The beheading of James Foley by Muslim terrorists, coupled with President Obama’s virtually instantaneous, smiling, fist-bumping return to the golf course, has unleashed outrage throughout America.

Importantly, this outrage has seated itself in the hearts of many Americans who heretofore have given President Obama every benefit of the doubt on questions to do with rectitude. 

Opinion leader Maureen Dowd exemplifies this; her “Golf Address,” for all its acid, is in fact a poignant expression of profound disappointment in President Obama’s visible, and palpable, ethical failures.

Perhaps, then, it should have come as no surprise to me when, in recent days, several readers wrote in regard to a May 31, 2012 American Thinker article entitled “Mystery Religion: Mr. Obama’s Contradictory Conversions to Christianity.”

The title of that article makes it obvious that it addresses the credibility of President Obama’s claim that he is a Christian. 

In writing that article, it was never my intention to imply that only those who are Christian are fit for the presidency.  Instead, the concern was that careful, responsible research showed that President Obama lied about being a Christian (probably in order to get elected) -- and that people who are willing to do such a thing are willing to lie about nearly everything.

The willingness to lie about nearly everything does, in my opinion, render one unfit for the presidency.  That is why I wrote the article.

The bottom line of the “Mystery Religion” article is this: it is a documented fact -- in many places -- that President Obama has given two separate dates, separated by several years, as to when he supposedly converted to Christianity in the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church.

Those who may be reading this who still think President Obama is a Christian are challenged to read the “Mystery Religion” article and refute, if they can, the bottom line -- which is itself buttressed by many other documented facts in the article. 

Those other facts are so numerous that they are best left to readers to see for themselves at their leisure.

President Obama is almost certainly not a Christian. And when was the last time President Obama attended church, anyway?  Does he attend with anything approaching regularity?

Clearly, these things do not entail that he is a Muslim.

This writer’s view, which will not be further defended here, is that President Obama is, in the literal sense of the term, an atheist who is sympathetic to Islam primarily because of his identification with certain political currents tracing back to 1950s and 1960s Egypt.

Once again, the main point is that President Obama’s faith is an issue because he has lied about it, and lying about an issue of such of profound social, and personal, importance in order to get elected  constitutes a very serious character flaw.

The nature of this character flaw, together with current circumstances, raises grave questions about President Obama’s fitness, and willingness, to safeguard this country against Islamic terrorism.

Because President Obama is not a Christian, and because many of his political decisions are contrary to the interests of historical allies in the Middle East, millions of Americans have suspected that he is a Muslim.

The response to these suspicions has largely involved ridicule and charges of racism -- but never, seemingly, a careful look at the evidence.

When the evidence so compellingly shows that President Obama is not a Christian, people who think he is a Muslim should be engaged in debate by those who disagree, not ridiculed and insulted as racists. 

This is especially so when President Obama’s response to a gruesome beheading by Islamic terrorists, captured on video, is a smiling, expeditious return to the golf course.

Dr. Jason Kissner is associate professor of criminology at California State University, Fresno.  You can reach him at crimprof2010@hotmail.com.