian."

I don't care whether Obama is Christian. I believe in the separation of church and state, and frankly it's fine with me if Obama or any other president calls himself the Devil as long as he performs well in office. His actions define his presidency.

I have to hand it to Fox News for not screwing it up this time [update: the Fox article is less remarkable than I realized]. Nowhere [update: this sentence is actually false/irrelevant] in their article do they pretend to know anything about Obama's soul, and they even quote a guy who says it like it is:

"It's a troubling thing," Wilcox said. "I think it would be good for all of us to stop invading the president's spiritual privacy. We don't know what anyone's true faith is. It doesn't tell us about what their true core values are."