(Image Source: WhiteHouse.gov)

BY TATIANA DARIE

ANCHOR JIM FLINK

President Obama’s views on religion seem to always draw attention.                                                                His latest foray into faith is no different. At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, the President said his religious beliefs are helping to shape his policy proposals. Most recently -- his call for higher taxes for the wealthy. Fox News has the president’s explanation.

"For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus's teaching that for unto whom much is given, much shall be required..."

No sooner had he uttered the words, than some media outlets reacted. In the New York Post, a writer sarcastically quips...

“Like Moses descending from Mount Sinai, Obama had a list of policies that God himself would endorse. Obama extolled the virtues of his Wall Street reforms, ObamaCare laws that stop insurance companies from ‘discriminating against those who are already sick,’ and proposed rules to crack down on mortgage lenders.”

Other media outlets asked -- what does the Bible say about taxes? Lexington Theological Seminary biblical scholar O. Wesley Allen tells CNN -- he thinks some commonly cited Bible passages about taxes are frequently misinterpreted.

“...there are many passages throughout the Bible that mandate the poor and widowed should be cared for. But it doesn't dictate the policies that should be pursued to accomplish that.”

Other media outlets believe the president's comments are an indirect jab at GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney, in response to remarks Romney made on Wednesday. The New York Daily News writes...

“... while Obama never uttered Romney’s name, the President’s stance stood in stark contrast to the Republican’s utterance to CNN the previous day that he was ‘not very concerned about the very poor."

And that observation is echoed by some conservative leaders who say the president politicized the event. Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition tells The Washington Post...

“I felt like it was over the line and not the best use of the forum. It showed insufficient level of respect for what the office of the president has historically brought to that moment.”

The Post also has a retort from a writer who identifies himself from the religious left saying the President hit the mark.

“...his speech quietly drove home many of the core-beliefs of the ever-mobilizing, ever-regrouping, ever-coming-in-second-place American Religious Left. Listening carefully to Obama’s sedate address, one could detect a rather tenacious, albeit sometimes disheveled, defense of the principles that Progressives of Faith live by...”