From the Moose's mouth

Yesterday belief.net published the full and unedited text of a famous interview with Barack Obama about his religious beliefs. It's worth reading in full, but the heart of it is here:

I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.

I think that, particularly as somebody who's now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there's an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

Obama is a straight-laced, orthodox Tolerationist. Anyone teaching through Ratzinger's Truth and Tolerance should assign Obama's interview for a class discussion. Come to think of it, anyone discussing Obama's religious views should read Ratzinger's Truth and Tolerance, which exposes the roots and the fruits of the tyrrany of tolerance. Under the banner of unity, which you will recall was the rallying cry of Obama's campaign, the "virtue of tolerance" bans the only possible basis of unity: truth.

Obama's take on Jesus Christ is the second most interesting point in the interview. It fits precisely within the boundaries of orthodox Tolerationism, and locates our president-elect within the debate over who is and isn't a real Christian:

FALSANI:

Who's Jesus to you?

(He laughs nervously)

OBAMA:
Right.

Jesus is an historical figure for me, and he's also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher.

And he's also a wonderful teacher. I think it's important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.