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cHaPTER 9 The secular messianic style in barack Obama’s “call to Renewal” speech catherine l. langford In 2004,Barack Obama catapulted into the national political scene when, as a candidate for the United States Senate, he gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. His speech confirmed public speculation that Obama was the new face of the Democratic Party.Chicago Magazine’s David Bernstein reports that the speech “changed Obama’s profile overnight and made him a household name.”1 Communication scholars Robert Rowland and John Jones locate the significance of Obama’s message in his ability to construct“a narrative that balanced personal and societal values and in so doing made theAmerican Dream more accessible to liberals, thereby laying the groundwork for reclaiming the narrative center of American politics for the Democratic party.”2 The success of his speech led to the reissuing of his biography, Dreams from My Father3 and to talk by journalists and political pundits that he might be a possible future presidential candidate and the first African American President of the United States.4 However, although a party hopeful, Barack Obama had many personal burdens—ranging from preexisting identity issues to political slander—that meant that he was not the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election. Obama’s preexisting personal burdens are a collection of fixed and irreversible facts about the person and his history. He faced many such challenges to his candidacy: he was the first candidate of mixed race to receive a major party nomination for president; he had no military experience , little national political experience, and no executive experience; he admitted to drug use in his youth; he spent his childhood outside of the United States mainland—four years of which were lived in Indonesia; and he cannot be located within the white protestant tradition of most barack Obama’s “call to Renewal” speech : 171 presidential office holders who preceded him.5 Obama could not alter these personal burdens; they related to his identity, his childhood, his upbringing ,and his professional career.He would draw upon them,however, during campaign speeches to create rapport with potential voters. Obama’s fixed personal burdens were heightened by rumors that he was Muslim and that his policy positions were anti-Christian. Only two weeks after he gave his keynote address at the DNC, Out2.com columnist Andy Martin held a press conference during which he stated,“Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion.”6 In what could be characterized as a post-9/11 Islamophobic society, such an accusation could have been damning. Less than one month later, Alan Keyes, his Republican opponent for the Illinois senatorial seat, augmented fear about Obama’s faith tradition by claiming that Jesus Christ would not support Obama as a political candidate. Keyes asserted, “Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.”7 According to Keyes, Obama voted against legislation for newborn survivors of abortion, thus supporting the practice of infanticide.8 Although Obama could not change his personal history, the reports that he was Muslim and that his policies were against biblical principles presented him with a rhetorical exigence to which he could respond. Obama’s remarks immediately following Keyes’s accusation drew upon the ideals of secular humanism and therefore did not alter the rhetorical exigence that Martin’s and Keyes’s discourse created.He needed a different strategy.Two years later,Obama strengthened his public profile by framing his personal experiences as similar to the experiences of other citizens. Within the rhetorical audience of freestyle evangelicals and Catholics, he found persons who could be mediators of change. He addressed the perceived constraint about his viability as a candidate and lessened the force of the personal burdens created by political slander.He did so by merging traditional religious discourse with the ideals of secular humanism. On June 26,2006,Barack Obama addressed the Sojourners—a progressive Christian organization. Delivered the summer before he announced his presidential candidacy, his “Call to Renewal” speech can be considered as the most important piece of public discourse about faith made by a Democrat since John F. Kennedy addressed the Houston Ministerial Society in 1960.9 Steven Waldman—senior advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and confounder of Beliefnet, [3.144.42.196] Project MUSE (2024...

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