Earlier this month, Barack Obama talked about the hype surrounding him: “One thing I’ve learned about myself is that the surface glitter, the vanity element of this campaign, becomes less satisfying as I go along.”

This may be false humility. But, it may also reveal a great deal about what Obama has read, understood and made his own: a moderate, Christian vision of things, a vision that tempers his view of himself, of human nature, of government. And this vision could alter American liberalism itself.

Asked last year by the Times’ David Brooks about whether he had read the work of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Obama recalled Niebuhr from his days at Harvard as having a lasting influence. From Niebuhr, Obama gleaned that, “There’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. I take away … the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.” He then called Niebuhr his “favourite philosopher.”

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Artikel Paul Allen in The Star