By Daniel Burke
c. 2008 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON — With the Democratic presidential nomination in his grasp, Sen. Barack Obama is making a full-throttle push for centrist evangelicals and Catholics.
It’s a move that’s caught off guard some conservative evangelicals, who say they are surprised and dismayed to see a progressive-minded politician attempting to conscript their troops. At the same time, they say Sen. John McCain has done little to court their affections.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it before,” said evangelical author Stephen Mansfield, who wrote “The Faith of George W. Bush” and has a forthcoming similar book about Obama.
“To be running against a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, and to be reaching into the Christian community as wisely and knowledgeably as (Obama) is — understanding their terms and their values — is just remarkable.”
Earlier this month, the Illinois senator held a closed-door meeting in Chicago with nearly 40 Christian leaders, including evangelical heavyweights like the Rev. Franklin Graham, publishing magnate Steve Strang and megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes.
Obama’s campaign is also launching a grass-roots effort, tentatively called Joshua Generation, with plans to hold concerts and house meetings targeted at young evangelicals and Catholics.
Meanwhile, a new political action committee set to launch later this month, the Matthew 25 Network, plans to direct radio advertising and mailers to Christian communities while talking up Obama in the media.
The group is not officially tied to the Obama campaign.
Obama’s emphasis on faith outreach plays to his strengths, campaign observers say. The senator is at ease speaking about religion and preaches a message of forging common ground with disparate communities.
Still, some religious leaders wonder if Obama’s Christian-focused outreach may alienate Jewish and Muslim voters, for example, not to mention the Democratic Party’s large secular wing.
“You really have to consider the question: What message does this send to people of other faiths?” said the Rev. Romal J. Tune, a Washington pastor who works on religious outreach with the Democratic National Committee.
Joshua DuBois, Obama’s director of faith outreach, said the campaign is “not solely focused” on evangelicals and Catholics but “committed to reaching people of faith broadly and trying to bridge religious divides.”
Nonetheless, Obama has clearly learned a lesson from previous, unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidates: Ignore — or dismiss — evangelicals at your peril.
Despite the concerted push, Obama faces a tough task in trying to loosen the GOP’s hold on a majority of white churchgoers. A recent poll by Calvin College found McCain leading Obama 57 percent to 25 percent among evangelicals and 43 percent to 35 percent among Catholics.
“Right now there’s really more continuity than change” among religious voters, said John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “But we’re at the beginning of the campaign, and what campaigns try to do is change people’s minds.”
Obama may have done some of that at the Chicago meeting, which one adviser described as a “Nixon goes to China” moment.
Abortion and gay marriage — issues on which the Illinois Democrat openly disagreed with many of the evangelical leaders in the room — dominated the discussion, according to participants.
Still, Strang wrote in a blog, Obama “won over the loyalties of many.”
“He came across as thoughtful and much more of a `centrist’ than I would have expected,” Strang wrote, adding that he hopes McCain will host a similar gathering.
Mansfield said he sees similar political acumen in the Joshua Generation program. Often used as a “mobilizing phrase” among evangelical church youth groups, the “Joshua Generation” name refers to the biblical story of Joshua, who did what Moses could not: lead his people into the Promised Land.
“The impressive thing about Obama is that he knows this,” Mansfield said. “This is language you expect to hear at a youth rally, not from the presidential campaign of the most liberal member of the Senate.”
The Matthew 25 Project, named after the biblical passage in which Jesus promises eternal life for those who care for the least and the lost, will be led by Mara Vanderslice, a young evangelical who briefly led faith outreach for Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 campaign and later founded a respected political consulting firm.
About 40 people turned up for a $1,000-per-head Washington fundraiser earlier this month to hear about the group’s plans for targeting Catholics, moderate evangelicals, Hispanic Catholics and Protestants, Vanderslice said.
The PAC is just one “piece of the faith outreach puzzle,” said Mike McCurry, a former press secretary for President Bill Clinton who is advising the project.
“For evangelicals, obviously this is an uphill battle. No one is proposing that we go and win a majority of them,” McCurry said. But there are significant numbers of moderate Christians “and we need to reach them.”
Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted June 19, 2008 at 7:04 pm
“You really have to consider the question: What message does this send to people of other faiths?”
Probably so. It would depend on what he says to them. It’s not necessarily a fine line he must walk but it’s not a six lane expressway for sure.
posted June 19, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I think he believes it is possible to understand all people and have empathy with them. He wants to bring people together, he’s said this over and over. It’s something that our country hasn’t enjoyed for a long time, being Americans with our own priorities, but able to get along with each other. He has this ability as well as many more.
posted June 19, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Praise the Lord!
posted June 20, 2008 at 12:00 am
It would truly be wonderful if Obama turned away from the DNC platform planks that support infanticide (the murder of unborn children through abortion) and support of “alternate lifestyles” (i.e., homosexual “rights”) which are contrary to Biblical teachings. I don’t think his left wing supporters will allow it. Anyone who glosses over these two (and other) positions of the left are fooling themselves.
posted June 20, 2008 at 12:33 am
The key difference is that Obama is not mimicking the words or parroting what he has been fed. He understands what he is saying and and is working from his beliefs. This is what happens when a person actually works through their faith and can articulate their values. Unlike certain a chief executive who can barely pronounce the script he has been forced to memorize, Obama gets it. That these same images, symbols, and vocabulary can be used in ways other than those of conservatives is sure to annoy some people.
posted June 20, 2008 at 4:17 am
Lloyd: “infanticide (the murder of unborn children through abortion)”
Lloyd, don’t you understand, infanticide is the killing of an infant. And an infant is a child, sometimes the definition limits it to less than one year of age, sometimes not. And a child has always been born. Before it’s born it’s a fetus or an embryo or a zygote or even a blastocyst. So abortion is not infanticide and it’s a gross misrepresentation to claim it is. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t know that.
posted June 20, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Anyone who glosses over these two (and other) positions of the left are fooling themselves.
And this attitude is precisely what irks me so about courting evangelicals. This group as a whole tends to be a one- or perhaps two-issue group – primarily against a woman’s right to choose, and, as of late, against gay marriage and recgonition of legal rights of gay individuals or gay couples.
And further, why does the evangelical group as a whole tend to support someone like Bush or the Republican party? Has Bush/the Repubs supported human rights (think Gitmo). Have they been the party of fiscal responsibility? Have they not initiated unjust wars? Have they done anything good for the economy or job creation? Etc, etc, etc.
I want to know the answer to the question, “what don’t the evanglicals ‘get’” when it comes to blind support of a political party that ironically doesn’t really support their supposed points of view after all.
Maybe Obama doesn’t see a big risk in not currently courting mainstream Democrats because he or his advisors believe that there’s no way a Democrat would support McCain under almost any circustances, whether Obama directly courts them or not.
I can only hope that some Independent, like Ralph Nader, does not poop up to act as spoiler and possibly draw away Democratic votes if the presidential race turns out to be closer than anticipated.
I also hope Henrietta is right when she states “I think he believes it is possible to understand all people and have empathy with them.”
posted June 20, 2008 at 2:34 pm
ecl wrote, “I can only hope that some Independent, like Ralph Nader, does not poop up to act as spoiler and possibly draw away Democratic votes if the presidential race turns out to be closer than anticipated.”
Ah, from typos come wisdom. I think your choice of “poop” is perfect, even if unintentional!
posted June 20, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Eastcoastlady,
A lot of evangelicals and other religious conservatives realize that Republican Party is far from perfect, but just not quite as far from perfect as the Democrats. The Republican Party is a coalition of many different groups that have little in common other than the fact that they don’t want liberal Democrats in power. You’ve got neo-cons, libertarians, paleo-cons, the Religious Right, and a bunch of other groups within the party. It may help to realize that McCain wasn’t the candidate of choice among most religious conservatives in the primaries (I’ve met only a few who are excited about him even now), and Bush wasn’t exactly the most beloved candidate either back in 2000–he was just better than McCain. I don’t think most religious conservatives are as blind as you think, they’re just forced to deal with the realities of a two-party system and tend to find more possibility that their issues will be supported by the Republicans than by the Democrats.
posted June 20, 2008 at 3:08 pm
jest,
too, too funny. I even proofread my message before hitting “submit” and did not catch that error.
Maybe it’s a Freudian slip thing…
posted June 20, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Nate,
Okay, I’ll buy that position and most certainly don’t want to paint a broad brush picture of anyone.
I do take issue, however, with what I see as the broad brush “liberal Democrats” remark. Not all Democrats are as liberal as you would imply, same as not as Republicans and evangelicals are right-wing nut jobs frothing at the mouth. (I think.) (JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
I wish a few more people were more somewhat centrist in general. However, I have this gut feeling that some issues are so black and white for some people that one person’s “centrist” is another person’s “radical”.
posted June 20, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I agree with you ecl. about your last post. I thought you meant poop, just thought that’s descriptive. Laughed when I read Jests comment!
posted June 20, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Henrietta,
In hindsight, I wish I could have been that creative.
Yet, it shows what happens when a person is tired and punchy. Now that Jest pointed it out, I keep giggling every time I re-read it. Must come in part from having kids and living in a house of people who don’t tire of that brand of humor.
posted June 21, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Unfortunately, most Democrats that make it anywhere in national politics aren’t all that “centrist” some of the major issues that evangelicals tend to care about, so “liberal Democrat” is a perfectly fine label.
posted June 22, 2008 at 9:32 pm
nnmns quote “Lloyd, don’t you understand, infanticide is the killing of an infant. And an infant is a child, sometimes the definition limits it to less than one year of age, sometimes not. And a child has always been born. Before it’s born it’s a fetus or an embryo or a zygote or even a blastocyst. So abortion is not infanticide and it’s a gross misrepresentation to claim it is. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t know that.”
I knew that but I still disagree, I don’t believe anyone in the world can define when a person is a person and that the moment one is conceived there is a plan for their life that is connected with us all. I believe that love making is deeply spiritual and when a child is conceived it is the responsibility of the two involved to continue to provide life, anything else is selfish and reckless.
blastocyst, zygote, and even festus are words to make it easier to not count babies as babies and make it easier to not take responsibility and justify what we have become.
I am one conservative evangelical who will not be voting for Obama.
posted June 23, 2008 at 11:03 am
I believe that lovemaking is deeply spiritual and when a child is conceived it is the responsibility of the two involved………..
How about violent sex, cknuck? Raping children that are able to conceive? Incest? No lovemaking there. Abortion is the best answer, and the one responsible thrown into prison!
posted June 24, 2008 at 12:29 am
To answer the question the abortions that are performed daily have little to do with violent sex.
posted June 24, 2008 at 11:45 am
That may be so but I don’t really know if what you say is true. The problem with the anti-abortion people is that they lump all problems under one heading, “No abortion”. Roe Vs Wade took this into consideration and said, there are many reasons for aborting a pregnancy and we should leave it up to the woman to make her decision, because each problem is different. They help people with planned parenthood classes, etc. You people like to liken it to a ‘Mill’ it isn’t.