President Barack Obama on Thursday condemned people who seek to use religion as a reason for carrying out violence, saying that kind of twisting and distorting is not unique to one religion, that even Christians engaged in the same behavior.
“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
Speaking to an audience of about 3,600 at a Washington hotel, Obama said the annual event gives him a chance to reflect on his journey of faith. But he spoke less about that journey and more about the recent examples of faith “twisted and misused in the name of evil.”
“From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it,” he said. “We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism -- terrorizing religious minorities like the Yezidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions. We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe, so often perpetrated in the name of religion.”
Obama said religion is a source for good around the world but that people of all faiths have been willing to “hijack religion for their own murderous ends.”
“It is not unique to one group or one religion,” Obama said. “There is a tendency in us, a simple tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.”
Obama called for all people across the globe to show humility and reject the idea that “God speaks only to us and doesn't speak to others.”
“Part of humility is also recognizing in modern, complicated, diverse societies, the functioning of these rights, the concern for the protection of these rights calls for each of us to exercise civility and restraint and judgment,” Obama said. “And if, in fact, we defend the legal right of a person to insult another’s religion, we’re equally obligated to use our free speech to condemn such insults -- and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with religious communities, particularly religious minorities who are the targets of such attacks. Just because you have the right to say something doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t question those who would insult others in the name of free speech. Because we know that our nations are stronger when people of all faiths feel that they are welcome, that they, too, are full and equal members of our countries.”
Obama offered a special welcome to a “good friend” Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who seated at a table in front of the dais with his senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Actor Richard Gere, a friend and follower of the Dalai Lama, was nearby. Earlier, Obama pressed his hands together and bowed his head toward the Dalai Lama before giving him a wave and a broad smile.
It was the first time the president and the Tibetan Buddhist leader attended the same public event, though they have met several previous times.
Chinese officials have criticized Obama’s interactions with the Dalai because they say he is pushing independence in Tibet, a region that Beijing says is part of its historic territory but where it has been accused of extensive human rights violations. The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959, denies those allegations, saying he only wants enough autonomy to protect Tibet’s traditional Buddhist culture of his quest for greater Tibetan autonomy from Beijing.
Obama's previous meetings with the Dalai Lama have been private because of the sensitivity of the situation. The two men did not have a private meeting Thursday.
Jordan's King Abdullah II canceled plans to attend the breakfast after the Islamic State terrorist group released a video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned to death. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. offered prayers for Jordan.
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