I do not believe that President Obama is a Muslim, but I have no doubt that he reveres Islam and that he is an apologist for Islam. Is there really any question about it?

I posted comments similar to this on social media December 5th in the aftermath of the San Bernardino massacre before reading that Sen. Ted Cruz had commented that, “We have a president right now, who at times operates as an apologist for radical Islamic terrorists.” It was also before I read Donald Trump’s comment that, “Our president doesn’t want to use the term, ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism.’ There is something wrong with him that we don’t know about.”

There are many who believe that Barack Hussein Obama is, in fact, a Muslim, but I seriously doubt it. A real Muslim would not worship in a church building for a period of years, neglecting Islamic prayer on a daily basis and abstaining from prayer on Fridays in a mosque, nor would a real Muslim publicly and consistently profess to be a Christian. That would be a denial of his faith.

At the same time, it is abundantly clear that President Obama reveres the Islamic faith and often serves as an apologist for the religion of Muhammad.

Speaking in harmony with the president back in February, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson explained that, “The thing I hear from leaders in the Muslim community in this country is ISIL is attempting to hijack my religion.”

Yes, “To refer to ISIL as occupying any part of the Islamic theology is playing on a battlefield that they would like us to be on. I think that to call them some form of Islam gives the group more dignity than it deserves frankly. It is a terrorist organization.”

This echoes statements made repeatedly by President Obama, the clear implication being: If it’s violent it’s not Islam, since Islam is a religion of peace, despite Islam’s consistently violent 1,400 year history.

But the president’s defense of Islam goes beyond rejecting the idea that radical, violent, terroristic Islam can be Islamic. It is also the positive way he speaks of Islam that is striking.

It was one thing for him to greet his listeners in Cairo in 2009 with the words, “assalaamu alaykum.” That could be written off as cultural sensitivity from a president who had been reared in an Islamic country (Indonesia) and went to an Islamic school.

But his words went far beyond the standard Muslim greeting. He also stated his belief that America and Islam “are not exclusive” but rather “overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” And when backing up one of his points, he noted that, “As the Holy Koran tells us, ‘Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.’”

The Holy Koran? Who speaks like this without reverence for the religion? Conversely, would a devout Muslim speak of the Holy Bible when Muslims believe that our Scriptures represent a corruption of the real Word of God as represented by the Koran?

The president also spoke of “civilization’s debt to Islam,” noting that, “throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.” (Perhaps he means the kind of “religious tolerance and racial equality” we find today in countries like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran – including the equality of women?)

President Obama even alleged that “since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States,” referencing President John Adams’ statement with the signing of the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796 that, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.”

Did he forget that 10 years earlier, in 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then ambassadors for America, were in Tripoli to combat the murderous Muslim pirates whose actions were backed by some Tripoli leaders in the name of Islam?

And was he unaware of the comments of John Quincy Adams, our 6th president, regarding Muhammad? Adams said that Muhammad “humbled [the Christian religion] to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust – to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature…. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged.”

Perhaps our president has taken an airbrush to American-Islamic history and relationships?

In his Cairo speech, he also spoke of Islam being “revealed,” meaning, that he affirms that God did, in fact, give the Koran to Muhammad.

And so, despite the nuances of his Cairo speech and his criticism of certain expressions of “some Muslims,” he stood as not just a friend of Islam but also an apologist for Islam, one who spoke with undeniable reverence for the faith of his father and the faith in which he grew up as a boy.

His statement, then, in 2012, that, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” should not surprise us in the least, nor did his nuancing of that statement diminish its force in the least.

In President Obama, we do not simply have a leader who speaks respectfully of the world’s second largest religion, as President George W. Bush also did. We have a man who reveres Islam and is committed to defending it before the world, even when it potentially undermines national security and international order.

Can this really be denied?