ABSTRACT
On December 1, 2006, Barack Obama stood in front of thousands of suspicious and perhaps even hostile evangelical leaders at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Michael Gerson, an evangelical Christian who worked as one of George W. Bush's closest aides in the White House, declared: Someone like Obama has at least a feel for the religious basis that a lot of people bring to these issues. Obama wants to reclaim religion as part of the liberal faith, which represents a quiet majority of the progressive base for the Democratic Party. It is precisely because of Obama's ability to appeal to centrist believers without alienating most secular liberals that he has been seen as such a threat to political opponents. As a child in Indonesia, Obama attended a Catholic school for two years, followed by a public school that was predominantly Muslim and included two hours a week of religious studies.
