1. Is Barack Obama God's Candidate for America?
The biggest role reversal of this presidential campaign has been how the Democrat is angling for the God-vote, not the Republican. John McCain is trying to make up for decades of apostasy with a 45-minute visit with Billy and Franklin Graham, but it's obvious this whole religious outreach business is a painful exercise for him. His uncomfortable reluctance to talk about his faith (or lack thereof) shouldn't be a disqualifier for the White House. But it is, because over the past 30 years, McCain's own party made it mandatory, and now the Democrats seem to want it that way, too.
Barack Obama has gone to great lengths to appeal to evangelicals. He's talked about his walk with Christ, met with Christian leaders and convinced them of his faith, launched his Joshua Generation project to reach younger evangelicals, had his campaign staff participate in weekly telephonic prayer with clergy, and this week traveled the country talking about faith, values, and faith-based government funding of community projects to lift people out of poverty and despair. He promised that the proposed initiative would have no religious litmus tests, no proselytizing, and no discrimination in projects funded by the government, but good luck policing that.
What constitutes proselytizing anyway? Obama himself is essentially proselytizing about Christianity, while paying lip service to our precious religious pluralism. If that pluralism really existed, Obama wouldn't feel compelled to prove his relationship with Jesus so vigorously or to make evangelicals and Catholics the centerpiece of his religious outreach. (Yes, I know, together they make up the biggest voting bloc in America.) Moderate and progressive evangelicals tell me that they want to hear candidates, particularly Democrats, talk about their faith more. But, as many of them admit, often reluctantly, most evangelicals want to hear about a candidate's Christian faith. Obama is enabling that but, even if he does have to fight extra hard to disprove the rumors he is a Muslim, he shouldn't be.
Among Democrats, the reaction to Barack Obama's expanding outreach to evangelicals has ranged from glee (as in "take that, James Dobson!") to a chorus of hallelujahs (as in "finally, a Democrat 'gets it!'") to shrugs of acquiescence (as in "whatever it takes to win"). But the religious right isn't just wrong because it's wrong on the issues. The religious right is also wrong because it has imposed religious tests on candidates. It's one thing for religious groups to engage in public advocacy on issues they care about (I'm all for that), but it's another thing entirely for presidential candidates to bluster about their faith to get elected.
2. What About "Abortion Reduction" in the Democratic Party Platform?
Last week ABC reported that Sojourners president Jim Wallis was calling on the Democratic Party to include an "abortion reduction" plank in its platform. Wallis is frequently described as a "progressive evangelical" or a "liberal evangelical" because he has been at the forefront of an evangelical movement to draw more attention to poverty and the environment.
But calling Wallis "progressive" or "liberal" justifiably rankles pro-choice progressives because he's anti-choice. And the term "abortion reduction" is a loaded one. Although "unintended-pregnancy reduction" is a bit of a mouthful, that really is, of course, the first line of defense in reducing the number of abortions. But when I asked Wallis' spokesperson last week whether contraception would be part of his envisioned "abortion reduction," plank, he said Wallis would have no comment. No comment? Contraception seems like a no-brainer for someone like Wallis, but the religious right stymies legislative efforts to expand the availability of contraceptives, particularly to teenagers, and so Wallis' silence seems to be a gesture to the religious right, rather than a progressive position on reproductive health.
Wallis' spokesperson also claimed that he was not "officially" calling for an abortion-reduction plank for the Democrats. Yet he has been publicly advocating for it, as he did at a forum on religion in politics at the Center for American Progress in April. But without some clarity from Wallis about what such an abortion-reduction plank would entail, particularly with regard to contraception, the progressive moniker remains misplaced.
3. Huck's Army Still Fighting for VP Spot
The grass-roots movement that first organized around Mike Huckabee's presidential candidacy and catapulted him to victory in Iowa is now trying to get him on the ticket with McCain. Mitt Romney might be the moneybags, and Tim Pawlenty might bring the faith-talk, but there's a significant grass-roots movement of Huckabee supporters who believe that, as they put it, "it's not too late to save '08."
Michael Brown, one of the co-founders of the Save08 campaign, and the former national grass-roots director for church liaison for the Christian Coalition, told me that the group had not met with McCain or his staff to promote Huckabee, but that they're building a grass-roots movement in support of his selection. Brown, who calls himself the "Joint Chief of Staff" of this "army" that is "displeased with the direction the 2008 presidential campaign is taking," sees his group at the vanguard of a new Web-based, grass-roots movement -- a movement not just for Huckabee but for all those "Judeo Christian values" the "liberal left" opposes. The future of the conservative Christian movement, said Brown, will be at the grassroots with groups like his, because "people are waking up and seeing that you can't wait for the high-profile people" to lead, Brown said.
Good night, James Dobson.
4. Huckabee's Speaking Tour
This week, Huckabee was scheduled to speak at the Christian Family Alliance of Colorado's Pastors' Policy Briefing -- a reprise of some of the Renewal Project events that had supported Huckabee's candidacy during the primary, and which are built around the themes of Newt Gingrich's book, Rediscovering God in America. This time, the briefing was focused on scaring the bejesus out of people about radical Islamists, according to Huckabee's letter to pastors:
America and our Judeo Christian heritage is under attack by a force that is more destructive than any threat America has faced since Adolph Hitler in 1934. Defeating the radical jihadists will require renewed resolve and spiritual rearmament by the evangelical pastors in America . ... At a time when Congress is busy trying to legislate defeat in Iraq, we are inviting you to a Pastors' Policy Briefing that will help you engage the battle, to walk point. Today, with our troops facing danger abroad and our nation looking for guidance here at home, America's need is to rearm spiritually through the leadership of her Pastors.
A few weeks ago, Huckabee spoke to the Texas Republican Party Convention, where he blamed "big government" on the failure of individuals to live according to Christian teaching. "Big government," said Huckabee, "is the direct result of moral breakdown. ... The reason we have so much government and it's so expensive," he went on, "is because we failed to live by 'do unto others as you would have others do unto you.'"
5. Now Three: Arizona Places Gay Marriage Ban on November Ballot
Last week Arizona became the third state, after California and Florida, to place a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the ballot for November. Just before his home state joined the wedge wars, McCain finally embraced the California ban, much to the delight of anti-gay activists.
Obama told a gathering of LGBT activists last weekend that he opposes the ban, calling it "divisive and discriminatory," leading the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins to wonder whether faith-based organizations that oppose same-sex marriage would be excluded from receiving federal funds under Obama's faith-based initiative. It's actually a good question, and one that could put Obama under pressure from both his progressive base and the self-identified centrist evangelicals he's been courting. The evangelicals are supporting the California ban, and while they're willing to part ways with Obama on the marriage issue, I suspect they'd fight tooth and nail to keep faith-based dollars flowing into organizations that discriminate in any way on the basis of sexual orientation. How Obama handles that would be a real test of how he plans to reconcile his foray into faith-based politicking with the expectations of his progressive base.
Contact me at tapthefundamentalist@gmail.com.
