We don’t name ourselves. We live with the ones we are given. We can change them when we become of age, but that causes a lot of confusion in itself. And it will make people wonder why you changed.
Barack Hussein Obama did not choose his name. The middle name has implications of Arab heritage and to the many people who are trying to put a Muslim label on him, this seems to be something to be fixed on, as if fixing on it somehow attaches a connection either with terroristic Islam or the deposed dictator of Iraq or both. [Hussein is a common name, just not around here. Our current president shares his first name with the British king we had to fight to get our independence, but nobody plays on that much. Our last president shared his first name with four British monarchs. Same comment.]
But the Senator has been a member of a congregation in a Protestant denomination [specifically Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago] for many years. The name of the congregation and the denomination would seem to exclude Muslims.
Nobody notes the Hebrew origin of his first name. It doesn’t fit in.
And think of it another way:
Had the senator changed his name, people would have been saying that it was part of an effort to hide his roots. He cannot win either way on the middle name matter.
And as Jim Wallis concludes in a God's Politics post [link to full Wallis post]
Like his politics or not, support his candidacy or not - but don't disparage Barack Obama's faith, his church, his minister, or his credibility as an articulate Christian layman who feels a vocation in politics. Those falsehoods are simply vicious lies and should be denounced by people of faith from across the political spectrum.
So can we just look at the person and his record?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment