Partners in faith: President Obama's former faith outreach director, Joshua DuBois, talks to theGrio

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TheGrio.com recently sat down with Joshua DuBois, who served as faith outreach director for the Barack Obama campaign in 2008, and in the Obama White House. TheGrio’s Joy-Ann Reid caught up with Dubois during the Congressional Black Caucus’ Annual Legislative Conference, and talked about his new venture, and his thoughts about the role faith has played in President Obama’s political life.

theGrio:  Okay let’s start off with your history.  Before you started with the Obama campaign, what were you doing?

Joshua DuBois:  I started with then State Senator Obama when he was running for the U.S. Senate, [That’s] when I started communicating with him, so I actually go back to 2004 with him.  Before that I was in graduate school and at Princeton working for Congressman Rush Holt from New Jersey.  And I was working for an anti-poverty non-profit in New York called Seedco as well, and I was also associate pastor at a small church, so I was I think finding ways to try to combine my faith with the work that I wanted to do in public life.

And what was your capacity with then Senator Obama.

Yeah so I started with him as a legislative correspondent.  I was the secondary guy on commerce and immigration issue.  And then I led his work on trade and then I told him one day that I’m also a committed Christian and I’d love to engage the faith community on his behalf and he thought that was a good idea and we worked together on a speech in 2006; his first big faith speech called call to renewal.  And once that came together and it went well we decided that he wanted to expand his profile in terms of engaging his values in a public way.  And so we started formalizing our engagement with the faith community and moved to be the director of religious affairs on 2008 campaign after that.

How ironic was it for you guys on the campaign that he was constantly being accused of being a Muslim when he had so much prominent sort of Christian Orthodoxy even within his policy?

Yeah, it was fascinating how people could maintain two simultaneous beliefs; one inaccurate view on the president’s faith and claiming that he’s a Muslim when obviously he’s a committed Christian, and also attacking his Christian faith at the same time.  But somehow, people were able to believe both things simultaneously, so you know it was a rough and tumble two years, but he obviously emerged from that in a successful place.  And I think you know it strengthened our faith in the process to, certainly mine and the presidents as well.  You know, anytime you go through a period of intense attacks like that it forces you to realize what matters most to you and so I think it was a bit of a defining period for both of us.

Talk a little bit about your work in the White House.

I led the White House office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.  And our job was supporting both faith based and secular non profits around in the country in their work of providing services to people in need.  A few areas of particular focus; one was on responsible fatherhood.  So we equipped thousands of local non profits and churches and synagogues and mosques to help dads reconnect with their families.  I also did a lot work on religion and global affairs; helping religious institutions and activists around the world partner with the United States Government on foreign policy objectives.  And so that was a big thing.  I led our work on mentoring; recruiting mentors, finding mentors around the country as well.  And really tried to mobilize the voice of the faithful and working on the pressing policy issues like the Affordable Care Act and on immigration reform.  So creating faith based coalitions on those issues was a big part of the job.