Obama Launches His Faith-Based Office With a Dose of Secularism

President Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. this morning and used the opportunity to discuss the launch of the White House office of faith-based and neighboring partnerships. Obama stressed the inclusion of secular groups into his faith-based office by giving examples of his own life story. Could this office be a conduit for further government funded community organizing? The transcript of video highlights is below and bolding is mine.

This is not only our call as people of faith but our duty as citizens of America and our duty as citizens of the world. And it will be the purpose of the White House office of faith-based and neighboring partnerships that I’m announcing later today. The goal of this office will not to be [sic] to be to favor one religious group over another or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state. This work is important, because whether it’s a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups providing job training to those who need work, few are closer to what’s happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations. People trust them, communities rely on them, and we will help them. We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the world to foster a more productive…peaceful dialogue on faith.

Obama continues in another highlight here:

And if perhaps we allow God’s grace to enter into that space that lies between us.. then the old rifts will start to mend. New partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of excessive zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding. This is my hope. This is my prayer. I believe this good is possible, because my faith teaches me that all is possible.

Obama talks about his own spiritual history:

Prime Minister Blair shared a story of his awakening to his faith. Perhaps like him, I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a muslim but became an (atheist?). And grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion even though she was the kindest most spiritual person I’ve ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love and to understand and to do unto others as I would want done.

I didn’t become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the south side of Chicago after college, and it happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck no matter what they looked like or where they came from or who they prayed to.

It was on those streets in those neighborhoods that I first heard God’s spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose. His purpose. In different ways and in different forms, it is that spirit and sense of purpose that drew friends and neighbors to that first prayer breakfast in Seattle all those years ago.