Obama's Top Religious Aide Also Key Spiritual Guide

(NewsCore) - President Barack Obama has largely chosen to keep his religious life a private matter, but there is one man at the center of it all, a longtime aide by the name of Joshua DuBois, whose role in the president’s spiritual life is profiled in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times.

DuBois first came to Obama’s rescue in 2006 when the then-Senator from Illinois was working on a speech and was struggling to come up with an appropriate biblical passage to express his thoughts. He turned for help to a young legislative aide, DuBois, who also happened to be a Pentecostal minister.

DuBois has a lot in common with the man he has called his boss since 2005. He is an Ivy League-educated African American with a complicated relationship with his father. Obama and DuBois also share the belief that religious leaders’ views should be considered when making key policy decisions.

DuBois, 27, was in charge of Obama’s religious outreach in the U.S. Senate. Now he is director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a liaison between policy makers in the White House and religious leaders of all political and religious persuasions.

Behind the scenes he is also a key player in the President’s spiritual life, in charge of organizing the very private prayer sessions that make up the bulk of the president's religious life.

According to the Los Angeles Times, DuBois starts every day by sending out a daily written devotional to Obama’s BlackBerry around 6:30 in the morning. He writes some of the daily missives that he chooses from religious texts that include the Bible, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and writings of religious leaders from various faiths.

He also solicits devotionals from other men and women of faith who represent a variety of political and religious viewpoints.

On the campaign trail, DuBois was responsible for bringing pastors to pray with Obama, who has not had a regular pastor since parting ways with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. in 2008.

DuBois still organizes prayer partners over the telephone for Obama. Frequent participants on the prayer calls, which are conducted from DuBois’s office in Jackson Place, are Bishop Charles Blake of the conservative-leaning Church of God in Christ and Rev. Sharon Watkins who heads the more progressive Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Shortly after becoming president Obama announced that he would join a local church in the Washington D.C. area, but later changed his mind, telling NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview broadcast earlier this year that he and Michelle had decided against joining a church because their presence would be “very disruptive to services."