PrintAugust 27, 2010
Religion and Politics: What Obama could learn from Benjamin Disraeli
Jewish-born Benjamin Disraeli served a total of seven years as British Prime Minister, during two terms between 1868 and 1880. As a child, Disraeli received Jewish instruction, and his family belonged to a synagogue. Though he converted to the Anglican Church at the age of thirteen, Disraeli's Jewish religious and ethnic origins were both well-known and frequently discussed throughout his long political career, during which he was proudly philo-Semitic.By contrast, a new Pew Research Center poll shows that a growing percentage of Americans (43%) do not know President Obama's current religion, with another 18% now saying that he is Muslim. This signals a potential political problem because public opinion polling tells us that most Americans expect their politicians to have firm religious beliefs and are genuinely interested in their leaders' religious affiliations.Though explicitly philo-Muslim in policy, President Obama has repeatedly affirmed his own Christianity, which...(Read Full Article)
