President Obama related the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus over the weekend ("You know the story — it’s about three young men bold enough to stand up for God, even if it meant being thrown in a furnace. And they survived because of their faith, and because God showed up in that furnace with them"). Most of the media coverage of the event centered on his "fiery address" but stopped short of parsing the president's deeply biblical message. Mollie Ziegler is puzzled:
The speech goes on and on with religious imagery, but it looks like it was picked up by precisely two media outlets…[I]t’s weird that any story about the White House forgetting to send out a Christian holiday proclamation gets hundreds of hits while any story indicating Obama’s familiarity with a Bible story gets downplayed to the point of almost a blackout. And the thing is that I’ve covered Obama enough to know that he drops stuff like this somewhat regularly. If the sermon at whatever church Michele Bachmann happened to visit in Iowa one day gets coverage…surely a presidential speech built completely around the faith of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego might be worthy of something, right?
(Image: A depiction of the story in the Catacombs of Priscilla, Rome, Italy. Late 3rd century / Early 4th century, via Wikimedia Commons.)
The Dish 