After reading Senator Obama's extended comments at the compassion forum, it is clear that he conceives of religion as primarily a force for social good. For examlpe, he spoke about "our obligations religiously, in terms of doing good works, and how does that inform our politics."
Later in his remarks to the compassion forum, he again reduced Christianity down to social transformation and linked this "core value" to "all great religions."
[Obama:] "And, you know, if I'm acting in an ethical way, if I am working to make sure that I am applying what I consider to be a core value of Christianity, but also a core value of all great religions, and that is that I am my brother's keeper and I am my sister's keeper, then I will be doing my part to move his agenda forward."
The same principle--faith is about social transformation--is on display in Senator Obama's explanation of how he came to become involved in church.
[Obama:] "So as I'm doing this [community] organizing, some of the pastors started saying, 'You know, you've got great ideas, Obama, but, you know, if you're going to organize churches, it might help if you were going to church.' And I thought, 'Well, that's not an unreasonable position.' And so I started visiting some churches. Trinity United Church of Christ was one of the churches that we were trying to get involved in the organization."
Finally, the same principle is on display when it comes to using the language of religion.
[Obama:] "What religious language can often do is allow us to get outside of ourselves and mobilize around a common good."
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