This past weekend, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a conservative darling and potential Republican nominee for president,
waded into deeply troubling waters when he refused to state whether or not he believed President Obama is a Christian.
“I don’t know,” Walker said in an interview at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, where he was attending the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.
Told that Obama has frequently spoken publicly about his Christian faith, Walker maintained that he was not aware of the president’s religion.
“I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” Walker said, his voice calm and firm. “I’ve never asked him that,” he added.
The thing is, you'd be hard pressed to find a recent president who has spoken more frequently about his faith than President Obama.
Now six years into his presidency, 10 years into his national prominence, and 11 years after his autobiography, Dreams from my Father was released, in which he details his Christian faith explicitly, it's preposterous at this point in the game for anyone as public as Walker to deny ever, one single time, hearing that President Obama is a Christian.
Use some reverse logic for a moment: If the President of the United States is not a Christian, what is he?
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A Muslim?
A Jew?
An atheist?
A pagan?
A Buddhist?
If any of those things were true, that'd be a pretty seismic deal, right?
Except a national bestseller, The President's Devotional: The Daily Readings That Inspired President Obama, has been out for two years.
The president has spoken time and time and time and time again about his Christian faith.
He was baptized and married in the church. His wife and kids are baptized believers.
In spite of all of this, including the reality that he is a devoted and faithful husband and father, Scott Walker, and now a growing chorus of conservatives, are just flat out stating that President Obama isn't a Christian at all.
Notice, though, that you will never hear conservatives question the Christianity of Rudy Giuliani or Rush Limbaugh—in spite of the reality that both of them have been married seven times between them and refuse to really discuss any active aspects of their faith.
Why is it that Walker and others are so willing to doubt the Christianity of a good and faithful man who openly details and professes his faith, but never question the Christianity of men who struggle with morality and family values and don't really speak at all on whether or not faith matters to them in the least bit?
It's racism.
At the core of it all, Scott Walker and Erick Erickson and Mark Driscoll and others who question whether or not President Obama is truly a Christian in spite of him living it out and stating it over and over and over again, just refuse to believe it because he's not white.
In essence, a white man who lives a terrible life, full of mean-spiritedness, unfaithfulness, and clear violations of Christianity is easily believed to be a Christian, but a black man who is as faithful to his family and integrity as anyone could ever be, openly states he's a Christian again and again, but it's just hard to believe?
Other than racism, no other real answer exists.
If you go back and view the records, conservatives said a lot of things about President Bill Clinton, but they never really attacked the validity or integrity of his faith, despite his open struggles with personal morality.
In fact, if President Obama was a white Republican, I think other white Republicans would pretty much call him the perfect Christian, but since he's neither of those, and conservatives are confusing Christianity with politics and race, they claim the man's not a Christian.
It's despicable.