Talk:List of converts to Christianity/Archive 9

Obama
Barack Obama needs to be added to the list of converts to Christianity. Several people had tried to add him, but Sefringle kept deleting him, believing him to have always been a Christian. This was discussed in Archive #4, and everyone there disagreed with Sefringle, but he apears to have "won" just by out lasting everyone else. My question: does anyone else agree with Sefringle? Please read the previous archive before responding, as it appears to me all relevant arguments were brought out there. But if anyone can give better support for Sefringle's position than I seen, please let me know before I put Obama back. I am willing to be convinced, but I have not been yet.Decnavda 01:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I did disagree with him, and I still do. I believe he's looking for concrete phrasing from the sources, because as far as he's concerned, Obama had a Christian upbringing. From what I've read, I beg to differ, but doing this sort of research feels like a retread of the last big discussion here, and I'm not privy to digging into my local library again. It seems to me that Obama became a Christian, by choice, in adulthood. The problem here is that "non-religiousness" is murky water on conversion pages, as someone can be a Christian who's simply non-religious, and therefore one could interpret Obama's baptism as a simple re-confirmation within his faith (as many Protestants don't get baptized until of a willing nature to do so). Then again, there is also a general irreligious state; a sort of "don't careism" that many people fall into. Classifying people is difficult at times. Obama sounds to me like someone who'd once identified with a vague deity only for the purpose of questioning its reality, and as the product of an atheist/agnostic/liberal universalist (little u) Christian/Muslim heritage, it's natural that the young Obama would have an idea of God with no real direction. I consider his conversion to be a genuine conversion to Christianity from... something else. But we need more information on the subject. You seem to be more familiar with his personal writings; can you provide any useful sources (and excerpts)?--C.Logan 02:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Isn't Obama's position that he was raised Christian? I'm afraid all this inclusion would do is subtly help the anti-Obama propagandists who want to convince people that he was a Muslim. StaticElectric 02:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * From what I've read, he himself has stated that he grew up in a secular home with a religious heritage. His mother was apparently Christian in heritage, but herself was a freethinking universalist who tried to give Obama an upbringing of no specific sport. From the way he describes it, it sounds absolutely nothing like he was "raised Christian", but it's debatable, of course.


 * And really, the issue here has nothing to do with Islam. It concerns whether he could be called an atheist/agnostic/irreligious individual before his baptism, or whether he was simply a disenfranchised Christian who recommitted himself. I lean towards the former, but I'd need to see some more information on the subject, really.--C.Logan 02:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

From Audacity of Hope, as exerted in Time:

''This isn't to say that she provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge of the world's great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. 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--no introspective exertion or self-flagellation. 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.''

''In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist that she would become; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well. Moreover, as a child I rarely came in contact with those who might offer a substantially different view of faith. My father was almost entirely absent from my childhood, having been divorced from my mother when I was 2 years old; in any event, although my father had been raised a Muslim, by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist, thinking religion to be so much superstition.''

''And yet for all her professed secularism, my mother was in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I've ever known. She had an unswerving instinct for kindness, charity, and love, and spent much of her life acting on that instinct, sometimes to her detriment. Without the help of religious texts or outside authorities, she worked mightily to instill in me the values that many Americans learn in Sunday school: honesty, empathy, discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work. She raged at poverty and injustice.''

By Obama's own account, then, the Bible and Christianity were treated the same as Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, and Greek, Norse, and African Mythology, and his mother, who raised him, professed secularism. This is a Non-Religious household. Anyone who claims he was raised Christian has the burden to source a statement from someone who knnows of Obama's background that contradicts the above. To anyone who claims that the above does not constitute a non-religious household, I would like them to describe what WOULD constitute a non-religious household.Decnavda 17:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on "secular" begins:, "Secularity (adjective form secular) is the state of being separate from religion." A religious person may engage in secular activities, but if person is secular, that means they are not religious. That is clearly the way Obama was using the term in context, and when his mother took him to a church, a temple, or a shrine, she was a secular person engaging in religous activity.Decnavda 18:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Also from Audacity of Hope, as exerted in Time:

''My work with the pastors and laypeople there deepened my resolve to lead a public life, but it also forced me to confront a dilemma that my mother never fully resolved in her own life: the fact that I had no community or shared traditions in which to ground my most deeply held beliefs. The Christians with whom I worked recognized themselves in me; they saw that I knew their Book and shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me remained removed, detached, an observer among them. I came to realize that without an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith, I would be consigned at some level to always remain apart, free in the way that my mother was free, but also alone in the same ways she was ultimately alone.''

In such a life I, too, might have contented myself had it not been for the particular attributes of the historically black church, attributes that helped me shed some of my skepticism and embrace the Christian faith.

"I had no community or shared traditions in which to ground my most deeply held beliefs." He had no religion. "The Christians with whom I worked recognized themselves in me". They were Christians, he was not. He did not have "an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith," he was non-religious. He had to "shed some of my skepticism and embrace the Christian faith." He had not yet embraced the Christian faith. How can you b a Christian who has not yet embraced the Christian faith? That is a logical contradiction.

He was a non-religous adult from a non-religious household who converted to Chrstianity. Is there any other way to interpret that, or any sources who knew Obama that contradict that? And again, if that is not a non-religious household, what would be, other than an explicit declaration of atheism or agnosticism? And, if that was a religious household, what religion was it? How could it be "Christian" any more than Islamic, Buddhist, Shinto, or Norse?Decnavda 18:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I can see an argument against inclusion of such information based on BLP. None of the statements made above really explicitly say that Obama wasn't a Christian, so going the step further might qualify as original research. Now, if there were content added to his own page which clearly indicated that he had converted, and on that basis the Category Converts to Christianity was added there, then there would be no question. However, until then, BLP might indicate that such "poorly-sourced" statements and conclusions be removed. Maybe a request for comment on Obama's own article regatding this matter might be the only way to conclude this discussion right now. John Carter 19:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * First, I am new here - What's BLP?
 * Next - True, this source (his autobiography) does not SAY he was not a Christian. It also does not say that he was not a Shinto, or Muslim, or a Buddhist. It describes a non-religous household.  Why is Christianity assumed unless explicitly denied?  If I had sources that showed that Alan Greenspan wrote articles in favor of the gold standard for a newsletter published by Ayn Rand and that he was later the head of the Federal Reserve, would it be "original research" to put him in a list of people who were not Marxists?
 * Is there something politically sensitive about this that is making people learly of classifying something that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck as a "duck"? Is listing Obama as a convert from non-religious to religious potentially biased either for or against him? I don't see it - it is just how he has described himself in his autobiography.Decnavda 20:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * First, BLP refers to Biographies of living persons, as per the white template at the top of this page. It says that all poorly sourced material regarding living people is to be removed immediately. In the case of an active member of the United Church of Christ, like Obama, and for a list such as this of "converts", we would need some hard, verifiable evidence that he had at some point been something else. I know that the subject himself has, at least so far as I know, never explicitly said that he ever was "agnostic" or "atheist", or for that matter anything other than "Christian", and that the statements in his biography fall well short of ever directly addressing that issue. On that basis, it could be argued that it would be original research to say something in the article which none of the sources explicitly say. Again, if you know of sources which could be included in his article which would in the eyes of the editors there justify adding the Converts to Christianity category to that article, then we could probably include it. Without that, however, the ambiguous nature of his existing statements, unchanged, might make the inclusion of his name problematic.
 * I know others have alleged earlier that Obama was simply making political statements in his political biography to draw attention to himself, and that his ambiguous statements don't add up to a clear declaration. Neither do any other sources that I know of. And, as per BLP, that might be enough to require the removal of such content. And I note from the quote above he doesn't explicitly make any statements regarding which services he may have been brought to more frequently. I irregularly attended services of Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism as a kid, but went to the Catholic Mass every Sunday. If I didn't add the last part, I could make it a matter of speculation what I was as a child as well. We also fairly regularly have instances where people "leave open the door" for a conclusion which is factually not supported by explicit statements one way or another. Lots of allegations of homosexuality fall in this area, generally to help get the subject's name in the public consciousness. Again, if we had a hard, explicit statement based on something other than his book that he was ever non-Christian, then there would be no argument. Without it, though, there can be challenges to that content. John Carter 20:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

From The New York Times "A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith" By JODI KANTOR Published: April 30, 2007

''Twenty years ago at Trinity, Mr. Obama, then a community organizer in poor Chicago neighborhoods, found the African-American community he had sought all his life, along with professional credibility as a community organizer and an education in how to inspire followers. He had sampled various faiths but adopted none [Emphasis mine] until he met Mr. Wright, a dynamic pastor who preached Afrocentric theology, dabbled in radical politics and delivered music-and-profanity-spiked sermons.''

''His embrace of faith was a sharp change for a man whose family offered him something of a crash course in comparative religion but no belief to call his own. “He comes from a very secular, skeptical family,” said Jim Wallis, a Christian antipoverty activist and longtime friend of Mr. Obama. “His faith is really a personal and an adult choice. His is a conversion story.”'' [Emphasis mine]

''This polyglot background made Mr. Obama tolerant of others’ faiths yet reluctant to join one, said Mr. Wright, the pastor. In an interview in March in his office, filled with mementos from his 35 years at Trinity, Mr. Wright recalled his first encounters with Mr. Obama in the late 1980s, when the future senator was organizing Chicago neighborhoods. Though minister after minister told Mr. Obama he would be more credible if he joined a church, he was not a believer.'' [Emphasis mine]

“I remained a reluctant skeptic, doubtful of my own motives, wary of expedient conversion, having too many quarrels with God to accept a salvation too easily won,” he wrote in his first book, “Dreams From My Father.”

It was a 1988 sermon called “The Audacity to Hope” that turned Mr. Obama, in his late 20s, from spiritual outsider to enthusiastic churchgoer.

How is that? Or do I need to find a videotape of Walter Kronkite interviewing Jesus Christ telling us that Obama did not believe in him untill he became a community organizer?Decnavda 21:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You got the tape? I'd love to see it. :) Personally, what you've got is enough for me. I would welcome input form any others, though. John Carter 21:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Still, does he ever say he was non-christian? No. He says he was non-religious, secular, non-practicing, but never was he not a christian. Maybe his faith was weak, he obviously had looked at other religions, but he still was a christian; he never denys being a Christian. He certianly never says he was ever an atheist or agnostic.-- Sef rin gle Talk 22:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the phrase "he adopted none", refering to religions, is the indicator that he was not a Christian. John Carter 22:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Sefringle, again, why do you keep claiming Obama was Christian as opposed to any other religion or non-religion? Do you have ANY source stating that Obama was a Christian before he became a community organizer?  Do you contend people are Christian unless they have expressly claimed another religion or expressly claimed to be atheist or agnostic? Decnavda 23:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I say he was a christian because he was raised as such by his mother. Not everyone who is christian is a convert. To be a convert one must be a part of one religion, and then a different religion. In general, people are the religion of their parents unless they convert, so in Obama's case, we assume Christianity. What there is no evidence of, is that he left Christianity, or that he was a part of another religion.
 * Here. This should explain it: "My work with the pastors and laypeople there deepened my resolve to lead a public life, but it also forced me to confront a dilemma that my mother never fully resolved in her own life: the fact that I had no community or shared traditions in which to ground my most deeply held beliefs. The Christians with whom I worked recognized themselves in me; they saw that I knew their Book and shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me remained removed, detached, an observer among them. I came to realize that without an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith, I would be consigned at some level to always remain apart, free in the way that my mother was free, but also alone in the same ways she was ultimately alone."
 * He was a christian with little to no faith. Never does he say he was a part of some other religion, or atheism or agnosticism, nor that he ever identified as a non-christian.-- Sef rin gle Talk 02:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, at least to my eyes, the statement above is no less clear than any of the others that have been posted. Nowhere in that statement does he say that he ever was a Christian. It does not say what the deeply held beliefs he is referring to are, and it may well be original research to say that it was what we would call Christian. The fact that he says he knew their book and sang their songs is evidenced, but the same thing can be said about his relations with Muslims, Hindus, and others. It doesn't specify anything. While it is true that he did, apparently, believe in some sort of religion, there is no solid evidence that that religion was remotely what anyone would call Christian. On that basis, based on the evidence presented to date, I personally believe that there is sufficient cause to say that he converted from an ill-defined "theism" to Christianity, as that is what all the statements made to date seem to indicate. John Carter 13:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The New York Times source seems to be the best evidence we've got. And I think that it is enough to warrant the claim that Obama converted.Vice regent 15:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Regardless, I do have some questions:
 * When did Obama convert?
 * When and where did he have his baptism?
 * If he converted then these questions shouldn't be hard to answer. Note that the inability to answer this question doesn't mean that he didn't convert.Vice regent 15:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Sefringle, It appears your premises are as follows:

1. A person can be a member of a religion while having no faith. I disagree, but the consensus here seems to be against me on this one, so I will concede the point for now.

2. A person is presumptively the religion of his parents, ancestors, or upbringing. I disagree with this premise, but even assuming it is correct, it does not fit any of the well sourced facts of Obama's life. It is not clear to me which of three you are arguing for exactly, so let me take them all in turn.
 * A. Parents. Obama had no Christian parents.  His mother was secular, at MOST deistic, and taught him to view all religions with the same respect and skepticism.  His father was an atheist.  His step-father was what you would probably call a "secular Muslim".  (From the NY Times article, "His mother’s tutelage took place mostly in Indonesia, in the household of Mr. Obama’s stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, a nominal Muslim who hung prayer beads over his bed but enjoyed bacon, which Islam forbids.")
 * B. Ancestors. Half were Christian, half were Muslim.  How do you pick Christianity?
 * C. Upbringing. Again, his mother exposed him to ALL religions.  Earlier you responded to this by asking, yes, but what did he get the most of, with the assumption being that because his mother's parents were Christian and his environment was Christian, than Christianity would predominate.  But, while I disagree that would make him Christian, even that premise is not true.  From the NY Times article, "“My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim,” said Maya Soetoro-Ng, Mr. Obama’s younger half sister. But Mr. Obama attended a Catholic school and then a Muslim public school where the religious education was cursory. When he was 10, he returned to his birthplace of Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attended a preparatory school with a Christian affiliation but little religious instruction."  Again, he was never intentionally brought up Christian, and his upbringing exposed him at least as much, probably more, to Islam as it did Christianity. Decnavda 17:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Vice regent-

When - I could only find the year. From the NY Time article, "It was a 1988 sermon called “The Audacity to Hope” that turned Mr. Obama, in his late 20s, from spiritual outsider to enthusiastic churchgoer. ... Mr. Obama was baptized that year, and joining Trinity helped him “embrace the African-American community in a way that was whole and profound,” said Ms. Soetoro, his half sister."

Where - From The Audacity of Hope, as exherted in TIME Magazine, "It was because of these newfound understandings--that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved--that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God's spirit beckoning me." Decnavda 17:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

To those who think Obama should be added-

Where should we put him? If it were solely up to me, I would change the "Atheism and Agnosticism" category to "Secular" or maybe "Freethought" and put him there. But it looks like the brewing consensus would be to put him in "prior religion undetermined". What do ya'll say? Decnavda 17:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * To change the names of the categories would cause a discussion in and of itself. I support Obama being under "Prior religion undetermined".--C.Logan 18:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

With no new comments in opposition in several days, I am going to go ahead and add Obama under "prior religion undetermined". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Decnavda (talk • contribs) 17:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've deleted Obama. The reference cited here in support of conversion says that he was trained in Christianity at a Catholic school at age 10.  CNN quoted him as saying "I have always been a Christian" at the Iowa primary.  The description of his reaction to the church as a "conversion experience" does not mean it was conversion to Christianity from another religion - people convert from one sect to another all the time.  In this case for example it could be viewed as a conversion from an uncompelling Catholicism to a Protestant liberation theology. Wnt (talk) 21:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * How does it not mean that? I like to say that "I've been a Christian my whole life" - But I used to be an atheist. It helps clear things up. Does that mean I'm not a convert? And again, a conversion experience means you convert. It doesn't mean your faith is strengthened. Quit gaming the system. Secondly, these people were in the middle of an arguement - Please do not edit until it is resolved, you'll only make matters worse. Third, you have one source, CNN of all places, while these people have the man's biography among others. ¤IrønCrøw¤ (Speak to Me) 05:16, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Hasn't Obama himself credited Wright with bringing him to Xianity? You can't bring someone to something they already are! It's clear just from the quotes here that Obama didn't consider himself a Xian until he formally chose the religion - what else does anyone need? How about this article: "Barack Obama's search for faith": http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/30/america/30obama.php?page=1


 * ...Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. One congregant stood out amid the flowers and finery: Senator Barack Obama, there to honor the man who led him from skeptic to self-described Christian.

Is it really such a horrible thing for him to be a convert to Xianity that people have to argue so obscurely against it? FlaviaR (talk) 18:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

If you really think about it, Obama is a DEMOCRAT. Democrats and the Bible/Christianity DO NOT go hand in hand, so that automaticly means he is NOT a Christian. Also (I heard this so I have no clue if this is true or not) he wanted to be inaugerated wiht the Qu'ran not the Bible, like i said it could be false. He wants abortions, the Bible says that even the littlest things (babies) are God's. I could go on and on but to cut it short, Obama is not a Christian. HISHEfan (talk) 20:05, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * All very interesting, except that Wikipedia is not a place for publishing opinion or made-up stuff. See WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V. Nick Graves (talk) 22:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

ok, ok I get it. However he is a democrat and- hey wait, everybody else has opinions! well, sorta. but the facts are that he IS a Democrat and Democratic ideas are not on par with Christainity's. all the rest could be false. HISHEfan (talk) 00:07, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Have the standards of wikipedia fallen so greatly that partisan hacks and conspiracy theorist nutjobs will seriously influence this article?Shabeki (talk) 19:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Obama is absent from this list, not because he is not a Christian (this can be confirmed with countless reliable sources), but because he did not convert. Obama has said that he has always been Christian. I find this a dubious claim for anyone to make (how can one be born believing in Christ?), but we must respect the self-identity of living persons. Obama's identity is just as a Christian, and not a Christian convert. Nick Graves (talk) 02:48, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Six Million Conversions: Dubious?
I've read several sources, most recently the Judeo-Christian periodical "First Things," that note that the figure of 6 million African Muslims converting to Christianity is likely dubious. It is attributed to one Muslim theologian offered no real evidence for it, and was probably being rhetorical. Otherwise, can't we find a more academic source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zurkhardo (talk • contribs) 02:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Not all the list of people are (notable) !
So can i add in the list of converts to Islam... that my Filipino House maid convert to Islam from Christianity and was frighten to go back to her country because her family was going to kill her ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotsalah (talk • contribs) 03:11, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Skanderbeg
George Kastrioti of Albania was born a Catholic, forced to convert to Islam by the Turks (as all Janissaries were), and then returned to his faith when he defected back to the Albanian side. It's not like he just upped and converted to Christianity one day, he only returned to his faith. So, can we clarify this, please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.201.173.75 (talk) 21:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)