Washington Monthly:

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While some of Obama’s critics may claim the Inquisition and the Crusades just weren’t all that bad (though an auto-da-fe in a capital case for, say, the refusal to eat pork, was probably about as “barbaric” as a beheading), I think Gilmore articulates the main objection: we’re in a “religious war” and the president needs to show solidarity with “our” religion. Others, of course, reject the idea of separation of church and state that Obama spoke of yesterday, typically by drawing on David Barton’s spurious histories of the Founders’ intentions.

But the deeper offense, I suspect, was caused by Obama’s return to the theme he articulated back in 2009 at a famous commencement address at Notre Dame: doubt as essential to faith, and humility as essential to obedience to God.

In my own commentary on the Notre Dame speech, I argued Obama was reviving an idea of the “fear of God” that fundamentalists had all but extinguished in their determination to claim divine sanction for their all-too-secular agenda of cultural conservatism and intolerance:

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A good read. It's great that Obama is continuing pushing back against the American Taliban.

Cheers,
Scott.