VIA EURWEB:
When it comes to spiritual guidance for President Barack Obama five heads could be better than one.
According to the NY Times, Obama prefers to consult a team of evangelical pastors instead of one spiritual advisor.
That team has counseled him through private prayer sessions on the telephone and for discussions on the role of religion in politics.
The president has been without a pastor or a church home since he cut ties to Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. in the heat of the presidential campaign. And despite being slow to choose a church home in Washington, D.C., Obama has received spiritual guidance from a collective.
All are men, two of them white and three black – including Rev. Otis Moss, Jr., a graying lion of the civil rights movement; the entrepreneurial dynamos Bishop T.D. Jakes and Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, who also served as occasional spiritual advisers to President George W. Bush; and Rev. Jim Wallis, who leans left on some issues such as military intervention and poverty programs, but opposes abortion. None of these pastors is affiliated with the religious right, though some are quite conservative theologically. One of them, Rev. Joel C. Hunter, is pastor of a conservative mega church in Florida when he was branded a traitor by some leaders of the Christian right when he spoke out against global warming.
The pastors say Obama appears to rely on his faith for intellectual and spiritual comfort.
Read more here.
