President Barack Obama Interviews Writer Marilynne Robinson

The American president interviewed the Pulitzer-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson in a lengthy piece which has just been published by the literary magazine, taking the author of Gilead through topics from Christianity to democracy.

In an interview for The New York Review of Books, the President lamented the reality that “here in the United States, sometimes Christian interpretation seems to posit an ‘us versus them, ‘ and those are sometimes the loudest voices”.

It was Obama’s line of questioning about Robinson’s Christian faith was grabbing people’s attention on Monday.

Ms. Robinson replied, “I mean, when people are turning in on themselves – and God knows, arming themselves and so on – against the imagined other, they’re not taking their Christianity seriously”.

Obama’s head is framed with what seems to be horns during the recent visit of Pope Francis.

But he said Americans often take those achievements for granted, a mindset that fuels deep skepticism of government.

“But Christianity is profoundly counterintuitive-‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’-which I think properly understood means your neighbor is as worthy of love as you are, not that you’re actually going to be capable of this sort of superhuman feat”, Robinson later said. “And so we had this idea that why don’t I just have a conversation with somebody I really like and see how it turns out”.

“We’re suspicious of government as a tool of oppression”.

Obama has increasingly turned to unorthodox formats for media interviews in the final stretch of his presidency.

One of his favorite characters in fiction is a pastor in Robinson’s 2004 novel Gilead: The president told Robinson that he read Gilead while campaigning in Iowa in 2004 and connected with the character John Ames, a pastor whom Obama describes as “gracious and courtly and a little bit confused about how to reconcile his faith with all the various travails that his family goes through”.

The president spoke with Robinson during a September stop in Iowa created to promote his educational initiatives.

Obama awarded Robinson the 2012 National Humanities Medal, which honors individuals or groups whose work expands citizens’ understanding of history, literature, languages, philosophy, and other humanities subjects.

“I first picked up Gilead, one of your most wonderful books, here in Iowa”. “There’s a lot of downtime when you’re driving between towns and when you get home late from campaigning”, Obama said.