Is Obama a Christian? The Sequel

Steven Waldman is president and editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.com, and author of Founding Faith. Previously the national editor of U.S. News & World Report, he is a recognized expert on religion, social issues and politics. Click here for Mr. Waldman’s full bio.

Get ready for the sequel to the debate over whether president-elect Barack Obama is a Christian.

But this time, the debate isn’t related to spurious charges that he’s a Muslim.

The impetus was an interview conducted four years by Cathleen Falsani of the Chicago Sun Times. She’d already published a column based on the interview but Beliefnet published the full transcript after the election.

That interview included the following exchange:

Obama: There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they’re going to hell.

Falsani: You don’t believe that?

Obama: I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That’s just not part of my religious makeup.”