1115.org

Senator Barack Obama offered us some insight into his faith yesterday:

White House hopeful Barack Obama stood in front of a pulpit Sunday and told worshippers that his faith “plays every role” in his life.

“It’s what keeps me grounded. It’s what keeps my eyes set on the greatest of heights,” Obama told members of the Redemption World Outreach Center, whose 4,200-seat sanctuary was mostly full.

Faith, he said, is “what propels me to do what I do and when I am down it’s what lifts me up.”

A little over the top, but nothing anyone should want to take exception to. And if Mr. Rhetoric isn’t going to use hyperbole, then who is?

This appearance was obviously scheduled as part of a well-coordinated plan to play the faith card. Obama granted an interview to AP last week, that they could use to give depth and perspective to their report of Sunday’s appearance:

In an interview with The Associated Press last week, Obama was asked about walking the line where politics and the pulpit meet.

“There are no set guidelines or play book. When I go to church, I go there to worship. I am perfectly content to sit and listen to the music and pray and listen to the sermon,” Obama said after last weekend’s church services.

Other times — such as this Sunday — Obama takes to the pulpit.

In those instances, he said, “my job is to try to draw a connection between the values that I express to the church and the challenges and issues that we face in politics. … I don’t think there’s anything wrong with expressing faith in the public square and I think there’s nothing wrong public servants expressing religiously rooted values.”

Nothing wrong with that either. He who wants to be President needs to use the media in precisely these ways, especially when he had a lot of ground to make up.

But I do draw the line somewhere. When they-who-want-to-be-President start telling me what God wants us to do, that’s when I’m suddenly hit very hard by the urge to stumble outside and help myself to a few lung-fulls of fresh air. Here’s what AP reports Obama as telling worshipers on Sunday:

The Democratic presidential candidate said God “is with us and he wants us to do the right thing,” including breaking down the divisions between Democrats and Republicans and among religions.

When people work together, he said, there is “nothing that can stop us because that’s God’s intention.”

I, for one, had not previously realized that God wants us to vote for Obama.

But snark aside, once Obama starts saying that God has assigned us specific political tasks, where does it end?

And is there any meaningful difference between a sleazy televangelist or a cult leader saying: “God wants you to give me all your money!” and a silver-tongued politician saying “”God wants you to give me your vote!”

Isn’t this guy on the wrong side of the separation-between-church-and-state divide? Or in the wrong tent?