WASHINGTON — President Obama addressed how his faith guides him and the importance of hard work as he marked the birthday of the late Martin Luther King Jr. at a Washington church Jan. 17. “Folks ask me sometimes why I look so calm,” he said at Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, a historic congregation that was visited by King. “I have a confession to make here. … There are times when it feels like all these efforts are for naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I have to confront my own doubts. But let me tell you during those times, it’s faith that keeps me calm. It’s faith that gives me peace.”
He spoke of holding the kind of “faith that breaks the silence of an earthquake’s wake with the sound of prayer and hymns sung by the Haitian community,” as the congregation applauded in agreement.
In the last year, Obama has visited three other Washington churches: the Washington National Cathedral for his inaugural prayer service; St. John’s Episcopal Church across Lafayette Square from the White House on the day of his inauguration and on Easter; and Nineteenth Street Baptist Church the Sunday before his inauguration. Last July he said he may attend “a number of different churches” and enjoys “powerful” sermons from the chaplain who leads services at the chapel at Camp David, the presidential retreat.
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