I think that part of the problem is that mainstream America generally just assumes that separation of church and state is a reciprocal relationship. They assume that while government keeps religion out of government, most religions keep government and politics out of religion as well. Those that don’t are swept to the margins and not taken seriously (or there adherents).

Enter Barak Obama. Now here’s a guy who is about as mainstream as a black man can get except for that one little detail of the radial black centric church he belongs to.

I think what is shocking to most is not only did Obama belong to such a church, but that they exist at all in the first place. While many non-blacks in the main stream have dutifully and happily been attending services each week and getting their spiritual as well as social needs met, and have been assuming that the majority of church going folks of any stripe are doing the same. Lo and behold they find out that on the other side of town a whole different scenario was taking place, and politics, and radical black politics at that, is being more than a little bit mixed in with the spiritual pep talk. How could this be happening right under our noses for so many years, they now ask? And now, just when they thought they had a viable black candidate, to boot. And if a seemingly mainstream black man who has made it as far as becoming a Senator of the United States can be a member of such a church then what does that say about the average black man on the street? How wide spread is this black radicalism, they ask? Probably pretty wide spread, they likely answer. And that is what likely scares a lot of them. That, and that one of them might actually become President.

Now it is probably like you say and Obama was more than likely only a political opportunist member of the church, as it is fairly common knowledge that to get anywhere in black Chicago politics you need the backing of a reasonably powerful black church. But that doesn’t flatter Obama either and calls his character into question on another level. Unfortunately for him, it’s a lose, lose, situation which ever way they slice it. While that opportunism is probably no worse that any of the other’s opportunism in their careers, the black radicalism will make it seem much worse. In reality, he probably didn’t have any viable alternatives considering Chicago politics, and Black Chicago politics, at that.

G