• Rev. Graham: Obama seen as 'son of Islam'

    GOP candidate Rick Santorum's recent comments on President Obama's "theology" continue to generate conversation, and the Rev. Franklin Graham joins Morning Joe to discuss whether the president is a Christian, Christianity in the Middle East, government overreach with religious institutions, and why he thinks Santorum is a Christian.

    By Becky Bratu, msnbc.com

    Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham and a prominent evangelical leader in his own right, waded into contentious waters Tuesday when asked for his views on the religious beliefs of President Obama and the GOP hopefuls.

    Graham, the CEO and president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, told a Morning Joe panel he couldn't say for certain that Obama is a Christian.

    “You have to ask him. I cannot answer that question for anybody. All I know is I’m a sinner, and that God has forgiven me of my sins," Graham said. "You have to ask every person. He has said he’s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is.”

    But Graham also said he couldn't "categorically" say Obama wasn't a Muslim, in part, because Islam has gotten a "free pass" under Obama. Graham also said the Muslim world sees Obama as a "son of Islam," because the president's father and grandfather were Muslim.

    According to Edina Lekovic, director of policy at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, being born in a Muslim family doesn't make one a Muslim. A person has to make an active choice to become a Muslim, Lekovic said. 

    Obama has said again and again that he is a Christian, both as a presidential candidate and as president.

    “I’m a Christian by choice,” Obama told a group of New Mexico voters last September, answering a question from a member of the audience. He said he has embraced his faith even though growing up, “my family didn’t, frankly. They weren’t folks who went to church every week.”

    In Chicago, Obama was a member of Trinity United Church of Christ for years, but he quit in May 2008 after videos of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s racially-divisive sermons surfaced on the Web.

    “Our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own views,” Obama and his wife Michelle wrote at the time. 

    The debate over the president's faith was brought up again on the campaign trail this Saturday, when Rick Santorum told a Tea Party crowd in Columbus, Ohio, that Obama's agenda is "not about you. It's not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your job. It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology."

    Related: Santorum defends 'theology' remark, Hitler inference; blames media

    When pressed by reporters after Saturday's comments, the former Pennsylvania senator said he did not imply the president is not a Christian, but said the president was trumping religious freedoms. 

    Graham told the Morning Joe panel that he and Santorum share the same moral beliefs, and that he's confident Santorum is a fellow Christian.

    "His values are so clear on moral issues, no question about it," he told the Morning Joe panel. 

    Graham spoke with a little less confidence about Gingrich's faith, and cast doubt on whether Romney's Mormonism is compatible with Christianity.

    "I think Newt is a Christian, at least he told me he is," Graham said. He added that Romney's Mormon faith is not recognized as part of the Christian faith by most Christians, but he wouldn't give his own view.

    Romney has stood by his faith, saying Mormonism's values are "as American as motherhood and apple pie."

    "I believe in my Mormon faith," Romney said in a 2007 speech, "and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I'll be true to them and to my beliefs."

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

  • Detroit churches face up to downsizing

    Detroit's struggles with a declining population and the near-death of the U.S. auto industry are well documented, but less well known are the travails of the local Catholic church, the latest institution in this failing city to face up to downsizing. 

    Reuters photographer Mark Blinch and reporter John Stoll visited two churches in the run-up to Christmas, one abandoned, another under threat of closure.

    Mark Blinch / Reuters

    The inside of the Martyrs of Uganda Catholic Church, which closed in 2006, is seen in Detroit on Dec. 18, 2011. When a Catholic church closes, the land and buildings go back to the archdiocese. The neighboring parishes can come and take their pick of relics or ecclesiastical equipment. If a new tenant doesn't materialize, criminals sometimes do. Thieves often strip the building of copper or pluck out stained glass.

    Mark Blinch / Reuters

    A damaged organ at the abandoned Martyrs of Uganda Catholic Church.

    The Martyrs of Uganda church, closed by the archdiocese in 2006, is today littered with rubble, collapsed confessionals and a broken organ. Moss grows on its floors. The windows are gone and support pillars are crumbling because stones have been removed.

    Mark Blinch / Reuters

    Chris Mitchell walks up the stairs at the St. Leo Catholic Church, which was built more than 120 years ago.

    Mark Blinch / Reuters

    People stand as they take part in the Sunday mass at the St. Leo Catholic Church in Detroit on Dec. 18, 2011. St. Leo, located in one of the most abandoned pockets of the nation's most depressed city, is operating on life support.

    The second church they visited, St. Leo, is on life support. It remains an integral part of the community, helping to keep its neighborhood afloat with a soup kitchen as well as free medical and dental care for local residents. But it is among nine parishes earmarked for closure in the Detroit area within the next few years.

    Mark Blinch / Reuters

    Larry Finklea eats his lunch at the soup kitchen in the basement of the St. Leo Catholic Church.

    Mark Blinch / Reuters

    Jerry McCullough, left, gets a check up by Dr. Ed Jelonek, who is working on his own free time, at the Order of Malta Medical and Dental Clinic for low income Michigan residents in the basement of St. Leo Catholic Church.

    The archdiocese has cut its parish count in Detroit's city limits to 59, down from 79 in 2000. The man in charge of the downsizing is Archbishop Allen Vigneron, who says he understands what's on the line at St. Leo and other churches.

    "I am very attentive to the good work that the Holy Spirit has already got us doing ... it's not my job to rip that apart, it's my job to keep these good things going in the future," he said.

    Mark Blinch / Reuters

    A woman walks past the St. Leo Catholic Church, which is among nine parishes earmarked for closure in the Detroit area within the next few years.

    Mark Blinch / Reuters

    A woman prays during the Sunday mass at the St. Leo Catholic Church.

    Read John Stoll's full report, Dark holiday in Detroit as church downsizes, and see more of Mark Blinch's pictures at Reuters' Photographers Blog.

  • Texas urges fix of 'pro-Islamic' textbook bias

    The Texas State Board of Education on Friday narrowly approved a resolution calling on publishers to correct a "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias" in history textbooks.

    The 7-6 vote followed a spirited debate on the nonbinding resolution proposed by the board's conservative majority aiming to correct what Dave Welch, head of the Texas Pastor Council, testified amounted to "whitewashing" of some negative aspects of Islam in the texts.

    "We're asking you to look at this very carefully," he told the board in testifying for the resolution. "… There are problems, there are imbalances."

    But Kathy Miller, president of the liberal Texas Freedom Network, said afterward that the resolution was politically motivated.

    "Board members rejected numerous opportunities today to pass a resolution that called on publishers to treat all religions with balance and accuracy in their textbooks," she said in a statement. "It is hard not to conclude that the members who voted for this resolution were solely interested in playing on fear and bigotry in order to pit Christians against Muslims."

    It's not clear whether the resolution will prompt textbook publishers to make immediate changes to sections devoted to Christianity and Islam.

    Texas wields considerable clout in the textbook publishing world as the largest "adoption state" in the U.S., where a central body approves public school textbooks rather than individual districts.

    But as msnbc.com's Kari Huus reported earlier this week, "All board members will be up for election in 2012, and implementation of any new textbook standard would come only after that. Budgetary constraints may slow it down further. In the interim, there is discussion of requiring textbook companies to create supplements to address the new standards."

    You can learn more about the resolution and the underlying debate in her story.

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