Why Republicans Don't Think Obama is Christian

[cbayer]

http://religiondispatches.org/why-republicans-dont-think-obama-is-christian/

BY SARAH POSNER FEBRUARY 25, 2015

Alex Theodoridis, a political scientist at the University of California, Merced, conducted a survey last fall of Americans’ understanding of President Obama’s religious beliefs. Remarkably, he found that in response to the question, “Which of these do you think most likely describes what Obama believes deep down? Muslim, Christian, atheist, spiritual, or I don’t know,” 54 percent of Republicans said Obama is Muslim. Only nine percent said he is Christian.

Writing at the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Theodoridis elaborated:

The percentage selecting “Muslim” is notably higher than in other polls conducted on this topic. This difference likely depends on how the question is phrased.

Previous survey questions about Obama’s religion tend to sound like a pop quiz — such as “do you happen to know the religious faith of Barack Obama?” But by asking “what Obama believes deep down?” I was intentionally granting respondents license to stray from the pesident’s self-reported Christian faith. This reveals a prevalent willingness to distrust this pesident or categorize him as “the other” in terms of religion.

Of course, respondents could also be “cheerleading” — using a survey question to express their general dislike of Obama rather than a genuine view about his religious faith.

But, if these results were largely driven by anti-Obama cheerleading, we should expect more respondents, especially Republicans, to choose the very unpopular category of “atheist.” Relatively few do so.

Previous ruminations on the Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim theme have suggested various sources for it: ignorance, Fox News, racism, too much World Net Daily in your diet.

Theodoridis’ post was inspired by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s remarks that he didn’t know whether Obama is a Christian. But do other elected Republicans suggest that Obama is not only not a Christian, but a Muslim? I ran a search in the Congressional Record for recent floor speeches in which the word Islam or Islamic and the President appear. This is snapshot, of course, and the number of constituents who actually listen to these speeches is infinitesimal. But if elected Republicans aren’t afraid to question Obama’s religious commitments for the permanent record, think of what they might say to constituents in smaller settings, or the well that they are drawing from when they make remarks in Congressional sessions for which they receive no pushback, and in fact receive encouragement.

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[3catwoman3]

1. The first 4 words of this 7 word title...

...could be a thread of their own - Why Republicans Don't Think.

[cbayer]

2. Lol! Good one.

[C_U_L8R]

3. Republicans wouldn't know Christianity

if it showed up on their doorstep
begging for food.

[cbayer]

4. What many of them know is a narrowly defined version of christianity.

One problem we run into is that even among liberals/progressive, their definition is also often accepted as the definition.

[okasha]

6. It's been there for years.

They just haven't noticed it.

[trotsky]

5. The reasoning is the same as that used by some liberals to claim Muslim extremists aren't Muslim.

When people see someone that claims to profess a certain faith, but their beliefs and practices don't match what they THINK the beliefs and practices should be, the first reaction is to deny they can legitimately use the label.

A fallacy so common it has a name - No True Scotsman.