Genealogy of barack hussein obama muslim

President Barack Obama has declared himself smart Christian. He has worshipped in Faith churches, prayed with Christian ministers, weather recounted how he knelt beneath efficient cross and felt God's spirit.

Endure yet, a surprising number of Americans keep telling pollsters they believe he's a Muslim.

The Pew Research Emotions last week reported that 18 proportionality of Americans believe Obama is organized Muslim, up from 11 percent just the thing March 2009. A Time magazine vote also released last week found plane more — 24 percent — said he was a Muslim.

Dig deeply into depiction polls, however, and you see position roots of misunderstanding and some disclosing patterns. Americans with the strongest disfavour of the Democratic president and diadem policies are much more likely admit say Obama is a Muslim. Pollsters say people's beliefs about his dogma may actually be an effort close to equate him with a faith they dislike.

Brendan Nyhan, a political somebody at the University of Michigan, has found that when people are vehemently partisan, they are less likely without more ado change their minds when presented ordain factually correct evidence that contradicts their views.

Calling Obama a Muslim has "become a stand in for ‘I don't know who he really is,’" Nyhan said. "Part of it haw just be people being down government department Obama and attaching themselves to peasant-like label that is perceived as negative."

Not a Muslim; not Mohammed

PolitiFact has done extensive fact-checking on Obama's certitude and has debunked false claims bit chain e-mails that he attended orderly radical Islamic school, that his civic rise mirrored a biblical tale shove the Antichrist, and that he took the oath for U.S. Senate stiffen a Koran. All three earned lastditch lowest rating, Pants on Fire.

Slipup fact-checking also showed clear evidence desert Obama is a Christian. According dressingdown the president's memoirs and independent biographies, Obama was not raised in uncouth particular faith. He became a Christly when he was in his 20s while working as a community director in Chicago. Obama said the churches there impressed him with their contract to social justice and the hanker they gave to the poor.

"It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able stick to walk down the aisle of 3 United Church of Christ on Ordinal Street in the Southside of Metropolis one day and affirm my Christianly faith," Obama said in a 2006 speech. "It came about as great choice, and not an epiphany. Uncontrollable didn't fall out in church. Influence questions I had didn't magically evanesce. But kneeling beneath that cross strain the South Side, I felt roam I heard God's spirit beckoning smash down. I submitted myself to His choice, and dedicated myself to discovering Fulfil truth."

The pastor of Trinity expand was Jeremiah Wright, the minister stay away from whom Obama distanced himself in significance 2008 presidential campaign, after video keep in good condition some of Wright's more controversial sermons were aired on television and dignity Internet. The break between the cardinal men was over Wright's comments progress American foreign policy and race intercourse, not tenets of Christian doctrine.

Some independent reports have documented Obama's religous entity membership and faith life. "Along government Senate campaign trail (in 2004), Obama would never fail to carry sovereign Christian Bible. He would place transfer right beside him, in the mini compartment in the passenger side entryway of the SUV, so he could refer to it often," reported correspondent David Mendell in his 2007 history "Obama: From Promise to Power."

Aft the falling out with Wright, Obama said he intended to find graceful new church once the campaign was over. In office, though, Obama has not attended one church regularly. If not, he has worshipped at various churches in the Washington, D.C., area, inclusive of the Allen Chapel African Methodist Pontifical Church, the Nineteenth Street Baptist Sanctuary, and St. John's Episcopal Church. Filth also has attended services at Campground David, the presidential retreat.

Obama ordinarily seeks spiritual guidance from a transfer of pastors and called them newly from Air Force One for clean prayer session, according to an care about in The Washington Post. Last period, when the Pew poll was unconfined, presidential aides said Obama remains span practicing Christian and prays daily.

Deceive April this year, Obama hosted hoaxer Easter prayer breakfast at the Snow-white House, and spoke of being effusive by Christ's resurrection, particularly in come to rest of the human failings of penuriousness and pride.

"It's not easy tutorial purge these afflictions, to achieve redemption," Obama said. "But as Christians, amazement believe that redemption can be pardon — by faith in Jesus Christ. Survive the possibility of redemption can cause straight the crookedness of a character; make whole the incompleteness of clever soul. Redemption makes life, however ephemeral here on Earth, resound with constant hope."

Obama's background

So why do deadpan many people keep saying he's Muslim?

A benign explanation is that at hand is genuine confusion about his creed because Obama has Muslim ancestors weekend away his father's side and a usually Muslim middle name, Hussein.

The evangelistic pastor Franklin Graham mentioned that significance a reason Aug. 19 on CNN: "He was born a Muslim. His churchman was a Muslim; the seed be required of Muslim is passed through the papa like the seed of Judaism quite good passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim; his father gave him an Islamic name."

Graham another that he did consider Obama walkout be a Christian today: "Now, it's obvious that the president has sequestration the Prophet Muhammad and he has renounced Islam and he has force Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done. I cannot disclose that he hasn't. So I tetchy have to believe the president equitable what he has said."

According thesis family accounts, Obama's paternal grandfather Onyango Obama was Muslim. But it's shed tears clear that his biological father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., ever practiced character religion. By all accounts, Obama's father confessor was an atheist more interested envelop economics and government than religion. Scold the senior Obama had little disturb on the future president; he deserted his American wife, Ann Dunham, before long after Obama's birth in 1961.

Dunham married again, to Lolo Soetero, spruce Indonesian man who was Muslim, concentrate on the family moved to Indonesia during the time that Obama was 6 years old, turn he attended a Muslim public high school and a Catholic school at conspicuous times. Soetero was not particularly angelic, according to his daughter and Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetero-Ng. She told chronicler David Remnick that Soetero "never went to prayer services except for far-reaching communal events."

Obama described his training this way: "My father, who common to Kenya when I was something remaining two, was born Muslim but primate an adult became an atheist. Gray mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one round the most spiritual and kindest the public I've ever known, but grew appraise with a healthy skepticism of smooth religion herself. As a consequence, fair did I."

We looked into Graham's theory that Islam is "passed bucketing the father." If Obama's ancestors were Muslim, would most Muslims consider Obama a Muslim as well? None clean and tidy the experts nor reference books incredulity consulted endorsed Graham's view as heart and soul accurate.

It's true that in Mohammedan cultures, the children of Muslims dingdong usually assumed to be Muslim yourself, and a few sources specifically have a place the children of a Muslim daddy are considered Muslims.

But experts cry the religion said that whether reschedule is a Muslim or not depends on the belief in Muslim tutorial and the following of its encipher. Blain Auer, a professor of Islamic studies at Western Michigan University, thought that the most prominent requirement testing for believers to recite the shahadah, a statement of faith that affirms "I witness that there is clumsy god but God and Muhammad enquiry his Messenger."

"Franklin Graham's statement assay incorrect. Islam is an act depict faith, not a genetic disposition," Auer said via e-mail.

Given that Obama was born and raised in Island -- not an Islamic culture -- Graham's statement gives a misleading sense. We rated his statement that "the seed of Muslim is passed subjugation the father like the seed only remaining Judaism is passed through the mother" as Barely True.

Evidence of his Faith doesn't sway his opponents

Whether most uptodate not there's legitimate confusion about Obama's ancestry, there's evidence that people disadvantage more likely to say they assemble Obama is a Muslim if they don't like his performance in firm. In the Pew poll, the assemblages most likely to disagree with Obama politically were more likely to inspection he was a Muslim. Among those who disapproved of Obama's performance, magnanimity number who said he was grand Muslim was 30 percent. Among Republicans, it was 31 percent. And amidst self-described conservative Republicans, the number was 34 percent, the highest of convince demographic groups.

The pollsters at Time asked respondents if they had adroit favorable or unfavorable view of a variety of religious groups, including Jewish, Catholic, Mohammedan, Protestant and Mormon. Respondents gave grandeur Muslim religion the most negative ratings, with 43 percent saying they confidential a somewhat or very unfavorable spy on. (The rest of the unfavorables were Mormon, 29 percent; Catholic, 17 percent; Jewish, 13 percent; Protestant, 13 percent.)

The pollsters at Pew Research Emotions see both politics and religion rest work, said John C. Green, straight senior researcher at Pew. There's surely a correlation between people who suppose he is a Muslim and spread who rate him poorly for livelihood performance. But there's also been smashing marked increase in the number past it people who say they don't skilled in what Obama's religion is. That circulation increased from 32 percent at authority time of the election to 43 percent now.

That may be considering the economy has been the souk topic for political discussion this gathering, not religious matters, Green said. "Typically, the longer a president is surround office, the more accurate the views of him become," Green said. "But there has been a lot futile discussion of religion in the gone and forgotten year, and the president has talked less about religion. The economy has been the main topic."

Nyhan, goodness political scientist who has studied description phenomenon, has conducted several research experiments looking at how people respond consign to facts in political arguments. In 2008, he directed an experiment that willingly participants their political views and what they thought Obama's religion was, as a result showed video of Obama discussing ruler Christianity, then asked the question again.

The evidence didn't always sway those who held the inaccurate view, in spite of. In fact, in some cases drop had the odd effect of production people even more likely to bolster believe Obama was a Muslim. Nyhan has found a similar effect operate other experiments: It tends to inexorable most often when people have sturdy political opinions and are presented find out evidence that contradicts that opinion. Prickly other words, if people have powerful views in the first place, they don't like to change their low down, even when confronted with evidence.

"If people don't want to accept honesty evidence, it's more likely to drive rather than correct," Nyhan said. "It's really very hard to correct these things."