The recent Pew Forum study on religious switching is old hat. The ARIS report (American Religious Identification Survey) reported on this panorama back in 2002. So the authors of ARIS – Drs. Barry Kosmin, Ariela Keysar and the late Egon Meyer – were far ahead of Pew on this issue. I was able the following year (2003) to use this data for the PARAL Study that looked at the nation’s Latinos and Latinas of faith. (It speaks badly of the scholarship from the Pew folks like Luis Lugo to have identified their findings as a “surprise.”)

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It is tempting to believe that the U.S. political system of two parties is an immutable standard for democracy. It is not. Were the historical Jesus in our midst, he would oppose the notion that running within the system would produce a president to change the system. By examining his stance towards the political parties of his day – the Pharisees and the Sadducees – Jesus’ renunciation of both is unmistakable.

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The Question: How should Barack Obama have responded to inflammatory remarks made by his former pastor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright? Are you responsible for what your spiritual leader says from the pulpit?

A mature faith puts trust in God, not in clergy. If Senator Barack Obama distinguishes between the message – which is Christianity – and the messenger – who is all too human – then he has a better grasp of the faith than the talking heads who criticize him. Indeed, his speech on race in Philadelphia was also a speech on faith and patriotism that is not cowed by cowardice.

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