Over at First Thoughts, Joseph Knippenberg writes that Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast speech was basically a bunch of “platitudinous remarks.” I am not sure why he feels it is necessary to drop this bomb without explaining why he thinks the remarks were so platitudinous, but it is his blog post–he can do what he wants. As I wrote here and here, I thought Obama’s remarks were sincere and moving.
But enough of that. Let’s get to the real meat of Knippenberg’s post, of which I am in full agreement with. Earlier today, we blogged about a response to Obama’s speech by Jacques Berlinerblau in which he argued that the president’s comments were too Christian.
You can read my brief response to Berlinerblau here.
Here is a snippet from Knippenberg’s response to Berlinerblau:
When a President, or anyone else, speaks at a prayer breakfast, I would expect him to speak for himself and offer some testimony of his faith. The fact that he holds elected office does not change who he is, nor should it prevent him from saying what’s on his mind or in his heart on an occasion like this.
There may well be times when it would have been inappropriate for a public official to say what the President said yesterday. But this certainly was an occasion that demanded that he not hide his light under a bushel.
Let me state my objection to Berlinerblau’s point another way. He seems to think that it ought to be sufficient to assert our citizenship as an expression of our identity. Is politics all there is? Is nationhood all there is? Ought I only to be an American and nothing else? Is that not a rather totalizing—not to say totalitarian—conception of politics and nationhood?
I took a look at several of “holy roller” George W Bush's prayer breakfast speeches. Quite more like the generic language of the Founding era. This is typical:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/politics/pg0038.html
Also much shorter than President Obama's 20-minute address, and without direct references to Christ or specific political policies.
Perhaps the outlier here is President Obama and he crossed the line. I'm rather with Berlinerblau's critique, although not for his strictly secular reasons.
Tom: Can Obama do anything right in your eyes?