Obamas on Easter: St. John's Episcopal

[jefferson_dem]

Obamas on Easter: St. John's Episcopal
Posted April 12, 2009 11:15 AM
by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, his wife and two daughters attended Easter service this morning at St. John's Church, a favorite chapel of presidents past situated just across a sun-splashed, flowering park from the White House, the president's first church attendance in Washington since inauguration in January.

For Obama, who had a public falling out with his former longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago, at the height of a heated campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination last year, today's churchgoing is said to be only part of the search for a new sanctuary for the first family. Today's visit, the White House said, did not necessarily signal that choice. It's simply Easter.

The Rev. Luis Leon, who presides over the Episcopal St. John's, is more known for his sense of humor in the pulpit - a personally engaging pastor whose sermons are filled with current events and observations - than the politicized preaching which got Obama's former pastor in trouble.

With a search underway for a new church for the Obama family in Washington, advisers have said that the vetting will be careful to consider the history of the church and its pastors - a measure of how troubling the Wright saga was for Obama, who publicly denounced the "incendiary'' words of the now-retired but former longtime pastor of Trinity United Church after Wright's railing about racism in America from the pulpit was publicized by videos on the Internet.

Since Obama left Trinity last year, he has been without an official house of worship, relying instead on a close circle of advisers and pastors for private counsel.

<SNIP>

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/04/obamas_on_easter_st_johns_epis.html

[peace13]

1. This line is scary!

'Since Obama left Trinity last year, he has been without an official house of worship, relying instead on a close circle of advisers and pastors for private counsel.' I won't let my brain go there. Ugggh.

[ruggerson]

2. Why does he have to have a church?

Millions of people don't belong to an organized church and do just fine.

[jefferson_dem]

4. Maybe because the First Family wants to participate in a community of "believers"...

AKA "a church." :shrug:

While some (myself included) do just fine without particular organizational or doctrinal affiliation, others find comfort in them.

[ruggerson]

6. you're probably right

and they want a place to bring their children. I just don't like the idea of the media pressuring them. It's their private decision.

[rug]

3. Where is the "only idiots believe in imaginary beings" crowd?

[asphalt.jungle]

5. "the president's first church attendance in Washington since inauguration in January"

wasn't there a story about how 3/4 of the regular churchgoers at some church couldn't get in because the obamas' visited?


google ... found it.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/04/08/i-bet-sasha-finds-the-afikomen/

The last church they visited, 19th Street Baptist, was so swamped with people trying to get a glimpse of Obama that two-thirds of the church's regular members weren't even able to get through the door to worship.