Source: religion.blogs.cnn.com
UNITED STATES, June 8, 2010: [HPI note: this is another report on the White House’s latest interfaith meeting, and, more broadly, is a commentary on the American government’s new policies.]
One key to President Obama’s 2008 election victory was his willingness to speak openly about his personal faith and to connect the dots between his public policies and biblical values. In his inaugural address, he famously described the United States not as a secular nation or a Christian nation but “a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers.”
Yesterday that patchwork nation was on display at the White House in an event on interfaith and community service on college campuses co-sponsored by the Obama administration’s Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and its Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation.
This event, which included Buddhists and Jains alongside Christians and Jews, provided the strongest signal yet that for this administration “faith-based” is not a code word for “Christian” or even “Judeo-Christian.” I sat with a Hindu to my right and a secular humanist to my left, and the speakers repeatedly followed President Obama in folding non-believers into the rhetorical mix. In this White House, it seems, secular humanists are one faith among many.