September 17, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

Remember all the analysis immediately after your election this past November regarding where you and your family would attend church? Newspapers and websites were filled with stories about where you would go, and numerous congregations in Washington invited you, your wife, and children to attend their Sunday morning services. Although Americans have usually displayed substantial interest in where their presidents attended church while in office, never before had there been such fascination with this issue before a president was inaugurated. At present, this focus seems ironic because you and your family have attended church in Washington only once—on Easter Sunday—since you took office (although you have attended a few services at Camp David).

Americans acknowledge that you are a very busy man with incredibly important responsibilities. We also recognize the typical reasons some of your predecessors have given for not attending church regularly and you have sometimes used: they did not want to divert other worshippers' attention from God to themselves, they did not want to subject other congregants to metal detectors and security concerns, they found it difficult to worship when others appeared to being watching them, or they wanted to use Sunday morning for other activities such as golf or stamp collecting. However, these reasons have not deterred several of your recent predecessors, and the benefits of attending more than compensate for the problems they involve.

As you know, attending Sunday morning worship enables you to worship God, which for Christians is both a responsibility and privilege. These services help supply you with moral inspiration and spiritual strength, which are vital to your work as president. Attending habitually will also enable your wife and children to receive biblical instruction and Christian nurture. You have repeatedly claimed that your faith is important to you and helps guide your political priorities, policies, and work. You have frequently used religious rhetoric and scriptural principles and passages to support legislation you are promoting. You have also sought to enlist clergy, committed lay Christians, and religious organizations to work to achieve causes in which you believe strongly. Moreover, attending church faithfully would testify to your professed values and help you gain greater credibility with religious Americans.

Equally important, your regular attendance would set a good example for our nation. In other ways your actions have been exemplary. Through White House initiatives, commercials, and magazine interviews you have exhorted men to be good fathers and spend time with their children. Addressing the NAACP this summer, you challenged African Americans not to accept the sense of limitation that discrimination has tried to force upon them and to stop expecting "so little from the world and from themselves." You instructed parents to take responsibility for their children, help them learn, and encourage them to aspire to be scientists, engineers, doctors, and teachers rather than athletes and rappers. Your recent speech to schoolchildren urged them to develop their "talents, skills and intellect," set high goals, work hard, and persevere when they fail. You pushed them to do all their homework, pay attention in class, and read a book every day.