A brother in Christ

In an earlier post, I commented on various ways in which religion intersects with the lives and candidacies of various Democrats and Republicans running for president. There, I mentioned a particular e-mail getting passed around about Sen. Barack Obama. My understanding is that there are actually various versions of this e-mail, but the gist of it is that Sen. Obama may be a closet Muslim and that his church in Chicago advocates a dangerous version of black power.

This all seemed to me like it must be a bunch of hooey, so I started trying to do a little investigating. And I was helped by the fact that my brother - an Episcopal priest - actually attended Sen. Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, last summer. When I mentioned the scurrilous e-mail to him, my brother told me that he had actually used his visit in a sermon. If you'd like to read it, the sermon can be accessed here.

Sen. Obama also did an interview with Christianity Today recently, in which he addresses the e-mail slanders and speaks frankly about his Christian faith. For anyone who believes that one's faith relates to one's character in a deep way (and I do), it is a helpful interview.

This is not an endorsement of Obama's candidacy. I just think that the type of attacks that go on in high-stakes national politics are ugly, and the attacks Obama has been receiving are probably the ugliest of this campaign so far. (If you'd like a good analysis of those attacks, including some recent comments by Bill Clinton, check out Bob Herbert's NY Times column here.) When you see people saying things designed to appeal to our most base nature, it calls for people of good will to speak out.

Plus, Sen. Obama is our brother in Christ. Just like Gov. Mike Huckabee is our brother in Christ, and Sen. Hillary Clinton is our sister in Christ, and so on. We can and should criticize these people for the policy positions we think are wrong, but we should not abide accusations of secret heretical belief that have no basis. It's cruel, and it's wrong. And it is exactly what the e-mail campaign against Obama amounts to.

I don't want to sound too overboard here, but I think this issue boils down to the following: No Christian should accuse another of heresy or apostasy without a solid reason for doing so. And if accusation is made, it should be done publicly and through appropriate ecclesiastical channels. Now the originator(s) of the religious slanders on Obama may not be Christians, but there have been plenty of Christians passing them around as a way to sow doubt in other voters' minds. That's just as wrong as making the accusations in the first place. We should take care to treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.