A president with a feel for the spiritual who was hated by the pious

By ERASMUS

AMERICA is saying goodbye to a president whose spiritual life presents an extraordinary paradox. Barack Obama was loathed, almost literally demonised by many God-fearing people, who felt that his policies over reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and stem-cell research were something much worse than mistaken. A remarkable number of his compatriots persisted in believing that he was a crypto-Muslim. But more than any recent president, he was able to speak of his own spiritual development as a Christian with conviction and passion.

He appeared comfortable not merely with the theist generalities required by the country's civil religion but with some of the tough specifics of Christian theology. As is pointed out in a forthcoming book of essays* about world leaders and faith, George W. Bush did not mention the words "Jesus", "Christ" or "Saviour" once during the eight National Prayer Breakfasts at which he presided. Compare that with the credal language of President Obama at the Easter Prayer Breakfast of 2013, when he described Jesus of Nazareth as "our Saviour, who suffered and died [and] was resurrected, both fully God and also a man."

It's true that his personal convictions seemed to evolve, and grow more theologically robust, in the course of his career; and that political expediency may have played a part in that. In "The Audacity of Hope", his memoir published in 2006, he describes coming to faith through a black church in Chicago, where Christianity "became a vessel for [his] beliefs" about justice for the oppressed. But around that time, he spoke of Jesus more as a teacher than as a divine figure, and asserted that there might be many paths to salvation. In the run-up to the presidential election of 2008, when rumours about a secret affiliation to Islam gathered place, he stressed his Christian credentials in a more explicit way; campaign literature insisted that as a young man he had "felt a beckoning of the Spirit and accepted Jesus Christ into his life."

Was that just a political tactic? All that can be said with certainty is that there are politicians who speak about the things of God with a vulnerability and integrity that compels respect, and there are politicians who lack that gift. President Obama assuredly fell into the former category, just as certainly as his successor falls into the latter one. And as far as anyone can tell, it was not with any human audience in mind that Mr Obama penned a prayer that he left in the stones of Jerusalem's Western Wall:

Lord — Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.

These words would have remained between Mr Obama and his maker if they had not been recuperated and published in an Israeli newspaper.

Among the more public religious moments of Mr Obama's presidency, one stands out: his eulogy in Charleston, South Carolina after the killing of a black pastor, Clementa Pinckney, and eight of his flock. What the world remembers best is his solo rendering of the hymn, "Amazing Grace". But even more extraordinary than what he sang was what he said. He identified a miraculous moment in the gracious reaction of the bereaved families to the killer, a man who "didn't know he was being used by God" or anticipate "the way the families of the fallen would respond...with words of forgiveness."

In a country whose dominant culture places so much emphasis on retribution and "closure" as a necessary response to wrongdoing, it took a remarkable gift to utter such words without sounding hypocritical or cloying, and without seeming to play down the enormity of the crime or the depth of the families' loss. It was a purist Christian challenge to America's mainstream beliefs, and on other lips it could have failed lamentably. Yet President Obama somehow pulled it off.

*The Mighty and the Almighty: How Political Leaders Do God", a forthcoming title from Biteback Publishers by agreement with Theos, a think-tank