Watch: Santorum Says Obama’s Faith, Church Merely An “Avenue For Power”
Rick Santorum in this 2008 video says that Barack Obama’s faith, and his choice of a church, were all merely an “avenue for power.” In other words, Santorum criticizes Obama for being so strategic that he would somehow base his political career on his choice of a church, and suggests that Obama is merely using Christianity to gain power. All this, coming from Santorum, who uses his faith and his interpretation of his faith, as the entire basis of his political positions, and panders to the religious right in everything he does.
Talk about hypocrisy.
This video was taken when Santorum participated in a question and answer forum titled “The Press & People of Faith in Politics,â€Â hosted by the Oxford Center for Religion and Public Life, in 2008. During the forum, Santorum said that the teaching of evolution is used to promote atheism, creationism is “academic freedom,” and called the Democratic Party the party of sex, a party that preyed on lust, and the party of Woodstock, which he called “the great American orgy.â€
Here’s the video, followed by the transcript provided by the Oxford Center for Religion and Public Life.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XbRqWPQ5-3k%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US
QUESTION: What is your assessment of Barack Obama’s faith?
ANSWER:Â He joined the most popular church in an area of the city where he was going to make his political stand. It had the most reach. It had the most juice. It gave him a platform to be able to go out and use their reach, their power, to help build a base of support for him in that community so he could go and run for office.
He didn’t really much care, in my opinion, what the belief structure was. It was a vehicle. Now, am I saying that he believes everything that Rev. Wright believes? No. But he was willing to tolerate those beliefs for 20 years to achieve a political objective, which was to get him elected.
Could he through that time have become a person of faith and take that faith seriously? I never judge someone’s faith personally. I have no idea whether that he has a personal faith or what that personal faith is. That’s between him and God. I can’t judge any of you on that.
What I can tell you is, objectively, that faith was an avenue for power. It may have ended up in other manifestations, persona or otherwise, but to suggest that his journey was anything other than that, was primarily focused on something other than that, I think is just wrong.
Questioner:Â What about his expressions of faith now?
Santorum: I don’t know. How do you know? That’s between him and God.
All I can do is look at his actions. He can say whatever he wants to say. If you look at his actions about what he believes from a public-policy point of view, and how that squares with the faith he says he subscribes to, I see a lot of disconnections. And it’s a conscious disconnection.
It’s a conscious disconnection to go in and say “I’m a believer in the Word of God as expressed in the Old and New Testament†and then hold the public policy position that he does. Because they’re inconsistent.
I think it’s just better to stand up and tell the truth about what role faith plays in your life. What’s happened in America, a lot of people point to John Kennedy’s speech in 1960 and subsequent speeches after that by a number of politicians, is the privatization of religion. That, yes, Barack Obama can say “I believe in all this stuff. I believe in Christianity and the form of Christianity that I have, but it has no application to public policy. It has no application to public life. It is separate. It is my private religion. It is what I do on Sundays. It’s what I do in my own personal life.â€
If that is your understanding of the role of faith and what the New Testament is all about, fine. It’s not mine. I don’t think it’s a fair reading of what Christ came to earth to do. I don’t think he came to earth just to say “Well, I want you to privately be really good, and then go out and do publicly horrible things. And that’s okay.†I don’t see it that way.

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