Obama, Dean, Hillary get standing ovations from evangelical group.

Leading Democrats get warm welcome from group of evangelicals
By Ely Portillo
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - "A convention of evangelical Christians gave standing ovations this week to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill.

And that's news, because pro-choice, pro-gay rights Democrats aren't usually favorites of evangelicals. But that could be changing as the Democratic Party tries to reconnect with so-called "values voters," and some evangelical leaders try to extend religious debates beyond gay marriage and abortion.

"It's been terribly politicized and polarized. Moral values can't be narrowed to those two," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, leader of the Sojourners. His "progressive evangelical" group organized a three-day conference in Washington this week to lobby politicians on behalf of the poor. Six hundred clergy and their followers attended workshops, listened to speeches and visited their congressional representatives.

Influential politicians from both sides of the political spectrum came to speak about poverty as a moral issue, including Republican evangelical favorites such as Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Sam Brownback of Kansas."
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/nation/14923089.htm

The fact is, there really is no good reason many Evangelicals should not vote for Democrats. We are far nearer the words of Christ in our policies and attitudes than the reptiles running the Republican Party....

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting: it has been found difficult, and not tried at all."

Jim Wallis is a cool Christian. If they were all like him, I'd have no problem with Evangelicals at all. But, they aren't and never the twain shall meet, sadly.

TC

and has reached out without pandering. The rest of the party needs to follow his lead.

Evangelicals are different from fundies, and many of them have noticed just how unchristian God's Own Party has become in its actions. If we can get them to stop buying the "godless liberal" propaganda they've had thrown at them for the last three decades, we have a chance of getting them to help us throw the fascists out.

Reaching out is essential, but pandering is OUT. There is no way Democrats should abandon core values just to get votes, whether they're the fictitious moderate GOP swing votes or the actual religious votes.

I don't think we need to. The GOP has shown them exactly what that party has become. We need to show them what a party can be.

Not to split hairs, but this is wrong. These are an old kind of Christian. The oldest, in fact.

Not exactly news that a conference organized by a "progressive evangelical" groups would give three Democrats standing O's, I think. It's not as if they got a warm welcome from a convention of Southern Baptists.

They would have given an ovation. Some would not have done so. But many would.

We are painting Christians in a very bad light here at DU today.

Oh, and Wallis is not really that "liberal". He's a good man, just not really liberal. We use that word too freely as well.

Sojourners is a Christian organization. It's also a liberal organization. (Sorry, but I think Wallis is a liberal by any reasonable standard.) Obviously these two qualities aren't remotely in conflict. But I think the article is misleading in that it implies that there's something surprising or novel about any meeting of self-described evangelicals giving the Democrats a warm reception. When the meeting is organized by The Sojourners, it's not surprising. And regardless of how many Southern Baptist Democrats there are -- obviously there are some, including Bill Clinton! -- it would be surprising for a Southern Baptist convention to give a standing O to Democrats, given that the leadership of that denomination has been dominated by conservatives.

...in that liberal evangelicals have finally tired of lacking voice in the conversation with what are ostensibly right-wing whackos and being painted from the outside into the same corner with them. It is important that they are speaking out, trying to be an opposing force to what is trying to position itself as the "social consciousness" of this country and letting people know that the word Christian still means something to some people who identify themselves as such.

Liberal evangelicals? I do believe that Karl Rove got a spontaneous rash when he found out about that.

Jimmy Carter.

It describes about a billion people worldwide. I think I speak for most DU'ers when I say that I would greatly appreciate it if you wouldn't throw your "you hate Christians" bullshit at me because I might point out the lunacy of a very small subset of this very large group. Thank you.

Liberal Christian and proud
(probably because I actually follow Jesus teachings, not Paul)

LGBTs? women?

it is the leaders of these movements who are using the issues like that as wedge.

I have a neighbor who is pentacostal, and she feels the church is out of line on these issues. Says it is none of their business.

I have an uncle who is Catholic, his wife cradle catholic, and they both believe in contraception, women's rights to choose, and equal rights for gays.

I have a doctor who is Catholic, husband is Baptist, and they both believe in women's rights, birth control pills, gay rights.

They are alarmed at this administration, are no longer Republicans.

One Baptist church here split up on those issues, divided in half.

We need to talk to them.

I am also a "cradle Catholic," currently attending Presbyterian church. I don't think there's a Catholic of my acquaintance who doesn't believe in contraception and women's rights.

Christians are many and varied. It's about time people start recognizing that the fundamentalists who get so much attention do not speak for us all. In fact, they are a minority.

it's the bell curve again....i endorse reading books @ heros and crooks...u do learn much from both of their styles!!!..thanks..jimmy b!!

national liberation movements in Latin America. I'm sure you realize that these movements had very strong religious input to them and would never have achieved popular support without it.

They believe in the Jesus of the Gospels, the one that treated women as equals and never said a word about gays, the Jesus that spoke of justice and railed against the wealthy and powerful.

Obama, Dean and Hillary were pandering to the crowd that believes in that Aryan American Jesus that seems more comfortable at a country club rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful and that thinks that women must submit to male authority and that gays are an abomination.

Many priests and nuns have been murdered in Latin America for preaching the Jesus of the Gospels. Their murderers were death squads trained and financed in the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, an institution of murder and torture that is strongly supported by the very same people that Obama, Dean, and Hillary were pandering to.

Which Jesus do you follow, the one of the Gospels, or the one of the American evangelicals?

"Many Sojourner supporters didn't hesitate to call right-wingers "bible thumpers" and "fanatics," and they criticized the Bush administration for not helping the poor. They gave Obama thunderous applause when he proclaimed his support for separation of church and state and giving teenagers access to contraception." link: http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/nation/14923089.htm


"These are a new kind of Christian," said Sojourners spokesman Jack Pannell


Sojourners is the group they were speaking to:

link for Sojourners

http://www.sojo.net/

link for Sojourners Magazine:

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.home

Interview with Rev. Jim Wallis (founder and leader of Sojourners) on Democracy Now - link:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/26/1355204

returning the favors she sent me until i spammed them....and we still love each other...o shit.. it's 5 o clock somewhere...peace out...

Hillary, Dean, Obama: good luck with your new theocratic friends, you worms.

over that there is more to morality than sexual behavior and its consequences.
AND that sexual morality applies to rePiglicans as well as to progressives. (What a concept.)

Well, now I know what tomorrow's flame wars will be about.

Oops, I said "heaven". :spank:

Just kidding, sort of.

Haven't seen Hillary's statements yet, but here is a brief summary of Dean's. Gonna flip some heads really good probably...just kidding again, sort of.

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1404827.html?view=print

"(CNSNews.com) - America is about to revisit one of the most turbulent decades in its history, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told a religious conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. "We're about to enter the '60s again," Dean said, but he was not referring to the Vietnam War or racial tensions.

Dean said he is looking for "the age of enlightenment led by religious figures who want to greet Americans with a moral, uplifting vision."

"The problem is when we hit that '60s spot again, which I am optimistic we're about to hit, we have to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes," Dean added."

"Dean's comments Tuesday came at a religious gathering convened in the nation's capital to discuss ways of eliminating poverty. After stating that America "is about as divided as it has been probably since the Civil War," Dean declared that "we need to come together around moral principles, and I'm talking about moral principles like making sure no child goes to bed hungry at night."

"I'm talking about moral principles like making sure everybody in America has health insurance just like 36 other countries in the world," he added. "This is a moral nation, and we want it to be a moral nation again."

As one method of accomplishing that goal, the DNC chairman called on Congress "to raise the minimum wage until we have a living wage in this country." He dismissed criticism of a minimum wage hike as "economists' mumbo-jumbo. We're simply asking to give the people who are working for minimum wage the same raise that Congress has had every year for the last 20 years," he said."

Finally this statement about the difference in the two sides of the religious groups:

"Finally, a group of people who want to praise the Lord and help their fellow man just like Jesus did and just like Jesus taught."

Hey, we can just flame that all over DU tomorrow.
;-)

I don't care for it when dems sally up to the Faith Biased Initiative and when they talk like "we gotta talk to the Christians" and feed into the lie that liberals have ever been anti-religion, like we have a sin to account for...that said, this is good stuff here...




My favorite blog is Dr. Prescott's ...check him out regular. Always some thinking going on here:

http://mainstreambaptist.blogspot.com/

Didn't we have an exchange last year in which you said that you didn't think Wallis was right and that Democrats should not try to talk about the ways faith intertwines with progressive politics?

I am having a hard hard time with all of it, but I do think we have to do it.

One of the greatest complaints my friends still in my Southern Baptist church (I left it) make is that the people on the left make fun of them. You and I can pretend it is not true, but when you have blogs on the left bashing Dean so badly when he was on CBN doing his best to talk to a group that had heard nothing but evil about him....and the left then attacks him for the courage...what is there to say.

Today Firedoglake, MyDD, and several other blogs are blasting Obama for speaking to this group. When they hear all of Dean's speech it will start all over again.

I don't like people who belittle those of us who have journeys hard to make from being fundamental to being more open-minded.

I was angry when they first started doing this, but I have watched the way they are doing the reaching out. I feel better about my own Christianity when they do this.

Not sure if that makes sense or not. You have to remember I was raised Southern Baptist right in the leadership core. My dad was a leader in two churches, helping to found one. He would be heartbroken at what these churches had become, but he would have jumped for joy that Howard Dean, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton are going to them and opening dialogue.

What I have seen on this forum today has been painful. Each community in our party has their problems, but nothing our leaders said to the pentacostal group diminished any of us, or any group.

Democrats were mad at Dean for saying that he is against gay marriage in order to court Christians. Let's not sugarcoat it.

in a way mandated by legislatures? I.e., render onto Ceasar what is Ceasar's (civil unions) and render on to God what is God's (marriage, regardless of how a religion defines it). I.e., separation of church and sate.

He has not been in support of the word "marriage". He has been for full equality, but he has been honest about it totally. He never deceived.

He deserved better than how he was treated.

Not going to argue about it with anyone here anymore. Just not going there.

Newsclip:

<< ( Washington) It was less than an apology but Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean now says that he "misstated the Democratic Party's platform" when he told TV evangelist Pat Robertson's 700 Club this week that the 2004 platform stated "marriage is between a man and a woman. That's what it says."

Dean was taken to task by LGBT groups - including gays in his own party - for the remark. (story)

The platform actually endorsed gay marriage>>

Fine. But you can't bring something up and then say you're "just not going there." You're the one who went there.

I said he was bashed by the Democrats, and he was. This board went sky high ballistic, just because he appeared on the CBN. You would have thought the world was going to end.

I did not mention the gay oommunity, you did. I did not bring it up. I said blogs on the left.

He was attacked simply for appearing there at all.

I did NOT bring it up. You did.

Dean got bashed, and quite properly, for going on CBN because he went on Pat Robertson's show. Pat Robertson is no better than a Klan Chaplin. I won't bother to link all of the highly offensive things this man has said, but he makes Ann Coulter look sane. No Democrat should ever go on that man's show period. Dean wouldn't go on the David Duke show nor would he go on an anti Hispanic show. Why should he go on an anti woman and anti gay show like Robertson's? Now, what his is doing here is quite different and I won't be complaining about that.

How long will it continue that the GLBT community treats him like a pariah? There was another interview lately in which he apologized again. That is at least 4 times.

If that is the way it will be then so be it. I think it is very unfair.

Here is the interview again in case you missed it...and quite frankly he is sounding a little cross by now. I can't say that I blame him.

http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_526/howarddeanrebutshis.html

I remember once, dsc, that we had words about women's rights. You did not believe women had a right to contraceptive pills if the pharmacist did not agree. Do you still feel that way?

It is a shame things are happening like this. All of our futures are at stake, but Dean can not be forgiven for being interviewed by CBN. He was not interviewed by Robertson, did not speak with him.

What I said then, and say now, is that if the owner of a store doesn't wish to sell a product, in this case birth control pills, then the owner should have a right not to do so if s/he makes arrangements to allow the person to get them otherwise. I didnt' say that any random pharmasist should have that right. I also said, quite clearly, that if it could be shown that birth control pills were unavailable in a timely manner to women when store owners did exercise that right I would then be infavor of the government stepping in. Again, all of this is public record and on this board. If you try to say otherwise I will link the discussion verbatim if need be.

And par for the course, you still are misrepresenting or ignoring, what I said here. you, not I and not other posters, brought up the CBN appearance. You, not I and not other posters, misrepresented what the problem was. He messed up. He had no business going on a program run by Robertson and he surely shouldn't have gone on and not known what he was talking about. Frankly, I don't care what he said, I care where he said it. There are literally dozens of sane religous leaders in the US. He just spoke to some, and I am sure they disagree with me on gay rights, today.

The fact Robertson didn't interview him is utterly irrelevent. That show is Pat Robertson's baby and no one is on it who isn't approved by him. I am sure Brady is not some sane, liberal, fellow.

But the central point in this thread is your conduct, not his. You have a distrubing habit of ignoring what posters actually write and substituting what is convienent for you. You did it in the post I am responding to. What I actually said wasn't what you wanted it to be so you simply just pretended I said something that was different.

A poster, 1932, asked me a question, I answered it in a fair and honest way. Then it suddenly became about me.

He asked me when I started changing my view on some things he and I had discussed before about religion. I told him.

You may read into it anything you like, I guess.

That poster, whomever he or she was, didn't cause you to mistate what I said. That is the conduct I am complaining about. You still are misrepresenting what I said. I don't know if you don't read posts, don't comprehend them, or simply ignore them, but you continually respond to things which weren't said.

pat robertson NOT interviewing Howard has much 2 do w/ it. I was amazed, when I watched the interview, @ the attitude of the interviewer. He began very hostile, in both voice tone & questions. By the end, his voice as well as the questions, had changed. Howard won him over by being reasonable and honest. robertson is first and foremost a RW ideologue. By no definition of any Christian instruction I received, is robertson a Christian. He would not have been able 2 overcome that if he had interviewed Dean.

The good Doctor Dean DID mis-speak about the party platform for which he APOLOGIZED. If you remove those few seconds (and that is all it is), the interview is incredibly positive and hopeful.

for not wanting to come on and debate. We need to appear on these shows to prove Dems aren't what Bushco and the MSM paint us to be. To jump on these guys for going is counter productive for our party, period. IMHO

And thanks for the OP as well. It is very difficult to make the kind of journey you have and are continuing on. I hope that with Jim Wallis' example you can find your way to where you feel at home in your faith. One doesn't have to agree with everything he says or does in order to see how admirable he is -- I, for one, am so grateful to witness an evangelical working for social justice and trying to build bridges to the rest of us that I subscribe to Sojourners magazine.

Christian-bashing makes me uncomfortable, too. It's not my path, but I was raised to respect all religions -- and I cling to the First Amendment freedoms of this nation. As a consequence I try to carefully distinguish just who I'm referring to when angered by the behavior of some individuals or groups. Not all Jews are Feith and Wolfowitz; not all Muslims are Osama bin Ladin; and most certainly not all Christians are Falwell and Robertson, our home-grown radical clerics. IMO, the problem is ultra-fundamentalism in all three of the Abrahamic faiths -- not the desire to share one's version of the good news (evangelize), but the narrow exclusionary all-others-are-damned worldview. And I try to keep that clear in my writing.

It gives me great hope that Jim Wallis launched this effort and that Howard Dean, Barak Obama, and Hillary Clinton decided to participate. Dean is right: the greatest social justice movements of this country have always been motivated by religious sensibility and a belief in progress. Christians -- and later on, Jews as they came in greater numbers -- believed that people's lives could be improved if slavery, child labor, tenement slums and Jim Crow laws were eliminated and that God expected them to work on it.

I think these three are sincere in their beliefs -- in a way I'm sorry they have to make a public display of what is a private matter for them, but in another way I'm glad they are learning to use the vocabulary. Back when Bill was running for president I remember reading that Hillary, who was raised a Methodist, always carried a well-worn Bible with her to read on the road. She never made a big deal out of it, she just did it.

You're right -- NO pandering allowed.

What you said made perfect sense to me. I hope I have not rambled in reply.

Hekate

Appreciated, and glad you understand.
:hi:

I wish we did not have to do this kind of outreach at all. But our country, our churches have been hijacked, brainwashed, that there appears to be no choice but to reach out.

motivate their progressive politics to talk about that with other people of faith about that, which is a big part of Wallace's argument in God's Politics and is what Obama and Dean have been talking about, right?

I think that's what we disagreed about last year. (I should emphasize that this wasn't my personal argument -- I was repeating the argument from God's Politics).

I think you said at the time that you read the Sojourners newsletter but you hadn't read the book. If that's accurate, are you interested in reading the book now?

It is called State of Belief. It is helping me to get rid of some of the bitterness I still have to fight.

I may read the book someday.

hearing about.

Keep everyone posted on the evolution of your thinking on this issue. Read that book when you get a chance.

progressive majority without the backing of a large number of religious people including a number of evangelicals. It cannot be done.

In fact though the numbers are down Kerry still received 33% of the vote of regular church goers in 2004 and 21% of white evangelicals/86% of black church goers (mostly evangelicals). In 2000 Gore received 30% of white evangelical votes/91% of black regular church goers (mostly evangelicals).

It has really only been since 1980 that evangelical vote has become reliably Republican.



94% of the population believes in God/80% are certain and only 1% are convinced atheist it is ludicrous to imagine that a progressive majority can be built without the support of lots and lots of religious people. See Gallup poll:http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001659292

And this is one of the one percent you referenced above speaking....

that many Evangelicals share essentially progressive values. But unfortunately many are put off by what they perceive (sometimes rightly- sometimes wrongly) as a general hostility from political progressives. I suspect his perception frequently extends far outside the Evangelical movement in ways that are extremely detrimental to the progressive cause.

If this perception could be significantly altered -- this factor alone might give us the majority that we need.

two things i count on..human nature and the bell curve..it fits the globe..people have more in common than not...too bad most don't see it...we could "vote the others off the island"...or whatever...

Obama comes across as a triangulating idiot! His rationale for his speaking to evangelicals comes across on TV as shameless pandering. Obama won't get any votes from that crowd, and his actions will lose him votes from the left.

What a winning strategy! Confirm to the rightwing that Democrats are panderers without core values, while pissing off people with Democratic core values.

First, you'll find that most Christians aren't the horrors that you read about like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps, etc. etc.

THe Christians I know (and I know plenty of them) are oppose to this war and they do things to help those less fortunate than themselves. To have a political party that ignores our faith (and this is the faith of the normal Christians - not the warped Christians) is just bad politics.

It's a big tent and there is room for everyone!

seems the news is only interested in white evangelicals. In fact black evangelicals, don't agree with much of the social agenda of the democratic party, and still realize the economic,labor and civil rights issues are paramount to survival.

The GOP is making great inroads in making the social issues paramount. A pastor I admire in the black community, he is a Democrat, will stand in the pulpit and make the congregation so angry about abortion and gays that he is actually turning votes to the GOP.

I think faith based initiatives may play a role.

the evangelicals?

If you're still wondering, come back here and ask again. But not until tomorrow at this time. Give yourself that long if you need it.

In 2004 in Oregon, there was an anti-gay-marriage amendment on the ballot. You'd drive through the black neighborhoods and see "Kerry-Edwards" yard signs right next to "Yes on 92" signs - in the same yard (or whatever the amendment was).

It was pretty freaky, and made me fairly pessimistic about making inroads on the gay marriage issue.

and support social justice, that is fine by me. But if it means we abandon those who already support us to get the evangelical vote, I say screw that.

I am 100% for a new progressive movement and 100% apposed to middle of the road, right of center DLC types who are in MHO only corporatist trying to get our backing just as the repubs use the religious right to support them so that they can feed their corporate masters with more and more wealth.

in power first, then be in a better possition to explain why abortion rights exist, is to protect the mother as well. We are far better off letting the states control abortion laws, instead of making it a civil rights issue.

to pass the 60s civil rights laws...& they were covered in the constitution..& not up for state debate....

"We are far better off letting the states control freedom of speech, instead of making it a civil rights issue."

"We are far better off letting the states control freedom of religion, instead of making it a civil rights issue."

"We are far better off letting the states control equal opportunity, instead of making it a civil rights issue."

All of those statements would be rightly condemned as gutting fundamental liberties. Why, then, is a woman's right to her body not considered the same way?

I am not a church-going person, but worked with many folks that are in the Pennsylvania NAACP many years ago. The best lesson I learned from that experience is to not shut off my brain when God or Jesus was mentioned; there might be something very worthwhile that followed the invocation.

Last year I met Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, a third generation Pentecostal minister, at the antiwar march last September. I heard him speak at the interfaith service at the Washington Monument the next day. If this is evangelical Christianity, then sign me up to work with them!

http://www.counterpunch.org/zeese04132005.html

http://democracyrising.us/content/view/197/164

I don't think Christ or his teachings have changed, we as people have changed and manipulated those teachings into what we think those teaching mean. For me, I live by "true religion is that which cares for the widows and the orphans", so I vote Democrat. I don't like abortion but I know it isn't going to go away and making it illegal isn't going to help so I concentrate on helping babies once they are here by supporting our local crisis pregnancy center with my time and donations. The problem is that a group of people have branded the Republican party as the "christian" party because of the term conservative. Conservative is conservative with money (well, in social programs anyway) and people do not understand this when they vote, thinking they are voting the "christian" way. There are people on both party sides who do not support tenents of their party and there are Christians on both sides. I am in no mans land much of the time because I am Christian and I disagree with much of what the Republicans teach. I think if anything, we need to educate the public that the Republican party is not the Christian party, just because they use conservative as their party line.

The party had a choice: oppose Bushism. Instead it appeased. Another choice presented itself: oppose rising theocracy. Now it chooses appeasement again.

Could it be any clearer? Fascism is a bipartisan project.

:boring:

See you in November (I bet you'll still be here despite your newfound allegiance).

"Many Sojourner supporters didn't hesitate to call right-wingers "bible thumpers" and "fanatics," and they criticized the Bush administration for not helping the poor. They gave Obama thunderous applause when he proclaimed his support for separation of church and state and giving teenagers access to contraception." link:
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/nation/14923089.htm



Sojourners is the group they were speaking to:

link for Sojourners

http://www.sojo.net /

link for Sojourners Magazine:

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.home

Interview with Rev. Jim Wallis (founder and leader of Sojourners) on Democracy Now - link:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/26/1355204


.

All I can say is read God's Politics by Jim Wallis. It's a very important book and I think it's right on the mark. This is something Democrats have to do. They have to reach out to all people even those of Faith. They don't have to pander but we have make Christians realize that they are voting against their own Christian Principles when they vote republican and the Democrats are closer to their moral values.

Obama:

But what I am suggesting is this — secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.... To say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

http://vastleft.blogspot.com/2006/06/illinoise_115163328780123540.html

Hey Obama, you stupid idiot, religion has always been in the public square since the founding of the Republic, who the Hell do you think opposed slavery? Obama is confusing public square with political arena, just as repukes do. It is one thing to speak from the pulpit on a pressing issue, is quite another to use the power of the state to bent society to a sectarian view.

"Judeo-Christian" is an oxymoron, a code word used by fundamentalist Christians to say that they alone are the inheritors of the Covenant that G-d made with Moses.