Presidential Worship in the Age of YouTube

This is what happens when you drag candidates' pastors into politics, especially in the age of YouTube. It becomes literally impossible for the President and family to join a single worshipping community.

Security is a paramount concern, certainly. But it is also the case that if the Obamas join a church in Washington DC, that church, its pastor(s) and its members will be subject to extraordinary scrutiny. This is unfair to all concerned, but it is a reality.

I would say that it is probably best for the Obamas to attend worship at a few different congregations and not join any. In this way, they can at least be in church together as a family. Different styles of worship are educational and if they stick to four or five kinds of Protestant churches, it may not be too confusing for the children. I do think, however, that this will make it nigh on to impossible for the children to have a consistent Sunday School class.

On the other hand, I think parents should have a very big role in the religious education of their children. I was never content to let my children's religious education be the sole responsibility of any group of church volunteers, however well-meaning. Even when I was pastor of a church, I still did most of the kids' religious education at home. This took the form of reading the great stories of the Bible from a children's Bible and dinner table discussions of problems at school and in the world at large. We'd pick a topic and then all chime in on our ethical analyses of what was right or wrong and why. We covered a lot of ground. Since all the boys were interested in science and my husband is a physician and scientist, science and faith were constant themes. But we also talked about bullying at school and sticking up for your friends, for example. One of our sons wrote a college application essay on these dinner table conversations. It won a prize.

So that's my advice. Do worship together as a family. Pick interesting churches and afterwards discuss why one church does things one way, and another church does them another. Read the great stories of the Bible together and discuss how faith helps everybody with their problems, whether problems at school or what Daddy is going to do about helping people get jobs. And good luck.

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Good answer to a stupid question.

I just have one quibble: it is virtually impossible, not literally impossible, for the Obamas to become members of an ordiary faith community. Difficult, unlikely, but not impossible.

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite

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Presidential Worship in the Age of YouTube

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