![]() But he was careful to keep references to the Bible out of his public speeches. In the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter, a born-again Christian who attended church each week, spoke openly in media interviews about his personal religious convictions. Kennedy, the first non-Protestant in office, felt compelled to reassure the public he would observe the separation of church and state. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, religion played no significant role in presidential politics, Siker said in an interview after presenting his paper. Until the 1960 election of President John F. Siker, who researches the history of the Bible’s reception in various societies, has spent the past 15 years studying how presidents from Jimmy Carter onward relate to the Bible. In June of 2008, Obama’s campaign launched the “Joshua Generation Project,” calling on young Christian voters to live out this biblical narrative. “So the question, I guess, that I have today is what’s called of us in this Joshua generation? What do we do in order to fulfill that legacy to fulfill the obligations and the debt that we owe to those who allowed us to be here today?” “The previous generation, the Moses generation, pointed the way,” Obama said in a March 2007 speech in Selma, Alabama. (Joshua, according to the biblical story, became leader of the Israelites after God barred Moses from entering the promised land.) In the run-up to the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama dubbed the younger generation of Americans the Joshua generation that must finish the work of what he called the “Moses generation,” older Americans who made sacrifices to bring the nation this far. “This vision of being my brother’s keeper has important political and social consequences when it comes to such issues as healthcare, consumer protection or education reform,” Siker said at the meeting. “Barack Obama has made effective use of this merged story in his political rhetoric.”īut the two most prevalent motifs that Obama draws from the Bible are that “we are our brother’s keeper” ( Genesis 4:9) and the notion of the “Joshua generation.” “This blending of stories allows for powerful improvisations and riffs on the biblical narrative as it is retold and reappropriated in the 20th and 21st centuries,” Siker said. Siker found that the president quotes the Old Testament most often in his public addresses, in particular the Exodus story of liberation from slavery, an oft-mentioned biblical theme in the African American community. Obama’s memoirs show that he was exposed, as the child of an anthropologist mother, to many religious traditions, but found his faith as an adult while exploring the African American side of his identity at the Trinity United Church of Christ on the south side of Chicago. About 250 delegates attended, some traveling from places including Ireland, Rome, Africa and Australia.įor his paper, Siker analyzed Obama’s two books, “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope,” as well as several of the president’s key speeches. of America, held at the Loyola Marymount campus in west Los Angeles. Siker’s academic paper on Obama’s use of the Bible was among dozens presented at the 73rd international conference of the Catholic Biblical Assn. “It’s very deep and very personal for him.” ![]() Siker, said at a recent meeting of biblical scholars. “He seems willing to engage in the battle on how religion is felt on the public stage,” the professor, Jeffrey S. ![]() When President Obama cites the Bible in his public speeches, he expresses a faith rooted in the African American church as well as a refusal to cede the realm of religion to Republicans, according to a theology professor at Loyola Marymount University.
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