This was the title of an article by Stephen Mansfield. He is the best-selling author of The Faith of Barack Obama, The Faith of George W. Bush, and Pope Benedict XVI: His Life and Mission. Mansfield writes some pretty amazing things but I wanted to highlight some interesting facts in his writing of Obama and his faith experiences and beliefs.

“He is the first president not born in a Christian home…he is the only president to have once practiced a non-Christian faith.”

“The president is nearly an ideal example of the religious direction of his times…the majority [of American people] believe that there might be many versions of the faith they embrace and that their faith might not be the only path to God. Indeed, Americans are less likely to believe that any single faith is the only path to God.”

“He [Obama] was raised in an atheist’s home…he experienced every type of religious expression, from Jewish to Hindu and native Hawaiian to Buddhist, to name but a few. Then there were the years in Indonesia, where he attended first a Roman Catholic and then a public school, all the while practicing an informal type of Islam at his stepfather’s side. Yes, he prayed at a mosque on some Fridays. Yes, he invoked the blessings of Allah.”

“Obama believes in the divinity of Jesus, yes, and in his resurrection and his grace. But he is not as sure about the meaning of Scripture, and can not comfort his daughters about the afterlife, as he tells us in The Audacity of Hope…he believes in a “living word of God,” one that ever reveals and expands, that comes from unexpected sources. “When I read the Bible,” he has written, “I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must be continually open to new revelations – whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor opposed to abortion.”

“I am rooted in the Christian tradition,” he has said, But “I believe there are many paths to the same place…”

“This is what we can expect – a big tent faith-based presidency, rooted in a non-traditional approach to Christianity yet seeking to draw in nearly every religious tradition. For this, he understands, is how the majority of the people he serves would want it to be…A people almost always get the leader they deserve. Certainly, in the matter of faith, Barack Obama and the American people, today this is as much as ever the case.”