Barack Obama is not George Washington

Some people are concerned that Barack Obama spent so much time in church with a pretty radical pastor.  Some people think that if America rapes a 14 year old girl, then kills her entire family to silence all the witnesses, no one should ever say "God Damn America."

George Washington was a deist.  In his entire list of speeches and writings he never once affirmed any doctrine of the Christan faith explicitly.  It is doubtful he ever prayed, or even knelt in church to pray, and it is extremely unlikely he ever took communion.  He believed in God, although a good portion of the time he called it Providence, which sounds a lot like fate, or even luck.

So why did George Washington go to Church?  He didn't go that often, but he certainly did attend.  The church was the central social gathering of his community.

There is no doubt that Pastor Jeremiah Wright's church was the linchpin, the greatest social nexus, of the area in which he lived.