Obama, Bernanke: Two Faiths, Two Speeches

By Jacqueline L. Salmon

In their speeches on the economy yesterday, President Barack Obama and Fed President Ben S. Bernanke drew on their respective religions to make their points.

Obama's speech reflected his Christian faith, invoking Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:

"Now, there's a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand and it was soon destroyed when a storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when 'the rain descended, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon the house, it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.'"

His point, of course, is that we must rebuild our economy on rock, not sand.

In his speech, Bernanke turned to his Jewish faith, invoking the Passover tradition of a child asking four questions about Jewish history. He presented and answered four questions about the current economic crisis:

"The first question I would like to address is: How did we get here? What caused our financial and economic system to break down to the extent that it has?"

And so on. The answers to these questions were depressingly familiar.

By Jacqueline L. Salmon  |  April 15, 2009; 10:20 AM ET  | Category:  God in Government Save & Share:                 
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