Identity matters. Knowing whose we are and how to live accordingly makes a difference not just for us, but for those around us.
This in mind, I’m concerned that Barack Obama may be struggling with his identity.
Daniel Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum. He is a specialist on Islam. In recent commentaries, he writes that President Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, has stated: “My whole family was Muslim.” Pipes continues with a quote from Barack’s half-brother George Hussein Onyango Obama to an interviewer in March 2009. George said, “He may be behaving differently due to the position he is in, but on the inside, Barack Obama is Muslim.”
Pipes also quotes from the American Muslim writer Asma Gull Hasan. In My Muslim President Obama, Ms. Hasan writes, “. . . In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel . . . that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama . . . ”
“If Muslims get these vibes,” writes Pipes, “not surprisingly, so does the American public. Pipes notes “an even split between those who say Mr. Obama is a Christian and those who do not.”
Openness and honesty is important for any candidate running for office. But, writes Pipes, “Mr. Obama remains the mystery candidate with an autobiography full of gaps and even fabrications.” Pipes cites several examples. “Mr. Obama claimed that he ‘was born in Kenya.’ He lied about never having been a member and candidate of the 1990s Chicago socialist New Party. When Stanley Kurtz produced evidence to establish that he was a member, Mr. Obama’s flacks smeared and dismissed Mr. Kurtz.” Pipes references many inaccuracies and falsehoods in Obama’s 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father. But, what about Obama’s faith?
Here’s the account according to Pipes. In March 2004, Obama was asked, “Have you always been a Christian?” Obama replied, “I was raised more by my mother and my mother was a Christian.” In December 2007, Obama gave a different answer. “My mother was a Christian from Kansas. . . . I was raised by my mother. So, I’ve always been a Christian.” In February 2009, he offered, notes Pipes, a completely different answer: “I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion. I didn’t become a Christian until . . . I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college.”
When someone asks me, “Have you always been a Christian?,” my answer is consistently the same. “Yes, I became a child of God through Christ at my Baptism.”
But, for some reason, our current President has difficulty sticking to the same story. Pipes is curious. “Mr. Obama appears to be hiding something. Was he the religious child of irreligious parents? Or was he always a Christian? A Muslim? Or was he, in fact, something of his own creation — a Christian Muslim?”
A person who sees himself capable of being my President should have nothing to hide. Answers to questions — “From where do you come? What do you believe? Who are your mentors? In what direction do you want to move this country? — should be consistent. If he subscribes to a particular faith — be it Christianity or Islam or Mormonism or theism or atheism — he should claim it with confidence and be able to give reason why.
Obama, writes Pipes, says that he affirmed his “Christian faith” by answering an altar call at Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago. But, explains Pipes, when his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was asked by author Edward Klein in his book The Amateur (p. 40), “Did you convert Obama from Islam to Christianity?” Mr. Wright replied, “That’s hard to tell.” Hard to tell?
Sure and certain identity matters. It matters because knowing who we are affects what we do.
Quotes from Daniel Pipes: “Muslims believe Obama is one of them”
and “Despite his denials, the evidence is compelling,”
The Washington Times, Monday, Sept 17, 2012
Ezerwoman's Blog 
Violation of Conscience and Freedom of Faith
Posted in Citizenship, Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, tagged abortion, faithfulness, health care mandate, HHS, obedience to God or man on September 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »
If the Health and Human Services (HHS) health care mandate is not overturned, our children and grandchildren will have less religious freedom than their parents and grandparents did. The stakes could not be higher for Lutheran Christians privileged to live in the United States of America.
The LCMS is seriously concerned. The health care legislation allows the government to define not only what a church is but also what a church is free to do, or not to do. You see, the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights is more than the freedom to gather with others for worship. It is more correctly the freedom to live and speak our faith out in the community. With the health care mandate, government is infringing on our religious freedom and rights of conscience. It falsely defines Christian charity as limited only to work within our own church walls. (Read more about “Charity and Compassion Outside the Church” in the next post.)
The HHS mandate directs many religious groups and institutions to offer their employees coverage for contraception and drugs that result in the death of a preborn child regardless of whether or not that religious group believes abortion or sterilization is obedient to God as the Creator of life. This is a direct violation of our religious liberties and our rights of conscience guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
The largest historical question for my church body, the LCMS, is this: Does the federal government have the power to impose a heavy fine or tax on those religious groups who refuse to provide for their employees services that violate their moral and religious principles? (Source: President Matthew Harrison on Youtube, and Timothy S. Goeglein in The Lutheran Witness, 9/2012)
The LCMS believes this matter is so crucial that it has set up a special website with the goal of providing Christian citizens of the United States with helpful resources. Please take the time to visit www.lcms.org/freetobefaithful Listen to President Harrison express his grave concerns. Then, respond by speaking up to your legislators, writing letters-to-the-editor, and talking to your family and neighbors.
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