"Religion ... insists on the impossible"

Barack Obama's bestseller of 2006, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE is subtitled THOUGHTS ON RECLAIMING THE AMERICAN DREAM. By all accounts, the junior senator from Illinois now earns enough money from sales alone of this and his earlier DREAMS FROM MY FATHER to live a comfortable middle class life. And rightly so. For both books about dreams are very well written.

Both books have also been widely read and thoughtfully and thoroughly reviewed at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, epinions.com and elsewhere. Normally, hoping to win new readers for a given author, I review books which few Americans seem to have recently read. This is obviously not the case for THE AUDACITY. Why don't I, then, simply highlight one striking parallel from what I judge AUDACITY's two best chapters and let the author speak for himself? All right, I shall.

In earlier reviews, especially one written four months ago, I had given Obama's AUDACITY a slightly lower rating than his DREAMS. For I had found the first book astonishingly good, even riveting. My first impression of the second book was, however, that it had parts as brilliant as DREAMS, but was often flatter, even ho hum.

I have recently reread THE AUDACITY OF HOPE and have found the three chapters on OUR CONSTITUTION, FAITH and RACE better, deeper, more thoughtful than I had first appreciated. The other four chapters, REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS, VALUES, POLITICS and OPPORTUNITY do not lift me as high as did DREAMS FROM MY FATHER. But they are far better written than much of what I have read by other contemporary American politicians.

One striking consistency or parallel between the two chapters, OUR CONSTITUTION and FAITH: Obama incorporates but goes beyond both an "original intent" reading of the Constitution and its first ten amendments as well as a literal reading of Holy Scripture. Neither document is "static."

A few ideas from Chapter Three, OUR CONSTITUTION:

Who would not take seriously the views of a man who for ten years taught constitutional law classes at the University of Chicago? Obama discourses like a master (pp. 84 - 98) in his search of a personal metaphor to embrace the U.S. Constitution of 1787 as since amended 27 times. Original intent interpreters such as Justice Antonin Scalia would have us focus exclusively on that document's "birth." Others like Justice Stephen Breyer pay more attention to the Constitution's growing up and coming of age years. Obama comes down (with certain sentimental hedgings) behind Breyer. "According to this view, the Founding Fathers and original ratifiers have told us how to think but are no longer around to tell us what to think. We are on our own, and have only our own reason and judgment to rely on" (89). The Constitution "is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world" (90). Obama opts for a metaphor which "sees our democracy not as a house to be built but as a conversation to be had" (92).

"After all, if there was one impulse shared by all the Founders, it was a rejection of all forms of absolute authority ... Implicit ... was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or 'ism,' any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course ..." (93).

Alas, that Constitution "provided no protection to those outside the constitutional circle -- the Native Americans whose treaties proved worthless before the court of the conquerors, or the black man Dred Scott, who would walk into the Supreme Court a free man and leave a slave" (95).

Thoughts from Chapter 6, FAITH.

Barack Obama's GOP opponent in the 2004 campaign to be U. S. Senator, Alan Keyes, attacked the sincerity of Obama's claim to be religious:

"Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but he supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.

What could I say? That a literal reading of the Bible was folly? That Mr. Keyes, a Roman Catholic, should disregard the Pope's teaching?" (212)

Through the black churches he worked with in Chicago, young Obama found that becoming a Christian "did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved" (208). "Politics (unlike science) involves compromise, the art of the possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible" (219). If Americans today were to stumble across Biblical Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac on a tenement roof, they would not hesitate to call the police. Even if Abraham spared Isaac's life at the last moment, he would be guilty of child abuse -- so far as unaided human reason could judge. (220) Nor would an American apply Deuteronomy literally "which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith" (218).

Not all Christians give identical weight to every word in the Bible. "... some passages -- the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity -- are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life" (220).

"When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must be continually open to new revelations"... That is not to say that I'm unanchored in my faith. There are some things that I am absolutely sure about -- the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace (224).

Comment: The parallel passages about the constitution and scripture show a consistent Barack Obama, learned, grounded in textual accuracy and history, but bowing to no authority beyond his own well informed but evolving conscience.

I suspect that a third reading of THE AUDACITY OF HOPE will provide me with fresh discoveries. Obama's mind is a rich treasure store. His book, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, rewards our opening its pages and looking about. And further deponent saith not.
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