Note from Stephen Cook: Continuing Cathleen Falsani’s March 2004 interview with then-Senator Barack Obama about his religious beliefs and views. Thanks to Sitara and Al.

Continued from Part 1 here.

By Cathleem Falsani, Chicago-Sun March 27, 2004 – http://tinyurl.com/oz23af2

GG:
Who’s Jesus to you?

(He laughs nervously)

OBAMA:
Right. Jesus is an historical figure for me. And he’s also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher. And he’s also a wonderful teacher. I think it’s important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.
GG:
Is Jesus someone who you feel you have a regular connection with now, a personal connection with in your life?

OBAMA:
Yes. I think some of the things I talked about earlier are channeled through my Christian faith and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

GG:
Have you read the bible?

OBAMA:
Absolutely. I read it not as regularly as I would like. These days I don’t have much time for reading or reflection, period.

GG:
Do you try to take some time for whatever, meditation, prayer reading?

OBAMA:
I’ll be honest with you. I used to all the time, in a fairly disciplined way. But during the course of this campaign, I don’t. And I probably need to and would like to, but that’s where that internal monologue, or dialogue I think supplants my opportunity to read and reflect in a structured way these days. It’s much more sort of as I’m going through the day trying to take a moment here and a moment there to take stock. Why am I here, how does this connect with a larger sense of purpose?

GG:
Jack Ryan [Obama’s Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race at the time] said talking about your faith is fraught with peril for a public figure.

OBAMA:
Which is why you generally will not see me spending a lot of time talking about it on the stump.

Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I’m a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root in this country.

I’m very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics. Now, that’s different from a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it’s perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values that inform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.

A standard line in my stump speech during this campaign is that my politics are informed by a belief that we’re all connected. That if there’s a child on the South Side of Chicago that can’t read, that makes a difference in my life, even if it’s not my own child. If there’s a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that’s struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandparent. And if there’s an Arab American family that’s being rounded up by John Ashcroft without the benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

I can give religious expression to that. I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, we are all children of God. Or I can express it in secular terms. But the basic premise remains the same. I think sometimes Democrats have made the mistake of shying away from a conversation about values for fear that they sacrifice the important value of tolerance. And I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive.

GG:
Do you think it’s wrong for people to want to know about a civic leader’s spirituality?

OBAMA:
I don’t’ think it’s wrong. I think that political leaders are subject to all sorts of vetting by the public, and this can be a component of that. I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God’s mandate. I think there is this tendency that I don’t think is healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism.

GG:
The conversation stopper, when you say you’re a Christian and leave it at that.

OBAMA:
Where do you move forward with that? This is something that I’m sure I’d have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people who haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, that they’re going to hell.

GG
You don’t believe that?

OBAMA:
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That’s just not part of my religious makeup.

Part of the reason I think it’s always difficult for public figures to talk about this is that the nature of politics is that you want to have everybody like you and project the best possible traits onto you. Oftentimes that’s by being as vague as possible, or appealing to the lowest common denominators. The more specific and detailed you are on issues as personal and fundamental as your faith, the more potentially dangerous it is.

GG:
Do you ever have people who know you’re a Christian question a particular stance you take on an issue? How can you be a Christian and …?

OBAMA:
I haven’t been challenged in those direct ways. And to that extent, I give the public a lot of credit. I’m always struck by how much common sense the American people have. They get confused sometimes, watch Fox News or listen to talk radio. That’s dangerous sometimes. But generally, Americans are tolerant, and I think recognize that faith is a personal thing. They may feel very strongly about an issue like abortion or gay marriage, but if they discuss it with me as an elected official they will discuss it with me in those terms and not say, ‘you call yourself a Christian.’ I cannot recall that ever happening.

GG:
Do you believe in heaven?

OBAMA:
Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?

GG:
A place spiritually you go to after you die?

OBAMA:
What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, I will be rewarded. I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.

When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother, and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.

GG:
Do you believe in sin?

OBAMA:
Yes.

GG:
What is sin?

OBAMA:
Being out of alignment with my values.

GG:
What happens if you have sin in your life?

OBAMA:
I think it’s the same thing as the question about heaven. If I’m true to myself and my faith, that is its own reward. When I’m not true to it, that’s its own punishment.

GG:
Where do you find spiritual inspiration? Music, nature, literature, people, a conduit you plug into?

OBAMA:
There are so many. Nothing is more powerful than the black church experience. A good choir and a good sermon in the black church, it’s pretty hard not to be move and be transported. I can also be transported by watching a good performance of Hamlet, or reading Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, or listening to Miles Davis.

GG:
Is there something you go back to as a touchstone, a book, a particular piece of music, a place…

OBAMA:
As I said before, in my own sort of mental library, the Civil Rights movement has a powerful hold on me. It’s a point in time where I think heaven and earth meet. Because it’s a moment in which a collective faith transforms everything. So when I read Gandhi or I read King or I read certain passages of Abraham Lincoln, and I think about those times where people’s values are tested, those inspire me.

GG:
What are you doing when you feel the most centered, the most aligned spiritually?

OBAMA:
I think I already described it. It’s when I’m being true to myself. And that can happen in me making a speech or it can happen in me playing with my kids, or it can happen in a small interaction with a security guard in a building when I’m recognizing them and exchanging a good word.

GG:
Is there someone you would look to as an example of how not to do it?

OBAMA:
Bin Laden.

(grins broadly)

GG:
… An example of a role model, who combined everything you said you want to do in your life, and your faith?

OBAMA:
I think Gandhi is a great example of a profoundly spiritual man who acted and risked everything on behalf of those values but never slipped into intolerance or dogma. He seemed to always maintain an air of doubt about him. I also think of Dr. King, and Lincoln. Those three are good examples for me of people who applied their faith to a larger canvas without allowing that faith to metastasize into something that is hurtful.