don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

A recent Wall Street Journal article gave me reason to wonder if Barack Obama might be a closet free thinker, as I suspect was the case with JFK and even Abraham Lincoln. There are a few articles and books that speculate on these two possibilities.) Like my above-mentioned suspected secret secular heroes, Obama seemingly goes along with traditional Christianity. He makes a practice, now and then, of exhibiting the requisite ritual piety (e.g., taking the oath of office with one hand resting on a famous bible, ending speeches with God bless America, attending prayer breakfasts and so on). After all, failure to do so would risk giving Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson and other deranged blasphemy law enthusiasts (who might welcome a new Inquisition) enough bait for a feeding frenzy of holy umbrage.

The author of the WSJ article (Mark Tooley, "Where Will Obama Worship?" January 18, 2009, page W11), certainly did not portray Obama as a non-believer, let alone (to use a phrase coined by Sam Harris) a "fundamentalist atheist rationalist neo-humanistic secular militant," which I would prefer in a president. But, reading between the lines, my hopes were raised that he might be quite a skeptic if not a free thinker, even a personal god scoffer, like me. Here are excerpts from the Tooley piece, with a few added notes of my own, that relate to my suspicions about Obama as a closet free thinker.

• Mr. Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was a spiritual seeker drawn to many religions, thus she had to know that all of them could not be true. She was looking around, trying to sort out the BS and find something that made sense. Maybe her son observed some of this questioning.
  
  
• Mr. Obama's maternal grandparents were Unitarians. I don't have to tell you that these people have more in common with Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens than Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson or Ted Haggart.
  
  
• Mr. Obama's early Chicago activism took him to Trinity, a black congregation within the United Church of Christ. The UCC is arguably America's most liberal mainline Protestant denomination.
  
  
• Trinity is known for its social liberalism—on issues of gay rights and abortion rights.
  
  
• Mr. Obama seems to share the cool rationalism of the UCC's liberal New England roots...Talking to the Chicago Sun-Times about his faith in 2004, he cited his "suspicion of dogma" and of "the hazards of having too much certainty" and said he preferred "a dose of doubt in religion."
  
  
• Mr. Obama has deflected questions about prayer, Jesus and the afterlife.
  
  
• Mr. Obama has defined sin as being "out of alignment with my values".
  
  
• Mr. Obama seems accustomed to the UCC's minimal use of ritual.

And far from least but for now last of my points supporting Obama's skepticism about orthodox religion was the revolutionary phrase in his Inaugural Address that Paul Levinson called "the single most daring words in that speech." That, of course, was the reference to "Americans of all faiths and no faith." (Paul Levinon, "The Most Revolutionary Phrase of Obama's Inaugural Address," Open Salon.com, January 20, 2009.) Levinson saw this statement as reflecting a "profound inclusionary quality in President Obama's vision, a revolutionary acknowledgement by an American president that non-believers are citizens, too."

The inclusionary inaugural might also have signaled two other realities if not out-and-out acknowledgements of such realities: 1) at least one progressive politician recognizes the growing strength and numbers of non-believers as a force to be respected and treated fairly, and 2) America might have its first, if not third, free-thinking commander-in-chief.

To which I say, Thank you, Mr. President.

Be well and always look on the bright side of life.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of effective decisions. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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