«For nearly 60 years since President Eisenhower, a collection of visiting our president. It is a tradition and I am proud that I support it not only as a believer, but also as an elected leader, whose appearance on the public service was actually through the church. This may come as a surprise, since some of you know, I'm not a particularly religious family. My father, whom I barely knew - I saw him just once a month - was said to be an unbeliever man throughout his life.
My mother, whose parents were from the Baptists and Methodists, grew up with a certain skepticism toward organized religion, and it usually took me to church only on Easter and Christmas - is rare. And yet my mother was one of the most spiritual people I have ever known. She was one of those people who instinctively guided by the Golden Rule, and she is constantly tormented me simple values of his Kansas upbringing: sincerity, diligence, kindness and fair play.
And thanks to her I came to understand the equality of all men and all women, attitudes of ethical life and the need to act according to his convictions. And this is thanks to her example and leadership, despite the lack of formal religious education, my first inspiration to life in the ministry were the religious leaders of the civil rights movement.
These were, of course, Martin Luther King and Baptist leaders, and the ways in which they helped those who were enslaved and did not see any way out, and transform the nation the power of love. But there were Catholic leaders, such as Father Theodore Hesburg, and Jewish leaders such as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Goeschel, Muslim leaders and Hindu leaders. Their call to fix what is broken in our world, a call that comes from faith, that's what prompted me a few years after college to register as a public organizer for a group of churches in the Southside of Chicago. And it is through this experience of working with pastors and lay people trying to heal the wounds of their fellow men, I came to their own knowledge of Jesus Christ and accepted him as their Lord and Savior.
And so it was more than 20 years ago. And, like all of you, the way my faith was full of roughness and turns. It was not always a straight path. I thank God for the joy of fatherhood and the willingness to put up Michelle with me. After setbacks and disappointments I asked myself what God has in store for me, and I was reminded that God's plans may not always coincide with our own shortsighted desires.
And let me tell you, these last two years - they have deepened my faith. Presidency - a fun way to make people feel the need to in prayer. Ab Lincoln said, as many of you know: "I have a lot of time kneeling great belief that the more I had nowhere to go '."
Source: http://religo.ru/quotes/13396
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