Despite having lived in Washington D.C. for two months, President Obama has yet to begin regularly attending religious services. Although this may concern many, Obama’s true preference may be known to the first family alone.

Questions about Obama’s religion have been popular since the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy last March, but despite his baptism and 20 year membership at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he walked out without any promise to find a similar church in the capital.

Obama described his mother as detached from religion, yet “in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known.” His father was “raised a Muslim,” but “a confirmed atheist” by the time his parents met, and his stepfather “a man who saw religion as not particularly useful.”

As a child, Obama attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia, but wrote that “in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzins call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables.”

The simple fact of his Muslim roots has created something of a fad among conservative commentators for claiming he is a Muslim in disguise. Tongue slips aside, Obama is unapologetic in describing his personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and began his association with the Black churches of Chicago long before he became involved in national politics.

There is another possibility, however, and it revolves around Obama’s attendance at his grandmother’s memorial service, Dec. 23 at Honolulu’s First Unitarian Church.

According to the Unitarian Universalist Association, their religion has its roots in Jewish and Christian traditions, almost exactly the same words used by Obama to describe his own religious upbringing. They are proud to draw on many sources of illumination, but believe that in the end, religious authority lies not in a book or institution, but in the personal experience, conscience and reason of the individual.

“In our household the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology,” Obama wrote of his upbringing. “On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. But I was made to understand that such religious samplings required no sustained commitment on my part.

Religion was an expression of human culture, she would explain, not its wellspring, just one of the many ways – and not necessarily the best way – that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives.”

Unitarians follow no set creed, yet the UUA has published a list of seven basic principles each Unitarian tries to follow, including “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”, “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process” and “the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all,” among others. All very similar to the goals Obama has inspired the nation to strive for.

Augusta’s own branch of the Unitatian Church, at the intersection of Walton Way and Walton Way Extension, has associated itself with a wide variety of liberal political causes including raising money for AIDS research and calling for the return of Soldiers from Iraq.

For the time being, Obama claims to be “learning more about many churches in the District,” and will select a church at a time that is best for his family. However, should Obama decide to attend services at the All Souls Unitarian Church in the heart of D.C., he would not be in poor company. Many early U.S. Presidents, including John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore and Howard Taft were Unitarians. John Adams is buried at the Unitarian Church in Quincy, Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson told his nephew that he had to be a Unitarian by himself, since there were no organized congregations near Monticello.

Nevertheless, if it is true, Obama may have been the first Unitarian in more than 50 years to run for President, even if for the time being he must be a Unitarian by himself.



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