President Obama plans to name Joshua DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentecostal pastor and political strategist who handled religious outreach for the Obama campaign, to direct a revamped office of faith-based initiatives, according to religious leaders who have been informed about the choice.
The office, created by President George W. Bush by executive order at the start of his first term, is likely to have an even broader mandate in the Obama White House, said the religious leaders, who requested anonymity because the appointment has yet to be announced.
The White House declined to comment.
Profile of DuBois here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121883753433545501.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
This is going to sound harsh. But I am becoming convinced that for Pres Obama religion is basically a tool (a means toward a particular social-political-economic vision). A nicer way to put that is he views religion almost exclusively in pragmatic terms. See http://www.sanctusbenedictus.com/2009/01/obama-and-religion-its-nothing-personal.html.
And what did Jim Wallis say recently? That they would “clear the way for change” on behalf of the Obama Administration? About a week ago mentioned on this very website.
How ironic that the somewhat liberal scholar Walter Brueggemann (whom generally I admire) wrote [i]Israel’s Praise: Between Ideology and Doxology[/i] – because methinks we are beginning to see religion as ideology (in the context of the book ideology as “support for those in power”). (By the way it is an excellent book although I disagree with some of his conclusions. I do not think he takes sufficiently into account the canonical arrangement of the psalter.)