June 13, 2010 | 11:19 am

The Nikki Haley faith question

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Follow JewishJournal.com on

I haven’t been following the story of Nikki Haley, the would-be South Carolina governor. Despite the rumors, I just don’t find it that interesting. But tmatt has been all over it, and he pointed me to this interesting article from PoliticsDaily.com about Haley’s faith:

Haley’s family hails from India, and until she converted to Christianity at age 24 she was a Sikh. This has been a bit of a political football in South Carolina, and this month a state senator called Haley a “raghead.”

Hi, I’m 2010. have we met?

From PoliticsDaily.com:

Haley converted to Christianity when she was 24—she is a Methodist—but as CBN’s David Brody shows in a detailed accounting of Haley’s religious makeover, until recently she stressed her Sikh roots and even the fact that she still attended both a Methodist church and a Sikh temple.

Her 2004 campaign for the Legislature, for example, played up her Sikh upbringing, as Brody notes, saying that “Nikki was proudly raised with her Indian traditions and her husband, Michael, was brought up in the Methodist faith”—no mention of her Christianity. Brody also pointed out that newspapers at the time ran headlines such as the one declaring Haley was “The First Member Of The Sikh Religion To Join A State Legislature In The United States.”

These days, Nikki Haley is making no mention of her Sikh religious upbringing, noting only that her parents are Indian-born. And Brody also discovered that Haley’s official website recently modified its description of her religious beliefs to reflect a more explicit and enthusiastic embrace of Christianity.

Read Brody’s reflections here.

What I don’t hear anyone saying is that Haley is a secret Muslim.