There is always Hope. We can come together,
as one people, and transform this nation. Our God is big enough
for miracles.
– Senator Barack Obama
Senator Barack Obama on:
On Personal FAITH
"I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I
believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I believe that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have
eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that
Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing
the least of these over the powerful."
- Christianity Today interview, January 2008
"Accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful
guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals." -
Christianity Today interview, January 2008
"Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt
that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His
will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth…I was able
to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against
death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a
source of hope."
- Call to Renewal, Washington, DC, June 2006
"I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge
the power of faith in people's lives - in the lives of the American
people."
- Call to Renewal, Washington, DC, June 2006
[ BACK TO TOP ]
On Putting Faith into ACTION
"When I'm President, I'll establish a new Council
for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The new name will reflect
a new commitment. This Council will not just be another name on the
White House organization chart - it will be a critical part of my
administration.
We know that faith and values can be a source of strength in our own
lives. That's what it's been to me. And that's what it is to so many
Americans. But it can also be something more. It can be the foundation
of a new project of American renewal. And that's the kind of effort
I intend to lead as President of the United States."
- Zanesville, Ohio, July 2008
"My Bible tells me that when God sent his only Son
to Earth, it was to heal the sick and comfort the weary; to feed the
hungry and clothe the naked; to befriend the outcast and redeem those
who strayed from righteousness.
Living His example is the hardest kind of faith - but it is surely
the most rewarding. It is a way of life that can not only light our
way as people of faith, but guide us to a new and better politics
as Americans."
- Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA, December 2006
"In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more,
and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand
– that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let
us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's
keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another,
and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."
-A More Perfect Union, Philadelphia, PA, March 2008
"Pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D.
Jakes, are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third
World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers
and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are
lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of
mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing
inequality...Across the country, individual churches are sponsoring
day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders reclaim
their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina."
- Call to Renewal, Washington, DC, June 2006
"Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave
their religion at the door before entering into the public square.
Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy
Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers
in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly
used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men
and women should not inject their "personal morality" into
public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition
a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian
tradition."
- Call to Renewal, Washington, DC, June 2006
"There is always Hope. There is always light in the
midst of desperate days…we can come together, as one people,
and transform this nation. Our God is big enough for miracles."
- Hampton University, June 2007
[ BACK TO TOP ]
On Life with DIGNITY
"As children of God, we believe in the worth and dignity
of every human being; it doesn't matter where that person came from
or what documents they have. We believe that everyone, everywhere
should be loved, and given the chance to work, and raise a family."
- A Politics of Conscience, Hartford, CT, June 2007
"Our conscience cannot rest so long as nearly 45 million
Americans don't have health insurance and the millions more who do
are going bankrupt trying to pay for it. I have made a solemn pledge
that I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end
of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut
the cost of a typical family's premiums by up to $2500 a year. That's
not simply a matter of policy or ideology - it's a moral commitment."
- A Politics of Conscience, Hartford, CT, June 2007
"I don't know anybody who is pro-abortion. I think
people recognize what a wrenching, difficult issue it is… Our
goal should be to make abortion less common, that we should be discouraging
unwanted pregnancies, that we should encourage adoption wherever possible."
- Christianity Today interview, January 2008
[ BACK TO TOP ]
On POVERTY and ECONOMIC
JUSTICE
"It’s been four decades since Bobby Kennedy
crouched in a shack along the Mississippi Delta and looked into the
wide, listless eyes of a hungry child. Again and again, he tried to
talk to this child, but each time his efforts met only a blank stare
of desperation. When Kennedy turned to the reporters traveling with
him, he asked with tears in his eyes a single question about poverty
in America: “How can a country like this allow it?”
There is an easy answer to the moral question of whether we can continue
to tolerate poverty in America: We can’t. The political question
of what to do about it has always been more difficult. But now that
we know what works, this country has an obligation to act."
- Statement to Stanford Poverty Institute, December 2007
"People are seeing less income, fewer wages, jobs
being shipped over seas. And when people lose their jobs, when the
plant closes, they don’t just lose their job. They lose their
healthcare, and their pension. More than that, you lose your sense
of who you are and your place in your community, your sense of dignity,
and your ability to support a family…. We cannot afford to wait
to fix our economy."
- Ft. Wayne Indiana, May 2008
"Our government cannot guarantee success and happiness
in life, but what we can do as a nation is to ensure that every American
who wants to work is prepared to work, able to find a job, and able
to stay out of poverty. What we can do is make our neighborhoods whole
again. What we can do is retire the phrase "working poor"
in our time. That's what we can do, because that's who we are."
- Washington, DC, July 2007
"If we continue to let our trade policy be dictated
by special interests, then American workers will continue to be undermined,
and public support for robust trade will continue to erode….
We cannot let enforcement of existing trade agreements take a backseat
to the negotiation of new ones. Put simply, we need tougher negotiators
on our side of the table – to strike bargains that are good
not just for Wall Street, but also for Main Street. And when I am
President, that's what we will do.
- Flint, MI, June 2008
"We can't afford to lose a generation of tomorrow's
doctors and scientists and teachers to poverty. We can make excuses
for it or we can fight about it or we can ignore poverty altogether,
but as long as it's here it will always be a betrayal of the ideals
we hold as Americans. It's not who we are."
-Washington, DC, July 2007
We need to heed the biblical call to care for `the
least of these' and lift the poor out of despair. That's why it's
not just a policy issue when we fight to expand the Earned-Income
Tax Credit and the minimum wage. If you're working 40 hours a week,
you shouldn't be living in poverty."
- A Politics of Conscience, Hartford, CT, June 2007
[ BACK TO TOP ]
On Valuing FAMILIES
"It’s up to us to instill this ethic of excellence
in our children. It’s up to us to say to our daughters, don’t
ever let images on TV tell you what you are worth, because I expect
you to dream without limit and reach for those goals. It’s up
to us to tell our sons, those songs on the radio may glorify violence,
but in my house we give glory to achievement, self-respect and hard
work. It’s up to us to set these high expectations. And that
means meeting those expectations ourselves. That means setting examples
of excellence in our own lives."
- Father’s Day Speech, Chicago, IL, June 2008
"We know that the cost of the American dream must never
come at the expense of the American family. You're working longer
hours. More families have two parents working. Meanwhile, it's hard
to get a hand. It's even harder to get a break.
I will be a President who stands up for working parents. We'll require
employers to provide seven paid sick days each year. We'll enforce
laws that prohibit caregiver discrimination. And we'll encourage flexible
work schedules to better balance work and parenting for mothers and
fathers. That's the change that working families need."
-Bettendorf, IA, November 2007
"As fathers and as parents, we’ve got to spend
more time with [our children], and help them with their homework,
and turn off the TV set once in a while, turn off the video game and
the remote control and read a book to your child."
- A More Perfect Union, Philadelphia, PA, March 2008
"As a parent, I am concerned about what's coming over
the airwaves… It is important for us to make sure we are giving
parents the tools they need to monitor what their children are watching.
Obviously, the problem we have now is not just what's coming over
the airwaves, but what's coming over the Internet. So for us to develop
technologies and tools to make sure that we are, in fact, empowering
parents… I'm concerned about sex and some of the violent, slasher,
horror films that come out in the trailers. It is appropriate, in
a cooperative way, to work with the industry to try to deal with that
problem."
- Democratic Debate, Los Angeles, CA, January 2008
"We need families to raise our children. We need fathers
to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need
them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have
a child – it's the courage to raise one."
- Father’s Day Speech, Chicago, IL, June 2008
[ BACK TO TOP ]
On CREATION CARE
"I don't believe that climate change is just an issue
that's convenient to bring up during a campaign. I believe it's one
of the greatest moral challenges of our generation. That's why I've
fought successfully in the Senate to increase our investment in renewable
fuels. That's why I reached across the aisle to come up with a plan
to raise our fuel standards."
—Des Moines, IA, October 2007
"One of the things I draw from the Genesis story is
the importance of us being good stewards of the land, of this incredible
gift. And I think there have been times where we haven't been [good
stewards], and this is one of those times where we've got to take
the warning seriously [about climate change]. And this is where religious
faith and the science of global warming converge. We have to find
resources in ourselves to make sacrifices so we don't leave it to
the next generation.
We've got to be less wasteful, both as a society and
in our own individual lives. I think religion can actually bolster
our desire to make those sacrifices now. As president, I hope to rally
the entire world around the importance of us being good stewards of
the land."
- Compassion Forum at Messiah College, April 2008
[ BACK TO TOP ]
On SERVICE and SACRIFICE
"When I am president of the United States. When I
send our troops into battle. I am going to be absolutely sure that
is based on sound intelligence. I am going to tell the truth to the
American People, and the families who we are asking to sacrifice."
-South Carolina Debate, July 2007
"Keeping faith with those who serve must always be
a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because
America's commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment,
and it must never end."
—Kansas City, MO, August 2007
"It is time to recapture that sense of a common purpose:
I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. I'm tired of hearing
about how America is on the wrong track - I want us to come together
to put it on the right track. I'm tired of hearing about red America
and blue America - I want to lead a United States of America. I'm
tired of talking about what we can't do, or won't do, or won't even
try - I want all of us to stand up and to start reaching for what
is possible.
That's what history calls us to do. Because loving your country shouldn't
just mean watching fireworks on the 4th of July; loving your country
must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change
it. And if you do stand up, I promise you that your life will be richer,
and our country will be stronger.
– A Call to Serve, Cornell College, December 2007
I think it's about time we made college affordable
for every young person in America. So we're going to provide a $4,000
tuition credit, every student, every year, but, students, you're going
to have to give back something in return. You're going to have to
participate in community service. You're going to have to work in
a homeless shelter, or a veteran's home, or an underserved school,
or join the Peace Corps.
We'll invest in you; you invest in America. Together,
we will march this country forward."
– Houston, Texas, February 2008
[ BACK TO TOP ]
On MORAL LEADERSHIP
in the World
"America cannot meet the threats of this century alone,
but the world cannot meet them without America… We must neither
retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission —
we must lead the world, by deed and example."
- Chicago Council on Global Affairs, April 2007
On the war in Iraq:
"Our conscience cannot rest so long as the war goes
on in Iraq. It's a war I'm proud I opposed from the start - a war
that should never have been authorized and never been waged. The Iraq
war is not just a security problem, it's a moral problem."
- A Politics of Conscience, Hartford, CT, June 2007
"When we send our young men and women into harm's
way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade
the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while
they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never
ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace,
and earn the respect of the world.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots
who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging
allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United
States of America."
- A More Perfect Union, Philadelphia, PA, March 2008
On TORTURE:
"The secret authorization of brutal interrogations
is an outrageous betrayal of our core values, and a grave danger to
our security. We must do whatever it takes to track down and capture
or kill terrorists, but torture is not a part of the answer - it is
a fundamental part of the problem with this administration's approach.
Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture
is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is
how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen
it.
It's time to tell the world that America rejects torture
without exception or equivocation. It's time to stop telling the American
people one thing in public while doing something else in the shadows.
No more secret authorization of methods like simulated drowning. When
I am president America will once again be the country that stands
up to these deplorable tactics. When I am president we won't work
in secret to avoid honoring our laws and Constitution, we will be
straight with the American people and true to our values."
- Chicago, IL, October 2007
On GLOBAL HEALTH and POVERTY:
"Eliminating global poverty remains one of the greatest
challenges we face, with billions of people around the world forced
to live on just dollars a day. We can – and must – make
it a priority of our foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme
poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking
water.
As we strive to rebuild America’s standing in the world, this
legislation will not only commit to reducing global poverty, but will
also demonstrate our promise and support to those in the developing
world. Our commitment to the global economy has to extend beyond trade
agreements that are more about increasing corporate profits than about
helping workers and small farmers everywhere."
- Washington, DC, December 2007
"We’ve got billions of people who are making
less than two dollars a day. We’ve got millions of people who
are suffering from HIV/AIDS. We’ve got millions of people who
are struggling to get an education. And so, as President, I want to
go before the world community and say, “We want to work with
you to deal with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. We want to work with
you to end the genocide in Darfur, because we are not a nation that
turns a blind eye to the slaughter of innocents.”
So I want to double our foreign aid… We’ve
got to have a seamless belief that all people have equality, and that
all people have dignity, and that we are fighting to give everybody
opportunity."
- Las Vegas, NV, October 2007
On COMING TOGETHER to SOLVE PROBLEMS:
"The problems we face today, from poverty, to war,
from the uninsured to the unemployed, are not simply technical problems
in search of the perfect ten point plan. They’re rooted in both
societal indifference and individual callousness in the imperfections
of man.
And, solving these problems will require not just a change in government
policy, but a change of heart, and a change of attitude. It will require
reaching across religious divides to bring Americans together around
our common challenges."
- Call to Renewal, Washington, DC, June 2006
"I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in
history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges
of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our
union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we
hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have
come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction
- towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren."
- A More Perfect Union, Philadelphia, PA, March 2008
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Quotes from Barack Obama
We've collected statements from Senator Obama on his faith, putting faith into action and on issues of concern to people in the faith community. Read through these quotes and learn more about why we are supporting Senator Obama for President.
To read more about his positions and plans for America, visit the official Obama campaign website at www.barackobama.com.
If you've got a favorite quote from Barack Obama, please send it
to us at info@matthew25.org.
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