( CNN ) -- At the middle of his first presidential term , Barack Obama faces major electoral challenges , some of which have come to involve questions of religious identity and power . A few have revived suspicion about Obama 's religious identity , especially after he said he supported New York 's decision to permit the construction of an Islamic cultural center near the site of ground zero . At the same time , some prominent black figures have accused Obama of ignoring African-American concerns and tens of millions of `` churched '' black voters . On the one hand , Obama faces religious xenophobia ; on the other , he faces the mobilization of critical voices among a religious population that Democrats have long taken for granted . With fierce midterm election battles at hand and his prospects for a second term as president uncertain , we might expect Obama to revisit the strategy of a president who faced similar religious challenges more than 70 years ago : Franklin D. Roosevelt . In the lead-up to Roosevelt 's own re-election in 1936 , some religious sectors charged his New Deal and the repeal of Prohibition constituted an attack on traditional Christian values . Meanwhile , he could hardly take for granted the black vote . The Democratic Party was understood as the party of the openly violent Jim Crow South , where millions of African Americans remained disenfranchised . But by the middle of his first term , Roosevelt and the Democratic National Committee knew they would need to reach out to Northern black voters , who were growing in numbers yet had been only partly swayed by the limited availability of New Deal emergency relief . Criticism from black churches was on the rise , just as it seems to be now . In 1934 , right at the midpoint of the first Roosevelt administration , the major black denominations formed the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches , specifically to push a social justice agenda and protest , if need be , at the national level . Black religious publications reported racial discrimination in Roosevelt 's New Deal and were incredulous about his refusal to promote an anti-lynching bill . Roosevelt , in his electoral strategy , reached out extensively to African-American local and national religious leaders , including those of the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches , through the Good Neighbor League of the National Democratic Party . The league recruited sympathetic clergy to lead political discussion clubs in black congregations and planned major events in churches in 25 Northern cities . These events highlighted the New Deal 's tangible benefits to black people , portrayed the New Deal and Roosevelt himself as rooted in `` social gospel '' values of equality and justice and elevated certain Fraternal Council leaders to positions of unprecedented visibility . Not only did black people shift decisively to the Democratic Party in the election of 1936 , but the social gospel movement that Roosevelt championed gained enough prominence in black religion that it became a keystone of the civil rights movement . Meanwhile , the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches , which had always promoted a black social gospel , gained its political foothold during the Roosevelt years and provided the institutional template for national church-based protest groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Council . President George W. Bush 's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives may be understood as an adaptation of Roosevelt 's black religious strategy , although Bush was not promoting the social gospel . From its inception , Bush 's Faith Initiative elevated individualistic , moral reform strategies over strategies emphasizing public responsibility for poverty and structural solutions to inequality . As Bush stated at the Faith Office 's inaugural event , `` We will help all in their work to change hearts ... '' Obama has rebranded and reformed Faith Office as an interfaith think tank , designed to generate new ideas and discover best practices , but it is uncertain how the new Faith Office will mediate electoral challenges . President Obama did , however , meet with 20 black church leaders in March 2010 to solicit opinions and prayers . Just a month earlier , the heads of seven major black denominations launched the Conference of National Black Churches , the lineage of which goes back to the Fraternal Council . While upholding the value of individual responsibility and transformation , this ecumenical body also advocates for social and economic justice and is concerned with the structural aspects of black poverty , crises in education , health and housing , staggering incarceration rates and more . The Conference of Black National Churches has already reached out to Obama and denounced religious xenophobia by supporting his remarks on the proposed Islamic center near ground zero . Obama , like Roosevelt , could turn to the nationally organized black churches to shore up electoral turnout while neutralizing fears about his own religious intentions . Like the Fraternal Council and the early black Social Gospel proponents , the freshly mobilized black churches could use this moment in national political history to lay the groundwork for a social change movement of unprecedented proportions . If history is any indication , pivotal times are ahead at the intersection of national politics and black religion . The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Omar McRoberts .
Omar says : Roosevelt faced criticism from blacks and lack of commitment to Christianity . He also faced religious challenges , criticism from African - Americans , he writes . He says Roosevelt used black church to build up trust among a disenfranchised group . Obama could turn to black churches to bring out vote and prove religious identity , he says .