‘Adventist appointed religious liaison for Obama administration’
Elizabeth Lechleitner/Adventist News Network reports:
A Seventh-day Adventist will help United States President Barack Obama’s administration consider the concerns of faith communities as it makes policy decisions, the White House announced recently.
The Obama administration appointed Paul Monteiro, a lawyer and former Senate staffer, to serve as religious liaison in its Office of Public Liaison.
“The president is serious about involving the views of faith communities in [policy] discussions — from health care to education reform to immigration to scientific research — not just looping them in after the fact,” Monteiro said.
In Elizabeth Lechleitner’s Adventist Review story,
Monteiro says he became attracted to the Adventist Church while growing up just outside Takoma Park, Maryland., where many of his friends were Adventists.
“I always admired my [Adventist] friends. There was a difference about them and the way they lived their lives,” he says. He eventually joined the church after studying the Bible with friends.
Monteiro went looking for work on Capitol Hill after earning a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Maryland and a law degree from Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. He was inspired to work for then-Senator Barack Obama after reading a speech by the future president, which affirmed the belief that religion does not have to be divisive.
Read the Adventist Review story here.
thanks to Ray Dabrowski and Mark Kellner.
