When Michael Wear shook hands with Barack Obama and told him he’d like to work for him, he couldn’t have predicted the swiftness with which he would be swept up into a historic presidential campaign. Nor could he have predicted the deeply uncomfortable tension he’d face as a lifelong Democrat who also happened to be a pro-life Christian.

As the director of faith outreach for Obama’s 2012 campaign, Wear had a front-row seat to the divide between secular and sacred politicians and voters. It was a divide that would come to define politics in the next election. But as the title of his book, Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America, makes clear, he still has some faith that these challenges can be overcome.

On this week’s episode of The Calling, Richard Clark sits down with Michael Wear to discuss the best and worst of his time in the White House, how the church can help redeem politics, and about that one time Obama killed a fly with his bare hands.

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The Calling is produced by Richard Clark and Morgan Lee and edited by Jonathan Clauson.

Theme music by Lee Rosevere, used under Creative Commons 4.0.