Four years ago, Call to Renewal conducted a 12-day "Rolling to Overcome Poverty" bus tour to say that poverty was a religious and electoral issue. Despite our best efforts, the word was rarely spoken in either campaign, or in the presidential debates. This year, it's already different.

On Wednesday, John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama, which, of course, made headlines across the country. But at the Grand Rapids, Michigan, rally where the two men spoke, something even more important happened. Both spoke eloquently about the reality of poverty in the United States, and both reiterated their commitment to cut poverty in half in 10 years in the U.S. Obama pledged again to make that a central feature of his administration if he is elected.

Edwards said:

There is another wall that divides us. It's the moral shame of 37 million of our own people who wake up in poverty every single day. In a nation of our wealth, to have millions of Americans who work every single day and still can't pay their electric bill and pay for their food at the same time. There are mothers out there working two jobs every day to try to keep their kids from going to bed hungry. There are men and women who have worked hard all their lives, so that they can try to buy a home. And they're living in a tent city, because they got nowhere to go. This is not OK.

Obama responded:

Poverty isn't an issue that's talked about on the news or in Washington. It's not always the kind of issue that polls well. But John Edwards decided to talk about it anyway. He decided to center his campaign around it. He came up with new ideas to solve it. He pushed the rest of us to talk about it and debate it. And he did it, not because it was popular, but because it was right. Well, it is still right. It is still worth debating. It is still worth talking about. ... We're going to have to change things around, because we need to lift up every American out of poverty.

The other candidates have also spoken strongly about poverty.

Hillary Clinton, in the recent Compassion Forum, said:

… in my Judeo-Christian faith tradition, in both the Old and the New Testament, the incredible demands that God places on us and that the prophets ask of us, and that Christ called us to respond to on behalf of the poor are unavoidable. And it's always been curious to me how our debate about religion in America too often misses that. You know, his holiness, the pope, is going to be coming to America next week, and he's been a strong voice on behalf of what we must do to deal with poverty, and deal with injustice, and deal with what is truly our obligations toward those who are the least among us.

And John McCain, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's death:

Some people lament privately, others are brave enough to take their call for change to the public arena. Martin Luther King III has done his father's legacy proud this week by courageously insisting that our nation's next leader do something about the poverty that ensnares over 36 million of our citizens. I will answer his call, and tell him and the American people today that I will make the eradication of poverty a top priority of the McCain Administration.

The media still sees everything in terms of the political horse race, of course, but the issue of poverty has now become a central one in the ongoing campaign. And for us, as people of faith, it's raising the moral issues that will be our focus during this election season, and poverty will be a key one.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has a good summary of The Candidates on Poverty.

This weekend Zimbabwe's opposition party announced that it would take part in the next round of presidential "elections." Violence, harassment, and intimidation of unarmed citizens continue as part of the government's preparation for the "elections." In my understanding, there are three basic rules that qualify a process to be described as a legitimate election (election 101!):

1. Elections are part of a democratic package that includes freedom, democracy, and peace. Without this package or context, elections cannot be expected to achieve their intended function -- namely, to elect a party or candidate of choice.
2. Elections presuppose political maturity, which understands that to participate in an election a party could:

a. Win or
b. lose but
c. cannot be both (a) and (b)

3. Acceptance of results is part of the election process. In the event of losing a party should not resort to political tantrums and attack the winner. This is a serious violation of the first election principle above and therefore constitutes a violation of human rights.

In the case of Zimbabwe, none of the above apply. Despite these serious constraints the opposition and the people are determined to use this window of opportunity to fight for democracy. The international media has played a significant role in ensuring that Zimbabwe is on the "big screen," visible for all to see. This effort needs to be supported by active participation by the international community in the "election" process as it happens. This support is critical. Violence cannot be allowed to triumph as a political tool that overrides the election process. This is our prayer and plea for support.

Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.

No two events in this political season stand in starker contrast than last night's ABC Democratic debate and last Sunday's CNN Compassion Forum.

Rather unbelievably, ABC anchors used 50 minutes of airtime attacking Democratic candidates on tabloid issues, including a line of questioning from George Stephanopoulos lifted from right-wing pundit Sean Hannity. Almost as an afterthought, the final questions turned toward actual issues including the economy and war. The ABC Web site was flooded with complaints from viewers—both Clinton and Obama supporters—calling the debate "awful" and "asinine," and the live audience heckled and booed the moderators. In Philadelphia's Constitution Center, ABC devolved into sensationalist TV, making for an embarrassing irony between inane content and an impressive setting.

Just four days ago, hundreds of religious leaders gathered at Messiah College in Pennsylvania for the Compassion Forum aired by CNN and sponsored by Faith and Public Life. At that event (I was in the audience), both the moderators and audience members addressed the Democratic candidates with serious questions ranging from personal beliefs to theological concerns - such as the problem of evil and moral issues of poverty, torture, AIDS in Africa, abortion, and global warming. The Forum was intelligent, offering each of the candidates 40 minutes to discuss genuine issues that have an impact on people's lives and the human future. Those in attendance appreciated the thoughtfulness and depth of both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, as demonstrated by warm applause and enthusiasm for the opinions and policies outlined by the candidates.

At the end of the forum, I was talking with a friend, Professor Shaun Casey of Wesley Theological Seminary. I asked him what, in his professional opinion, was the most striking aspect of the discussion. Without hesitating, he replied, "The political maturation of the evangelical community. They asked sophisticated, serious questions and demonstrated a genuine political coming-of-age."

The evangelical leaders were, of course, not alone in political maturity. The Forum audience comprised evangelical and mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists. This diverse group—representing a broad range of faithful Americans in congregations and communities across the nation—really cared about compassion issues and how the candidates would provide leadership around these concerns. Their questions were not the only mark of spiritual maturity—their ability to gather together around shared concerns for the common good signaled a religious "coming-of-age" in a pluralistic nation as well.

If American religious leaders—evangelical, mainline, Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, and Muslim—could gather respectfully and ask probing, important questions, why can't ABC News? It may well be time for some soul-searching over at their network. I suggest they ask themselves a question: “What Would Peter Jennings Do?”

Diana Butler Bass holds a doctorate in American religion from Duke University. She is the author of six books, including Christianity for the Rest of Us (HarperOne, 2006).

Last evening, I was privileged to be one of the religious leaders asked to participate in the Compassion Forum, sponsored by Faith in Public Life and broadcast by CNN from Messiah College. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama participated; Sen. John McCain declined.

The religious leaders asked questions of real substance, focusing on difficult and important policy choices. We are not so much interested in the personal testimonies of candidates - important as those are - but rather how their faith beliefs would shape their leadership and decisions. It is also worth noting that the majority of the questions of substance and depth about critical policy issues came from the religious leaders last night, and the more personal questions about the religion came from the stage moderators for CNN—just as was the case at the Sojourners/CNN Forum on "Faith, Values, and Poverty" last June.

Here are a few examples:

Lisa Sharon Harper of New York Faith and Justice asked Sen. Clinton:

Senator Clinton, underdeveloped nations and regions lack widespread access to education and basic resources like water, and they tend to be some of the most unstable and dangerous regions of the world. Places like Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan. Our national security is at stake, but our military is stretched. As president, would you consider committing U.S. troops to a purely humanitarian mission under the leadership of a foreign flag?

Clinton responded:

I believe we should demonstrate our commitment to people who are poor, disenfranchised, disempowered before we talk about putting troops anywhere. The United States has to be seen again as a peacekeeper, and we have lost that standing in these last seven years. Therefore, I want us to have a partnership, government to government, government with the private sector, government with our NGOS and our faith community to show the best of what America has to offer. … Before we get to what we might do hypothetically, let's see what we will do realistically to rebuild America's moral authority and demonstrate our commitment to compassionate humanitarianism.

The moderator called on me to ask a question of Sen. Obama:

As you reminded us a week or two ago, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed 40 years ago, he wasn't just speaking about civil rights. He was fighting for economic justice, was about to launch a poor people's campaign. Yet, four decades after the anniversary of his death, the poverty rate in America is virtually unchanged, and one in six of our children are poor in the richest nation in the world. So in the faith community, we are wanting a new commitment around a measurable goal, something like cutting poverty in half in 10 years. Would you commit - would you at this historic compassion forum, commit to such a goal tonight, and, if elected, tell us how you'd mobilize the nation, mobilize us, to achieve that goal?

Obama's response:

I absolutely will make that commitment. Understand that when I make that commitment, I do so with great humility because it is a very ambitious goal. And we're going to have to mobilize our society, not just to cut poverty, but to prevent more people from slipping into poverty. … [After a series of specific policy proposals] And many of these, by the way, can be part of a faith community. And so, you know, just to go back to our theme here tonight, people sometimes ask me, what do I think about faith-based initiatives? I want to keep the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives open, but I want to make sure that its mission is clear … the faith-based initiatives should be targeted specifically at the issue of poverty and how to lift people up.

Getting such a commitment on the public record is important - both for changing the political conversation and helping to put an issue like poverty on the agenda, and also to hold whoever wins an election accountable. So I was pleased with Barack Obama's response and also that Hillary Clinton has made a similar commitment to lead to cut domestic poverty in half in the next ten years. Those commitments should further encourage the emerging faith-inspired movement to overcome poverty and give us some concrete benchmarks to work for.

Read the transcript for the rest of the excellent questions posed by the religious leaders last night, and the candidates' responses.

Kudos go to Katie Barge, the primary organizer of the Compassion Forum for Faith and Public Life, for helping to continue the national conversation on the critical relationship between faith and politics.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, he was trying to move the country to take on the moral issue of economic injustice. And, for the first time in many years, the remembrances of King's death (this one the 40th anniversary) urged the nation to do the same. Usually the nation's anniversary celebrations freeze-frame King as the nation's greatest civil rights leader whose famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was the extent of his message. Later calls for economic justice and the beginnings of a Poor People's Campaign are often ignored, not to mention the controversial connection King made between poverty and war in his opposition to the Vietnam War and his confrontation of the "triplets" of "poverty, racism, and militarism."

But last Friday was different and much more hopeful to our mission here at Sojourners of putting poverty on the agenda of this election year.

Barack Obama, speaking in Fort Wayne, Indiana, made the direct connection between memorializing King and taking up the mantle of his Poor People's campaign, and fighting for the cause of economic justice for those who have been left behind. The New York Times reported that Obama focused on King's presence in Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers and the continuing need for economic justice:

The reason Dr. King was in Memphis the day he was shot, Mr. Obama told the crowd of about 2,000 people, had to do as much with economics, in the form of wages and income, as with race. "It was a struggle for economic justice, for the opportunity that should be available to people of all races and all walks of life," he said. "Because Dr. King understood that the struggle for economic justice and the struggle for racial justice were really one, that each was part of a larger struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity."

King's son, Martin Luther King III, has called for a cabinet-level "poverty czar," and, to her credit, Hillary Clinton supported that goal in her speech in Memphis, according to the New York Times:

Mrs. Clinton gave her support to an idea long advocated by the King family, a cabinet position that she said would be "solely and fully devoted to ending poverty as we know it, that will focus the attention of our nation on this issue and never let it go." Mrs. Clinton added: "No more excuses, no more whining, but instead a concerted effort."

John McCain was also in Memphis, speaking at the National Civil Rights Museum (in what was the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot.) McCain linked the anniversary to human rights, reports the Associated Press:

McCain said King "was called an agitator, a troublemaker, a malcontent, and a disturber of the peace. These are often the terms applied to men and women of conscience who will not endure cruelty, nor abide injustice. We hear them to this day -- in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Burma, Tibet, Iran and other lands -- directed at every brave soul who dares to disturb the peace of tyrants."

Human rights does continue to be a major issue, and the nation's poverty rate has not significantly improved in the 40 years since King's death. The national minimum wage has actually lost ground, with the 1968 rate worth $9.71 in 2008 dollars compared to $5.85 today. Many voices seem ready now to make that an urgent moral concern and commitment. Let us hope, pray, and work that it may be so.

On CNN’s The Situation Room, Jim Wallis and the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins talk about evangelical attitudes in the election. Watch it:

Over the weekend, James Dobson backed off his earlier assertion that he would not cast a vote for president this year if John McCain clinched the GOP nomination. Voting is a "God-given responsibility," Dobson told host Sean Hannity Sunday night on Hannity's America, and one that he plans to fulfill despite his disenchantment with all three leading candidates.

But where does that leave Dobson? Will he backpedal and now throw his support behind McCain? Not likely, at least not yet. Before signing off with Hannity, Dobson made it clear that McCain's support of the pro-life and pro-marriage planks in the Republican Party platform was not enough; he wants assurances from the Arizona senator that he will oppose embryonic stem-cell research as well. "That's a major one for me," Dobson said. "You can't really call yourself pro-life if you're going to kill those babies."

The question now is who will blink first. If McCain holds his ground—he supports federal funding for research on unused embryos from fertility clinics—he risks losing the percentage of the evangelical vote that Dobson continues to influence. With the presidency at stake, that's a risk McCain most likely won't take despite all the chatter about Dobson's waning influence among evangelicals.

Still, there is that chance that Dobson has painted himself into a corner on this one. As recently as two months ago, he adamantly stated that he would not vote for McCain. If McCain doesn't change his position on stem-cell research to Dobson's liking, that leaves Dobson with precious few choices—namely, a compromise vote for McCain, an unlikely vote for Ron Paul (assuming he gets on the ballot), or a write-in vote for his assumed candidate of choice all along, Mitt Romney.

This could prove to be a defining moment in the relationship between the GOP and a historically prominent leader of the religious right. The perception of Dobson as an important player in conservative politics just may hinge on McCain's response to what appears to be Dobson's line-in-the-sand challenge.

Marcia Ford, author of We the Purple: Faith, Politics, and the Independent Voter, maintains an independent voter blog at marciaford.blogspot.com.

We were never likely to get away with "transcending" race in this election as the early Obama campaign suggested to some. The demons of race in America simply run too deep and were bound to eventually rear their ugly heads. And so they did with the now infamous taped sound bites by Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the furious media response to them. I've said before that the constant replaying of the tapes has become a metaphor for the continual replaying of our old racial tapes in this country. Black anger and frustration because of real grievances, provoking white indignation revealing the lack of white understanding, causing more black frustration and alienation etc; it just goes on and on.

So Barack Obama had to give a major speech on race that he likely hoped not to have to give. But it was an historic statement, offering a deeper vision and hope of our forming "a more perfect union" than we had heard in many decades. After the speech, the ball was again in America's court—in white America's court in particular. Would the nation respond to Obama's hopeful vision, of turning a corner from racial anger and frustration to new opportunity and unity, or would his candidacy be derailed by his pastor's mixture of prophetic black preaching and unfortunate overstatements? While it will likely take weeks and even months to know the final answer to that central question, the first polls taken since Wright tapes and Obama's speech suggest that it has not hurt his candidacy in the ways that some had feared. As the Pew Research Center reported yesterday on its new poll, "the Wright controversy does not appear to have undermined support for Obama's candidacy."

Another important voice entered the conversation yesterday. In an interview with The Washington Times, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said:

Black Americans were a founding population. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding. … That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today.

Because this issue is now about much more than a candidate or an election, but about the issue of race in America, the poll results and the voice of the highest-ranking black official in the country provide a small glimmer of hope that the nation may be ready to try and take a step forward. Obama should be judged, as should any candidate, on the basis of his policy positions and leadership capacity, not because of our old racial tapes.

It was an amazing day, and, we may look back to conclude it was a historic day. Before Barack Obama's speech yesterday, after the now infamous statements from his former pastor; the issue seemed to be a test of him. But after what may go down as one of the most significant addresses ever given about the history and future of race in America, the issue may now be a test of us. The examination of a candidate was transformed yesterday into an examination of a nation.

A young African American leader, more than four decades ago, told us about his dream for our nation. Yesterday, another young leader, who is also a black man, outlined what it would take to make that dream into a "more perfect union." No political leader has ever delivered such a comprehensive and, I would say, prophetic treatment of race in America.

Every American needs to watch and listen to Barack Obama's speech about the future that the U.S. could have. And I would suggest we watch the speech with our children. After watching, we should ask ourselves, and ask our children, if this is the vision for the U.S. that we and they really want. If it is, we will have moved from an issue over controversial comments to much higher ground. After the constant replaying of the same video tapes (which seems like a metaphor of our recent racial history in America), we listened to an invitation to turn the page and move forward.

We heard the vision of a new generation today, one that understands how injustice does indeed breed frustration and anger, but that to remain stuck in past anger and present frustration can be counter-productive and even self-destructive. We heard a vision characterized not by incendiary recrimination but by the possibility of changing the realities that have kept us stuck in a racial "stalemate" and a mired in a "cynical" and "static" view of America's painful divides. This was a speech that actually posited new hope for opportunity and equality, and even the beginning of the kind of racial reconciliation and unity which few have dared to speak of since the end of the civil rights movement.

We heard a political leader who, as a black man, can also sympathize with white resentment and frustration over racial politics, and who can see both the anger of a black mentor and the racial stereotypes of a white grandmother as both part of him and part of America. The most honest and compelling speech about race in decades could open the promise of a deeper national conversation about our racial past and future than we have had for some time. Obama's speech leaves the choice to us. The issue now is whether we will choose not to allow the angry and frustrating past prevent a more fair and hopeful future; or whether we will be forever bound by that past. To the question of whether race will continue to divide and conquer our hopes for a better America, Barack Obama had his answer, "Not this time." Now we each have to answer the question for ourselves.

This is not just about a candidate now, or a campaign; it is about the country and the choices we have to make about whether we will decide to bind our progress to one another - including those beyond our own tribe. Ask your children what they would have us do.

On a Sunday when Americans flooded houses of worship seeking words of comfort, hope, and healing, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago dared to forgo the singing of "God Bless America." Instead, Senator Barack Obama's pastor claimed the prophetic biblical message of the hour ought to call us to proclaim, "God Damn America."

The words remain jarring and infuriating. Wright's comments seem at best incomplete and untimely. At worst, they imply that God is vindictive, vengeful, and bloodthirsty, even during a time of tragedy--that the judgment of God is appropriately meted out through the tragic deaths of innocent people through terrorist acts of hatred and evil.

On Sept. 15, 2001, Rev. Wright was wrong. His words failed to connect with the pastoral needs of a nation in mourning.

Throughout his career, however, Rev. Wright has been "right" more often than not. He has followed in the traditions of Hebrew Testament prophets, challenging his nation to live up to its own creeds of justice and opportunity for all - including African Americans, other minorities, and the poor.

Wright is in good company. When his provocative language is read alongside the vitriolic words of many Hebrew Testament prophets, Wright's words ring true. The prophets connected their nation's injustice and neglect of the poor with the destruction of Israel, often using vitriolic language. The prophet Amos once described the wealthy women of Samaria as "fat cows." Isaiah referred to once faithful Israel as a prostitute.

Not only are most of Rev. Wright's words biblically correct; they are also historically accurate. The U.S. has participated in many acts of evil. From slavery to Jim Crow segregation, from sexism to the internment of Japanese during World War II, from environmental disasters to the neglect of the poor, America has a record on par with that of Hebrew Testament Israel.

When it comes to foreign policy, the U.S. did financially invest in South Africa during the days of apartheid, used the CIA to enact coups against democratically elected leaders in Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s, and remains the only nation to use nuclear weapons. Perhaps these domestic and foreign policy actions prove that Rev. Wright was right.

But this is only a part of the picture. While the U.S. is far from perfect, the nation has made significant progress regarding rights for minorities and women. The U.S. has often been a force for good in the world, from helping to rebuild Japan and Western Europe after World War II to the vast amounts of private and government funds offered to deal with global crises like the HIV-AIDS and malaria crises in Africa. Rev. Wright was not entirely right.

On March 18, Barack Obama used his speech about race to appropriately distance himself from the most vitriolic of his pastor's rhetoric. He has also removed Rev. Wright from a position on his campaign's spiritual advisory committee.

In the Hebrew Testament, prophets were as a rule not insiders in the royal palace. Jeremiah's words of prophetic judgment became so disruptive to the King threw the prophet into jail. Just over 40 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave up his access to President Lyndon Baines Johnson to prophetically speak out against the war in Vietnam. Put simply, prophets and presidents don't mix.

Thankfully, Senator Obama was careful not to condemn the entire prophetic ministry of Rev. Wright. Our nation desperately needs the prophetic voice he has embodied over decades of public ministry. And no matter who our next president is, he or she would be well served to consider the words of Rev. Wright, for he has been more right than wrong.

Troy Jackson is senior pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, and earned his Ph.D. in United States history from the University of Kentucky. His book Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader (The University Press of Kentucky, 2008) will be available in the fall. Troy is a participant in Sojourners' "Windchangers" grassroots organizing pilot project in Ohio to work on the Vote Out Poverty Campaign.

It has simmered throughout this campaign, and now race has exploded into the center of the media debate about the presidential race. Just when a black political leader is calling us all to a new level of responsibility, hope, and unity, the old and divisive rhetoric of race from both blacks and whites is rearing its ugly head to bring down the best chance we have had for years of finally moving forward.

And that is indeed the real issue here. A black man is closer to possibly becoming president than ever before in U.S. history. And this black man is not even running as "a black man," but as a new kind of political leader who believes the country is ready for a new kind of politics. But a new kind of politics and a new face for political leadership is deeply threatening to all the forces that represent the old kind of politics in the U.S. And all the rising focus on race in this election campaign has one purpose and one purpose alone—to stop Barack Obama from becoming president of the United States.

Barack Obama should win or lose his party's nomination or the presidency based on the positions he takes regarding the great issues of our time and his capacity to lead the country and the U.S.'s role in the world. He must not win or lose because of the old politics of race in the U.S. That would be a tragedy for all of us.

The cable news stations and talk radio are playing carefully selected excerpts of the most potentially incendiary statements from Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery sermons. Wright is the retiring pastor of Barack Obama and his family's home Trinity Church in Chicago. Obama, while affirming the tremendous work his church has done in his city and around the nation, has condemned the most controversial remarks of his pastor. But the whole controversy points to the enormous gap in understanding between the mainstream black community in the U.S. and the experience of many white Americans. And that is what we are going to have to heal if we are ever to move forward.

Here is what I mean.

There is a deep well of both frustration and anger in the African-American community in the U.S. And those feelings are borne of the concrete experience of real oppression, discrimination, and blocked opportunities that most of America's white citizens take for granted. African Americans across the spectrum of income and success will speak personally to those feelings of frustration and anger, when white people are willing to listen. But usually we are not. In 2008, to still not comprehend or seek to understand the reality of black frustration and anger is to be in a state of white denial - which, very sadly, is where many white Americans are.

The black church pulpit has historically been a place of prophetic truth-telling about the realities that black people experience in their own country. Indeed, the black church has often been the only place where such truths are ever told. And, black preachers have had the pastoral task of nurturing the spirits of people who feel beaten down week after week. Strong and prophetic words from black church pulpits are often a source of comfort and affirmation for black congregations. The truth is that many white Americans would indeed feel uncomfortable with the rhetoric of many black preachers from many black churches all across the country.

But if you look beyond the grainy black-and-white clips of the dashiki-clad Rev. Wright and the angry black male voice (all designed to provoke stereotypes and fear), and actually listen to what his words are saying about the U.S. being run by "rich white people" while blacks have cabs speeding by them, and about the U.S.'s misdeeds around the world, it's hard to disagree with many of the facts presented. It's rather the angry tone of Wright's comments that provides the offense and the controversy.

Ironically, a new generation of black Americans is now eager and ready to move beyond the frustration and anger to a new experience of opportunity and hope. And nobody represents that shift more than Barack Obama. There is a generational shift occurring within the black community itself. This shift is between an older generation that is sometimes perceived to be stuck in the politics of victimization and grievance, and a younger generation that believes that opportunity and progress are now possible—not by ignoring, but by being committed to actually changing the facts of oppression and discrimination.

Barack Obama represents that hope of dealing with the substance of the issues of injustice while at the same time articulating the politics of hope, and even the possibility of racial unity. Obama's attraction to many who are white, especially a new generation, demonstrates the promise of a new racial politics in the U.S. But to be a leader for a new generation of black Americans, Barack Obama had to be firmly rooted in the black church tradition, where the critique of white America, the sustenance of the African-American community, and God's promise for the future are all clearly articulated. That's why he began attending Trinity Church, where he was converted to Jesus Christ in the black liberationist tradition of, among others, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

So it would be a great tragedy if the old rhetoric of black frustration and anger were to now hurt Barack Obama, who has become the best hope of beginning to heal that very frustration and anger. Obama has never chosen to talk about race in the way that Rev. Jeremiah Wright does on the video clips that keep playing, and indeed has never played "the race card" at any time in this election. It's been his opponents that have, especially the right-wing conservative media machine that wants the U.S. to believe he is secretly a Muslim and from a "racist" church.

This most recent controversy over race just demonstrates how enormous the gap still is between whites and blacks in the U.S. - in our experience and our capacity to understand one another. May God help us to heal that divide and truly bless America.

Tuesday evening, John McCain clinched the Republican nomination for president, and Mike Huckabee, the last remaining contender, conceded defeat. Huckabee's campaign, and the failure of the Religious Right to support him, has been one of the most interesting and puzzling stories of this primary season

While Huckabee is certainly a social conservative, he refused to toe the line on a number of issues. And that is why I say the monologue of the Religious Right has ended and the evangelical agenda has broadened.

In the Republican YouTube debate, the candidates were asked if they believed every word of the Bible. Huckabee said that while some of the Bible was allegorical, we needed to take much of it much more seriously than we do - like the words of Jesus which say, "As you have done to the least of these you have done to me." This is not the text that most conservatives quote when asked about the authority of the Bible. In an interview with Reuters in January, Huckabee spoke about the broadening evangelical agenda:

Unquestionably there is a maturing that is going on within the evangelical movement. It doesn't mean that evangelicals are any less concerned about traditional families and the sanctity of life. It just means that they also realize that we have real responsibility in areas like disease and hunger and poverty and that these are issues that people of faith have to address.

And when conservative columnists like Robert Novak attacked Huckabee for not being a "real conservative," this is precisely what they meant. When Huckabee was governor of Arkansas, he advocated spending money on poor people - behavior which is offensive to the economically conservative wing of the Republican Party. While Huckabee is a consistent social conservative, he is suspect by the party's economic conservatives who, of course, don't support spending any money on overcoming poverty. Huckabee disagrees with them.

On immigration, in that same debate, there was an all out attack on "illegal aliens" who became the new scapegoat, the new "other," for the Republican candidates - and the preferred way to energize their primary base. Except for the grateful acknowledgement from John McCain that "these are God's children too," every Republican candidate preceded to demagogue the issue, beating up on undocumented immigrants for crass political gain.

But then Mike Huckabee spoke. He agreed that our borders need to be protected and enforced (I do too), but then defended his support for a failed bill in Arkansas to give scholarships to exceptional students - including undocumented children. He said he didn't want to punish children for their parents' illegal actions because "that's not what we typically do in this country." This educational plan, he said, was intended to bring people from illegal to legal status. He continued, saying that he had received a good education, but if he hadn't, "I wouldn't be standing on this stage; I might be picking lettuce; I might be a person who needed government support." Then he said, "In all due respect, we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did." Although he later moved more to the right in the heat of the primaries, that response remains.

Is that ultimately why the leaders of the Religious Right didn't support Mike Huckabee until late in the primary season? Is it because many on the Religious Right are really more committed to economic conservatism that social conservatism? Have religious conservatives gotten so used to their access to power that they are afraid to risk standing for principle over pragmatism? Huckabee was the most consistent social conservative Republican in the race, including winning the straw poll at the FRC Values Voters Summit, yet most of the leaders of the Religious Right never rallied around him. But the evangelical base did – keeping him the race until this week.

Now that he is out of the race, what's next for Huckabee? The conservative Washington Times says Huckabee is at the forefront of evangelical revival, and quoted his former communications director as saying

He has become the leader of a new generation of Christian conservative voters. ... There is nobody else you can identify outside of Mike Huckabee as a leading person to take on that role, really in a new era where evangelicals care about a lot of things like the environment and working with the poor.

Or, as David Kuo wrote in The Washington Post,

That there's now a pitched battle for the soul of the religious right is a horrifying thought to Republican leaders long familiar with the old religious right, a hierarchical group dominated by larger-than-life figures who'd anointed themselves Jesus's political representatives. But that movement is withering at the top and in revolt at the grass-roots. … What's new is how widespread social justice issues are in the evangelical world. Leading New Testament theologian N.T. Wright, a conservative, says that the greatest moral issue today is not abortion but the economic inequality between the U.S. and Europe and the developing world.

So, stay tuned, we haven't heard the last from Mike Huckabee.

I don't endorse political candidates, but I will defend them when it becomes necessary. On this, I agree with my friend, Richard Land, the conservative Southern Baptist leader who is often identified with the Religious Right. Richard and I agree that faith has a place in politics and, when we agree on fundamental moral questions, have worked together. Richard says, "I have defended various candidates from time to time when I've felt that they have been unfairly or inaccurately criticized. At other times, I have been asked by the media for my assessment of a particular candidate's chances or weaknesses and strengths. Neither defense nor assessment should be confused with endorsement. As a matter of policy, I have not endorsed, do not endorse and will not endorse candidates."

So I am going to defend my friend, Barack Obama, from an increasing number of ridiculous and scurrilous attacks on the Internet and in the media. The latest incident occurred when a loud-mouth radio talk show host in Cincinnati let loose with a barrage of disparaging remarks against Senator Obama and kept using his middle name—Barack HUSSEIN Obama—over and over, seemingly to tie into the Internet accusations that Obama is really a Muslim who, as a child, attended a Muslim "madrassa" school in Indonesia that taught Islamic fundamentalism, etc. As a Chicago Tribune blog piece commented, "Anyone who uses Obama's middle name repeatedly, like Cincinnati radio host Bill Cunningham the other day, knows what he or she is doing and what feelings they are trying to evoke. There's simply nothing innocent about it."

The occasion for the shock jock's diatribe was his introduction of Senator John McCain at a rally. To his great credit, McCain denounced the remarks when he heard about them, disassociated himself from this kind of attack, and reaffirmed that his campaign would be conducted on higher ground. Good for you, John McCain. So of course, the local loud-mouth, Bill Cunningham, quickly withdrew his support from McCain and now is denouncing him too; which, of course, was quickly picked up by his mentor, the national radio loud-mouth Rush Limbaugh (whom the local Cunningham seems to desperately "wannabe"). And, of course, Rush is now denouncing both Obama and McCain.

I watched last night as other cable news shows told this story and subtly tried to add more fuel to the fire. Lou Dobbs downplayed the Cincinnati outburst as unimportant and suggested it was no different that telling the world that John McCain's middle name is "Sydney." Sure Lou; and it was interesting that Dobbs followed with more innuendos and rolled eyes over the moment in the Tuesday Democratic debate when Obama was asked about Louis Farrakhan, about suspicions that Barack's home Trinity Church on the south side of Chicago was "black nationalist," and about why Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, wouldn't come on Lou's show to discuss his alleged sympathies for Farrakhan, etc. It is certainly no mystery why Pastor Wright didn't cancel his retirement celebrations and drop everything to come on Lou's show. Would anyone?

An Associated Press story titled " Obama Fights False Links to Islam" commented on the new flare-up, "For Barack Obama, it is an ember that he has doused time and again, only to see it flicker anew: links to Islam fanned by false rumors, innuendo, and association."

During the Democratic debate, Obama again "denounced and rejected" the ugly anti-Semitic comments that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has often made, as he had done many times before. Farrakhan hadn't actually endorsed Obama, but recently said, "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better." Asked on Tuesday night about whether he would accept Farrakhan's support, Obama said: "I live in Chicago. He lives in Chicago. I've been very clear, in terms of me believing that what he has said is reprehensible and inappropriate. And I have consistently distanced myself from him."

So let's set the record straight. I have known Barack Obama for more than 10 years, and we have been talking about his Christian faith for a decade. Like me and many other Christians, he agrees with the need to reach out to Muslims around the world, especially if we are ever to defeat Islamic fundamentalism. But he is not a Muslim, never has been, never attended a Muslim madrassa, and does not attend a black "separatist" church. Rather, he has told me the story of his coming from an agnostic household, becoming a community organizer on Chicago's South Side who worked with the churches, and how he began attending one of them. Trinity Church is one of the most prominent and respected churches in Chicago and the nation, and its pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is one of the leading revival preachers in the black church. Ebony magazine once named him one of America's 15 best Black preachers. The church says it is "unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian," like any good black church would, but is decidedly not "separatist," as its white members and friends would attest.

And one Sunday, as Obama has related to me and written in his book The Audacity of Hope, the young community organizer walked down the aisle and gave his life to Christ in a very personal and very real Christian conversion experience. We have talked about our faith and its relationship to politics many times since. And after Obama gave his speech at a Sojourners/Call to Renewal conference in June 2006, E.J. Dionne said that it may have been "the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy's Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican."

Like his politics or not, support his candidacy or not - but don't disparage Barack Obama's faith, his church, his minister, or his credibility as an eloquent Christian layman who feels a vocation in politics. Those falsehoods are simply vicious lies and should be denounced by people of faith from across the political spectrum.

Emergents seek a theological rationale for their political engagement. The thing is, that rationale varies from issue to issue, which makes the emergents an infuriatingly moving target for those with more traditional political viewpoints. For instance, the Christian speaker Len Sweet, a longtime friend of Emergent, recently spoke out against the movement in Relevant magazine, saying:

We got to this point in the '70s where you could not tell the difference between the Democratic Party platform and the Church's portrayal of the Kingdom of God. I think that any intrusion of Christianity into politics—whether right or left—is ugly. So I don't see Jesus as coming with a political agenda. Yes, there are radical social and economic consequences to His message, but to claim that Jesus' message was a political one [is incorrect]. It's Jim Wallis's evangelical updating of the Social Gospel movement, or liberalism's liberation theology of the '70s and '80s.

In the article, Sweet charges that emergent Christians are nothing but the New Christian Left, based primarily, it seems, on Brian McLaren's increasingly political writings. But to those inside Emergent, the criticism missed the mark, as do the protestations of the lefties when emergents don't play by their rules either. For gathered around the Emergent table are Republicans and Democrats, pro-lifers and pro-choicers, laissez-faire free-market capitalists and communitarian socialists. There is no ideological requirement to join, just a shared commitment to robust, theological dialogue about issues that matter.

And surely, most emergents vehemently disagree with Sweet's claim that Jesus' message was apolitical. This school of thought—that Jesus was interested in the kingdom of God, not in the machinations of human politics—is not shared by emergents. The emergents are activists—even political activists—just not in the conventional sense. If "politics" means the way that human beings collectively make things happen, then this supremely interested Jesus.

But where Sweet is right is to claim that Jesus was not co-opted by any of the political parties of his day. Emergents have grown up in the dire shadow of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, who too closely allied with the Republicans in the 1980s and 1990s. From the emergent perspective, this partnership was a match made in hell, a marriage in which one partner (the Republican Party) will inevitably corrupt the other (the Christian Right). Thus in my travels, many emergents have expressed to me great hesitation about the building momentum of leftward or progressive groups (such as Tikkun magazine, Sojourners/Call to Renewal, and FaithfulDemocrats.org). Their fear is that these groups will make the same mistakes that their conservative brethren did 30 years ago: lose their independence by aligning with a political party. Politics is a dirty business, which is why political scientists refer to the compromises required as the "theory of dirty hands." In other words, for politics to work in a liberal democracy, elected officials cannot stand unbudgingly on principle. To get things done—like getting legislation passed—politicians have to compromise. That's just how it works.

But this very compromise has drawn the ire of Stanley Hauerwas, dubbed by Time magazine as America's most influential theologian (and known by many as the theologian with the saltiest tongue). Looking back on the 20th century, Hauerwas is supremely disheartened by the compromises of his coreligionists. The American mainline—Hauerwas is a Methodist—forsook many of their distinctives in order to have influence in society. Many flowery prayers have opened the session of the U.S. Senate as a result, but the radical and liberating gospel got lost. Hauerwas and his legion of acolytes respond by saying that Christians operate according to a rationality and language that is mutually exclusive from the compromises required in a democracy. Hauerwas himself has gone so far as to say that Christians should not run for political office.

While the Hauerwasian position appeals to many emergents, others find it an overreaction and agree with the Princeton University philosopher Jeffrey Stout, who charges Hauerwas with creating a "Christian enclave theory." Emergents seem stuck in a no-man's-land: on the one hand, they're committed to a deep, political engagement in American society, but on the other hand, they vow not to be co-opted by a political party. This is driven both by the belief that the national parties are ultimately concerned with self-perpetuation (not a gospel value) and by the clear inference in the Gospels that Jesus remained independent from all of the political parties of the day: the Essenes, Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, and Herodians all appear on the biblical stage, yet Jesus identifies with none of them. The one thing predictable about Jesus' interactions with the powers that be: he was predictably unpredictable.

Consequently, emergents are looking for a couple of things. First, they're intent on finding and supporting politicians who will change the political landscape, those who will resist doing business as usual. This may not differ appreciably from many politically engaged Americans, but the emergents may be the generation of Christians to represent a critical mass, a tipping point to upset the political apple cart. Second, emergents will look at political engagement as an art rather than a science. Therefore, they will artfully look for points of intersection and moments of potential cooperation with politicians on both sides of the aisle. The junctures of the gospel and political engagement are myriad, and they will surely not line up exclusively with the ideology of one political party. But the independence of emergents does not preclude activism. In fact, it begets activism.


Tony Jones is the national coordinator of Emergent Village. This post is excerpted from his new book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.  In the book, Tony gives an insider's view of the emergent church movement and an analysis of American Christianity as a whole.

What about the mosaic revival is comforting? As a Latino evangelical leader, one of the things I am asking is moving beyond polarization. In this mosaic revival, we know that though politics is not the whole solution, it will be a vital part. We need the nexus of clergy, good government, activists, entrepreneurs, moms and dads, educators, etc. As a Christian who is part of the mosaic revival, I cling to one thing: my commitment is to Christ and the gospel first, not to any political party. As a citizen who values justice, my commitment is to justice first and not any political party. In the mosaic revival, we reserve the right to criticize any party that violates and oppresses the least of these. That list is a long one (not exhaustive):

· people oppressed by poverty all over the world,
· the educationally deprived,
· unborn babies,
· mothers who are left without quality care for newborns,
· victims in Darfur, Rwanda,
· those who are impacted by AIDS/HIV,
· a planet with ecological challenges,
· abused woman and children,
· victims of violence in urban centers and college campuses,
· indigenous and immigrant groups that are displaced or marginalized.

The mosaic revival says this is beyond the Republicans, Democrats, or Independents. The kaleidoscope convention says, "How can we respond in ethical and nuanced ways to these global crises?"

Before I was a pastor, I was a Pentecostal evangelist that spoke to thousands of young people in revivals across the U.S. and Latin America. I think I hear them more clearly now than I ever did before. They're saying what I heard Jim Wallis say a month ago in New York: "How do we speak to two great hungers, spiritual revival and social justice?" The mosaic revival, or "awakening" as Jim may say it, says we understand Wilberforce, Charles Finney, Mother Teresa and Marting Luther King Jr., just to name a few heroes. Our commitment is to speak pastorally and prophetically to our nation and the world. We also recognize, as Christians, that we cannot do it alone. There is a deep mystical and spiritual element to this work.

On Tuesday, Feb. 12, Bishop John Gimenez left to be with the Lord. He was the pastor of the Rock Church in Virginia and a respected leader in the Latino evangelical community. Like my father, he was a former heroin junkie who had a radical conversion experience. I met Bishop John several years ago in New York at Bishop Luciano Padilla Jr.'s church. Although ideologically we were not always in 100 percent agreement, the bishop said to me something I'll never forget: "Believe the gospel can transform and let God work through it and you to change the world."

So when I'm asked, "What gives you the right to speak as a Latino evangelical? My response is, "The gospel mandate and the call of Jesus in Luke 4 as he quoted from the prophet Isaiah." The mosaic revival is not about blue or red states or liberal or conservative. It is, in the words of Gandhi, "Being the change you want to see in the world." Miguel de Unamuno, the Spanish poet said it best, "If not you, who? If not now, when?" The mosaic revival says always put the gospel (as a Christian) and your fundamental commitments to justice (as a citizen, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, secular, etc.,) ahead of partisanship.

Rev. Gabriel Salguero is the pastor of the Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City, a Ph.D. candidate at Union Theological Seminary, and the director of the Hispanic Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a Sojourners board member.

I once asked a fellow Minnesotan why he voted for former professional wrestler, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, for governor in 1998. He said, "It was my way of giving the finger to the Democrats and the Republicans."

There's a growing sense among emergents that the polarization in U.S. politics isn't real—it's a script written by the two political parties and the U.S. media. They wrote this script and they perpetuate it because they have the most to gain from its perpetuation. The unnuanced maps showing states as "red" or "blue" disregards the fact that in a red state, as many as 49 percent of the voters are blue, and vice versa.

But even more important, it ignores what we all know to be true: each one of us is a complex mélange of viewpoints and opinions, and very few of us line up with every plank in a party's platform. Being that postmodern Christians are acutely aware of micronarratives and justifiably incredulous toward metanarratives, they are particularly suspicious of the spokespersons of left and right who often begin their pufferies with "Americans believe . . ." But having two sides makes for good television; have six nuanced positions does not.

From a theoretical point of view, both the good and the bad of our democracy in it