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Niels C. Nielsen, Jr.'s field of study and research is philosophy and religious studies. His text, Religions of the World is a widely used class book. His study of The Religion of Jimmy Carter had international sales, with Dutch and German translations. He has also written on Religion After Communism in Russia.
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Turn to this book for a careful contemporary exposition of Barack
Obama’s religious beliefs -- and a long term historical appraisal of
their relation to the faith of predecessor presidents.
The forty-fourth President’s term of office will not expire until
two more years. So who are we living with? Is Barack Hussein Obama a
man of Christian faith? His middle name (which he included when he
took the oath of office) means blessing in Muslim tradition. Who
have turned out to be his cohorts, his opponents, his enemies? Is
he tolerant, intolerant, puffed up, confused?
The world must judge! Or is he perhaps (as charged) a paranoid, a
racist, a devotee of Liberation Theology, a socialist, communist,
Muslim or skeptic?
Historically, it seemed to be an open question of WHAT NEXT --
how long and who wins for his administration? In the 2010 mid-term
national election Democrats suffered major losses as the House of
Representatives passed into Republican control. Critics said that
Barack Obama is already a one term president! What had become of
his biblically referenced audacity of hope, they asked? The
opposition leadership vowed to seek repeal of Obama Care, the
President’s health care program. Who had the forty-fourth President
of the United States turned out to be, friends and enemies speculated?
Statesman, Hypocrite, Liar, Paranoid, Wise Leader, Prophet, Zealot?
To begin to answer our question one must consider how the first
African-American President’s plans and policies related to those of
his predecessors in office--Clinton, Kennedy, the Roosevelts,
Lincoln, Jackson, Washington among others; how will future historians
evaluate his personality and character? How is one to appraise his
foreign policy, his priorities: war and peace, nuclear disarmament,
medicare, recession, religious freedom? The fact is that some of his
accomplishments have turned out to be substantial even though the
high rate of unemployment throughout the land has hobbled his
administration and destroyed much of his earlier popularity.
Barack Obama had campaigned for the presidency with great optimism and
promise. He promised to end the log jam in Washington D.C., work for
disarmament and peace abroad as well as to build racial cooperation
and interparty cooperation at home. From the outset of his term in
office the Republicans united against him, seeking to to bring him
down and to block his program. Obama himself had come to the
capitol pledged to foster cooperation across party divides. It did
not work! Such was the continuing confrontation between a
progressive idealistic Democratic President and his Republican
traditionalist opponents. The country had its most intellectual
president since Woodrow Wilson, but his careful judgments did not
necessarily bring votes in the face of major unemployment. Of
course, internationally the nation faced continuing warfare in the
Middle East, now centered now in Afghanistan rather than Iraq.
