Barack Obama has made a point of telling anyone who will listen how important faith is to him. The president-elect speaks the language of faith fluently, for the most part, and he has made a special effort to reach out to evangelicals. But a report in his hometown Chicago Tribune notes that Obama has scarcely appeared at Sunday worship since his famous falling out with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. According to the Trib, “he has not attended a public church service since before being elected, a departure from the actions of his two immediate predecessors.”
Noting that he doesn’t want to make a commitment to a church before moving to the nation’s capital, and worrying about his possibly disruptive presence with other worshipers, Obama says he relies on pastor friends and his own private prayer in the interim.
Yet the president-elect says he will find a church once the move is complete. “We frankly haven’t thought about it yet,” Obama told the Tribune, “because right now we’re just trying to make sure that we don’t lose anything in the move, including our children.”
Another Obama predecessor cited concerns that he would be a disruption as a factor in his own spotty church attendance as president. His name was Ronald Reagan.
