Obama: Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, January 17

This was stunning, a very rare event.

Obama went to church this Sunday.
Amazing!
Obama didn't interrupt his Hawaiian vacation to attend church services on Christmas.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, he painted himself as a faithful, church-going man. He touted himself as a 20-year member of the Trinity United Church of Christ. Of course, his pastor and mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, became a political liability for him so he cut ties with that church.

Since then, the First Family has barely attended any church services. Even on Christmas Day, they couldn't be interrupted to celebrate the holy day recognizing the blessed birth of Jesus Christ.

Today, however, Obama managed to make it to church. He took his family with him.

Why?

Politics.

He wasn't there to worship God or instill faith in his daughters. He was there to campaign for his health care bill and attempt to draw parallels between himself and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

From FOX News:

As Democratic fears increase that health insurance reform could slip away with a crucial vote for a new U.S. senator in Massachusetts, President Obama on Sunday used a church pulpit at a Martin Luther King Day service to say the massive health bill would be a victory for "decency."

Speaking to congregants at Vermont Avenue Baptist church in Washington, D.C., before heading north to rally for Attorney General Martha Coakley, Obama said the legislation will help more than 30 million Americans, "men women and children, mothers and fathers" to get insurance.

"This will be a victory not for Democrats," Obama said. "It will be a victory for dignity and decency, and for our common humanity. It will be a victory for the United States of America."

It was the president's first visit to a church in Washington, D.C., since Oct. 11, though the White House says Obama attends the Evergreen Chapel in Camp David when he visits the presidential retreat in rural Maryland.

Democrats are working furiously to reach an agreement on the massive bill as they watch closely the prospect of Coakley losing the seat held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy to Republican Scott Brown. Brown has pledged to be the 41st vote against health insurance reforms. The election is Tuesday.

Too bad Obama wasn't at Camp David on Christmas. Maybe he would have taken his young daughters to the Evergreen Chapel instead of skipping Christmas services altogether. Too bad.

I guess it was just too inconvenient to find a church in Hawaii. So many golf courses, so little time.

From the Boston Globe:

President Barack Obama on Sunday recalled the work of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as he urged those packing a Baptist church to take heart in hard times and celebrate progress -- however small.

On the eve of the federal holiday marking King's birth, the first African-American president said he learned -- as did the civil rights leader -- to rely on his faith even as he felt the "sting of criticism" during his first year as president.

Obama pointed specifically to his attempts to move the country out of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression while pressing for an overhaul of the health care system.

Speaking at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, founded in 1866 by former slaves, Obama called King and those who fought with him for civil rights the "Moses generation." He exhorted parishioners -- those he termed the "Joshua generation" -- to "get back to basics" as Americans faced the challenges of a "new age."

The president was headed to Boston in support of the Senate candidacy of state Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is in a tight race for the seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Her defeat would upend the Democrat's 60-vote majority in the Senate, making it impossible to overcome a filibuster that could kill hard-fought health care legislation.

In his remarks at the Washington church, Obama reflected on the difficulties he has faced in pushing key elements of his legislative agenda through Congress and the periodic distractions that have arisen from remarks about his race.

Referring to the "post-racial" and "post-partisan" shift in the country that many observers predicted would flow from his inauguration a year ago, he said, "That didn't work out so well."

Obama was accompanied to the church by first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Sasha and Malia.

King himself spoke in 1956 at Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, located just over a mile north of the White House.

This is political posturing.

Obama, Michelle, and their daughters show up at church for a POLITICAL appearance, but they don't attend a church otherwise.

Shameless photo op.
_______________

UPDATE, January 29, 2010:

From ABC News: "Holy BlackBerry! Obama Finds Ways to Keep the Faith During First Year in Office"

If church attendance is one measure of a man's faith, then President Obama may appear to have lost some of his. The first family, once regular churchgoers, have publicly attended services in Washington just three times in the past year, by ABC News' count, even bypassing the pews on Christmas Day.

Obama quit Chicago's embattled Trinity United Church of Christ months before taking office in 2008 and has not formally joined a new one in his new hometown.

But sources familiar with the president's personal life say Obama remains a faithful Christian while in the White House, practicing his beliefs regularly in private with family and the aid of his BlackBerry.

...Obama told ABC Nightline's Terry Moran that his personal BlackBerry, which he famously fought with the Secret Service to keep, has actually become a tool of keeping the faith during his first year in office.

"My Faith and Neighborhood Initiatives director, Joshua DuBois, he has a devotional that he sends to me on my BlackBerry every day," Obama said. "That's how I start my morning. You know, he's got a passage, Scripture, in some cases quotes from other faiths to reflect on."

Do Obama's daughters also receive a daily devotional on a BlackBerry?