Oba­ma Takes on Ques­tion of Chris­tian Faith

Key­words: 2008 Elec­tion, Barack Oba­ma, Barack Oba­ma 2008, Chris­tian Faith, Re­li­gion, Call­ing, Com­mit­ted Chris­tian, Chris­tian­i­ty, Prayer, Barack Oba­ma Mus­lim, Barack Oba­ma Race, Demo­crat­ic Pres­i­den­tial Can­di­date, Demo­crat­ic Pri­ma­ry, Oba­ma, Oba­ma Mus­lim, Oba­ma Mus­lim Email, Oba­ma Mus­lim Smear, Oba­ma Pledge Of Al­le­giance, Pledge Of Al­le­giance, Break­ing Pol­i­tics News

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Barack Oba­ma is step­ping up his ef­fort to cor­rect the mis­con­cep­tion that he's a Mus­lim now that the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign has hit the Bible Belt.

At a ral­ly to kick off a week­long cam­paign for the South Car­oli­na pri­ma­ry, Oba­ma tried to set the record straight from an at­tack cir­cu­lat­ing wide­ly on the In­ter­net that is de­signed to play in­to prej­u­dices against Mus­lims and fears of ter­ror­ism.

"I've been to the same church _ the same Chris­tian church _ for al­most 20 years," Oba­ma said, stress­ing the word Chris­tian and draw­ing cheers from the faith­ful in re­ply. "I was sworn in with my hand on the fam­i­ly Bible. When­ev­er I'm in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, I pledge al­le­giance to the flag of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. So if you get some sil­ly e-​mail ... send it back to who­ev­er sent it and tell them this is all crazy. Ed­u­cate."

Oba­ma is re­fer­ring to a de­bunked chain e-​mail cir­cu­lat­ing wide­ly on the In­ter­net that sug­gests he is hid­ing his Is­lam­ic roots and may be a ter­ror­ist in dis­guise. It says he was sworn in­to the Sen­ate on the Quran and turns his back on the flag dur­ing the pledge.

There are some truths in the e-​mail's de­tails. Oba­ma's mid­dle name is Hus­sein. His fa­ther and step­fa­ther were Mus­lim. And he spent part of his child­hood in In­done­sia, a large­ly Mus­lim coun­try. But he at­tend­ed sec­u­lar and Catholic schools, not a rad­i­cal madras­sa.

His cam­paign has been push­ing back against the false ru­mors all year. His aides de­cried an in­cor­rect news re­port that Oba­ma was ed­u­cat­ed in a Mus­lim madras­sa and a sec­tion of his Web site is de­vot­ed to cor­rect that and oth­er false ru­mors cir­cu­lat­ing on the In­ter­net.

But they are step­ping up the ef­fort now that the cam­paign has hit South ...