Born again? Democratic Party is restating its liberal program in religion-friendly terms

WORLD ^ | 3/11/06 | Lynn Vincent

[rhema]

In Georgia, state Sen. Kasim Reed in January introduced a bill authorizing school districts to teach courses derived from The Bible and Its Influence, a textbook released last year by the Bible Literacy Project.

In Tennessee, Reps. Rick Nelson and Bob Damron are sponsoring legislation that would allow postings of religious documents such as the Ten Commandments.

In Virginia, Timothy Kaine rode religious campaign themes and Christian radio ads to victory in the governor's race last fall.

All that would be business as usual for the GOP. But these Bible-thumping, faith-stumping pols are all Democrats—and part of their party's emerging effort to reconnect with religious voters.

It's not just a Southern phenomenon. Democrats in the North and West also are becoming more vocal on traditionally Republican issues—from public prayer to traditional marriage. U.S. Senate Democrats in January invited conservative evangelical Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, to speak. Former Vermont governor and current Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, who once said his favorite New Testament book is Job and last June slammed the GOP as "pretty much a white, Christian party," now says the Bible should be taught as literature in public schools.

For Republicans who view Democrats as godless, the party's sudden, public embrace of faith is crassly political. Republican state Sen. Eric Johnson of Georgia excoriated Kasim Reed's Bible course proposal as "election-year pandering using voters' deepest beliefs as a tool." But Darrell Thompson, senior advisor to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, told WORLD that Democrats have always embraced religious faith, just not so publicly, and "we're right to talk about it now."

The Democratic Party certainly includes many believing Christians who want their party to represent their beliefs, and others whose God talk might be a steely-eyed response to the cold calculus of poll numbers. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, George Bush in 2000 walloped Democrat Al Gore among religiously observant voters—those who attended church at least weekly—63 percent to 36 percent. Four years later in the same demographic, he crushed John Kerry by gaining voter-share among white evangelicals (+10 percentage points over 2000), white mainline Protestants (+2), black Protestants (+6), and Jewish voters (+6).

Even though Mr. Kerry is Roman Catholic, Mr. Bush also improved his standing among non-Hispanic white Catholics (+4) and Hispanic Catholics (+6). The president's across-the-board gains among even traditionally Democratic religious voters—mainline Protestants, black Protestants, Jews, and Catholics—apparently was a reaction to Democratic extremism on issues of morality.

"Democrats have now recognized that the language of religious 'values' resonates with people," said Hillsdale College professor David Bobb, who studies the intersection of politics and religion. "John Kerry made halting efforts to discuss values, but never came up with a way of connecting religion with public policy."

Most Americans, on some level, expect their presidents to do that. "American presidents from George Washington forward have evoked religion fairly routinely, quoting from the Bible, calling for prayer, mentioning God," said Amy Black, an associate professor of politics and international relations at Wheaton College. "It's a common expectation in American politics, particularly at the presidential level. We expect our presidents to be Christians."

Mr. Bush, aided by speechwriter Michael Gerson, an evangelical, has been effective in this regard, proclaiming basic human rights as flowing from natural law and freedom as God's gift to all mankind. "Many of the speeches Bush has given position America as an almost prophetic voice in the world," Mr. Bobb said.

Democrats may be taking notes—and reviewing recent history. The only two Democrats to win the White House since 1964 spoke openly of Christian faith. In 1976, Jimmy Carter invoked his down-home, born-again Christianity—and ousted Republican Gerald Ford. In 1992, a Bible-toting Bill Clinton somehow managed to juggle allegations of adultery with impassioned pulpiteering in black churches: He learned to deliver campaign speeches in sermon cadence.

During the final hour of the House budget debate last November, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tried a little old-time religion, saying any vote for the GOP-brokered budget amounted to "a sin." This January, following President Bush's State of the Union address, Sen. Reid, a Mormon, stayed on-message. In a Beliefnet.com response to the president's speech he alluded to the Good Samaritan and the book of Matthew, chapter 25: "I and many of my colleagues came to public service . . . to serve our neighbors, and to help the least among us."

He went on to state that he's spoken with many religious leaders who say that today's Republican leadership "seems unfocused and unfazed by the needs of our brothers and sisters," and had in 2005 passed an "immoral budget that would deprive so many . . . in order to pay for tax cuts that benefit so few." That rhetoric typified the new Democratic approach to faith: A "social justice" agenda reframed as a question of morality.

"I think our members are reaching out to faith groups, but I don't think they've changed their script," Reid advisor Thompson said: "We're simply talking about the issues we've always talked about, like health care, education, seniors. What you will see that is different is that we are describing these issues in a moral context," with "tax cuts for the wealthy" becoming not just economically unfair but "an immoral act."

Since religious conservatives reemerged as a political force in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the major parties' expressions of morality have evolved along tracks as distinctly different as their approach to economics. Republicans emphasize free markets and individual, Bible-based morality as the underpinnings of a civil society that creates opportunity and the best hope for prosperity for the broadest segment of citizens. Democrats, at the national level at least, have tended to embrace what Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow Fred Siegel calls "an antipathy to economic markets and a faith in a free market in morals."

Christian adherents have found homes in both parties. "Those Christians who are most concerned with issues of personal morality, such as abortion, homosexuality, and in a larger sense, the right to life find a home in the Republican Party," Ms. Black said. "Those who are more concerned with 'social justice' issues, such as justice for the poor and the limits of capitalism, find more of a home in the Democratic Party."

But that changed somewhat in 2000 and 2004 as Republicans became the first to retool their image for the 21st century. In the run-up to the 2000 presidential campaign, Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, rolled out the concept of "compassionate conservatism." The philosophy, which married biblical compassion for the poor with other, equally biblical principles like personal responsibility, countered Republicans' image as bean-counting capitalists content to cut entitlement programs and then race home to the suburbs.

Some Republicans and legions of liberals saw "compassionate conservatism" as PR, but the concept reflected the long involvement of biblical conservatives in poverty-fighting and other efforts on behalf of the needy. So, too, Democrats' attempt at religious reinvention should not be dismissed merely as political calculation, for the Democrats' "social justice" agenda matches the mission of many mainline Protestant churches. As Mr. Bobb put it, the Democrats' new faith-based approach "repackages the social gospel for the 21st century. Their problem is how does this translate into something other than throwing more money and more bureaucracy at social problems?"

That's a significant hurdle. When Lyndon Johnson pushed the liberal War on Poverty, the number of dependent Americans exploded and inner cities further deteriorated. When Republicans pushed the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, critics predicted the law would spawn an epidemic of begging mothers and starving children, but the new approach to public aid has brought into the work force many who were on welfare, while raising the material standard of living for black children to its highest level in history.

In reconnecting with religious voters, Democrats face other hurdles. First, the party will alienate part of its core—secularists, libertines, feminists, and homosexuals—if it substantively moderates its positions on the very issues of personal morality that drove many religious voters across the aisle in the first place.

Second, the Democratic Party is in solid alliance with ardent church-state separators such as People for the American Way (PFAW) and the ACLU. While Mr. Thompson said that Democrats do not "agree on every issue" with such groups, he declined to disavow Democratic alliance on the church-state issue, and said there's "very little daylight between us and some of the groups we're talking about."

Finally, the traditionally Democratic, but now disaffected, religious voters the party needs to woo back into the fold may now be more skeptical of biblical cherry-picking as a basis for public policy. As conservative blogger and author Patrick Hynes put it, Democrats "cannot call Republicans 'theocrats' for trying to save Terri Schiavo while they also claim John the Baptist endorsed their welfare state when he said, 'He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none.'"

The Democrats' best hope may be the GOP: As Mr. Bobb noted, "Republicans are squandering their capital with evangelicals" over ethics debacles and apparent greed.

Fighting Democrats | Lynn Vincent

Dogs hate cats. Spring follows winter. Democrats are weak on national defense.

In life and politics, some things are axiomatic.

The Democrats want to change that image. The national party is not only getting religion but also recruiting military veterans to run for Congress. By January, the group of about 55 candidates—about a dozen of them terror-war vets—had become large enough to draw a flurry of major newspaper stories featuring military candidates uniformly opposed to the war and proclaiming themselves ready to rein in the Pentagon.

The "fighting Democrats" are trying to give their party what U.S. House candidate Tim Dunn, Democrat of North Carolina, calls "instant credibility" on defense issues. The Democratic veterans seem unified in their message on the war in Iraq: President Bush sent American forces into harm's way ill-equipped and without a plan, Mr. Dunn told WORLD. Others argue that America needs a "phased withdrawal" with "milestones," an idea that former assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle calls "just another version of basic opposition to the war."

Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth goes her fellow veteran candidates one better: She says it was a mistake to invade Iraq in the first place. Ms. Duckworth, an Army National Guard helicopter pilot who lost both legs and the use of one arm when insurgents blew her Black Hawk out of the sky near Baghdad in November 2004, is one of a handful of veteran candidates the GOP considers a threat. Another is Patrick Murphy, who is running in Pennsylvania's 8th District, one considered vulnerable to Democratic challenge.

Most of the other fighting Democrats are running in districts that President Bush carried by large margins in 2004. That raises a question, said Republican National Congressional Committee spokesman Jonathan Collegio: Is the national party truly committed to moderating its national defense position by recruiting more military experience into its ranks, or are the "fighting Democrats" just election-year cannon fodder and PR?

Paul Hackett, an attorney and Marine Corps reservist, was a bright Democratic hope last year when he nearly beat Republican Jean Schmidt in a special U.S. House election in a conservative Ohio district. This year, Mr. Hackett decided to challenge Republican Sen. Mike DeWine, but he dropped out on Feb. 15, pointedly telling reporters that national party leaders pressured him to withdraw and asked major donors to send funds elsewhere. Pennsylvania Democrat Bryan Lentz, a challenger to Republican Curt Weldon, also quit his race amid tepid support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

—with reporting by Kristin Chapman

[Graybeard58]

It iss time for republican to show that they care for nature and the environment.

How do you propose they do that?

[S0122017]

Extra funding for more green in cities?
Extra projects to project endangered species?

Planting trees in cities should be a neat move.
Than at least the results are directly visible, protecting reefs is better from science perspective.

[Liz]

......interesting to watch these liberals transform themselves to appear religious, Hillary had already marked the illegal invasion one of a religious matter.....Wolves in sheep clothing. Liberals are masters of deception and seduction.

History records that Sen Joe McCarthy was lacerated for looking for Communist infiltration into our government. Sens Biden, Leahy, Kennedy and the Judiciary Democrats recent baiting of Judge Alito bore all the hallmarks of a Secular Inquisition to find Christian infiltration in our government.

The continued attacks by Secular Supremacists on Christianity----and the foundations of Christianity and our Christian-based government sets the stage for the task ahead.

The Founders, whose high-minded, decent, Biblical, absolute moral principles.... around which our Constitution was fashioned as the raison d'etre for a government built upon the rock of freedom......had escaped the bonds of religious persecution, and were motivated by religious freedom when framing the structure of the nascent country. The right to freely practice religion as we please is the First of Ten Amendments the Founders guaranteed all Americans in an inalienable Bill of Rights.

As the disintegration of Western civilization continues, it becomes clearer that straying from our birthright, and the Founders' principles, endangers our freedoms, and our government, and is forcing Christians to relive the savagery of the past, away from the distinctly American values the Founders envisioned.

The restoration of American culture is in the hands of Christians---to protect not only our religious freedoms, but our political freedoms, and our government, as well.

Christians demand candidates immediately take a stand against Planned Parenthood, the NEA, the notorious ACLU----and any other group---which terrorizes Christians, and employs tyranny against Christians, whether through the schools, the legal system, the political system, the airwaves, or elsewhere, wherever Christian-hating surfaces.

Any candidate (or incumbent) who voted in favor of, or publicly espouses, anti-prayer, anti-life, pro-gay, and pro-sex-ed positions evidences a hatred toward Christians. These candidates should be advised that they cannot be seriously considered for public office at any level of our government.

[Graybeard58]

Extra funding for more green in cities?

Planting trees in cities should be a neat move.

I don't know if you noticed it or not but the last presidential election clearly showed that cities are run by democrats, not Republicans. Unless of course you are suggesting that this be done with federal (my) money.I vote no on that one. Besides, FDR already tried that with the Works Progress Administration and the Civillain Conservation Corp and a host of other government agencies and we see where that leads us. It smells like socialism to me.

If I lived in a city and I don't, I would want my local government to be more interested in cleaning the place up instead of planting trees. Clean up the blight of public housing projects by tearing them down, clean the streets of gangs and drugs, clean itself by getting rid of corrupt democrat politicians

The only green many if not most city residents are concerned about is more government green in their pockets, not more trees.

protecting reefs is better from science perspective.

I don't know much about reefs, so I can't comment much about that but I'll bet it involves a whole lot of federal tax dollars doesn't it? What would we be protecting the reefs from and to what purpose?

[madprof98]

What does this have to do with religion, exactly?!

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

[loveliberty2]

As Liz's post indicates, wherever Democrats--or the Democratic Party--wish to convince American citizens of real religious conviction, let them:

"take a stand against Planned Parenthood, the NEA, the notorious ACLU----and any other group---which terrorizes Christians, and employs tyranny against Christians, whether through the schools, the legal system, the political system, the airwaves, or elsewhere, wherever Christian-hating surfaces." (I would add to that list, People for the American Way & NOW)

On the other hand, Liz states:

"Any candidate (or incumbent) who voted in favor of, or publicly espouses, anti-prayer, anti-life, pro-gay, and pro-sex-ed positions evidences a hatred toward Christians. These candidates should be advised that they cannot be seriously considered for public office at any level of our government."

A wisdom book advises, "Ye shall know them by their works."

[Liz]

..... (if) Democrats--or the Democratic Party--wish to convince American citizens of real religious conviction, let them: take a stand against Planned Parenthood, the NEA, the notorious ACLU----and any other group---which terrorizes Christians......... (I would add to that list, People for the American Way & NOW)......

Your additions noted and gratefully accepted. Course, there's so many we might add. There's Hollywarped for instance.

It's like the moguls met in secret and compiled a TO-DO LIST OF CHRISTIAN BELIEFS HOLLYWOOD MUST DESTROY. Clearly, they consider every moral tenent believers cherish as fair game for the Hollywood "treatment."

[syriacus]

Most Democrats I know are religious.

Their "religion"
1. Tells them to force me to contribute (via taxes) to their causes
2. Tells pharmacists they must ignore their own consciences by dispensing the morning-after pill
3. Tells landowners what they can do with the trees and ponds on their own property

Yes. Democrats want their Utopia, at our cost.

[syriacus]

It iss time for republican to show that they care for nature and the environment.

How about caring for vulnerable people?

Pro-aborts have been insisting for years, that conservatives should keep busy by providing for the care of "unwanted" babies. Here's my "pet" cause.

Our Lady of Victory Homes of Charity

Responding to news reports of infant bones being dredged out of the Erie Canal by the thousands, Father Baker embarked on a new (and controversial) project -- the building of the OLV Infant Home. Once completed, the facility would provide pre-natal care and adoption services to teenage or unwed mothers

Do conservatives have to do all the work?

[syriacus]

Speaking of environmental issues.

I have to admit that Barbra Streisand had a semi-good idea about hanging out the laundry.

Hanging urine-soaked clothes in the sunshine, after washing them, is the surest way to get them odor free.

You have to make sure hanging-out clothes is not against your local ordinance, or course.

[Fedora]

The Democrats know they only have a chance if they cloak themselves in sheep's clothing. But they've already been caught stealing from the collection plate:

Mark Tooley, "Religious Left Coalitions"

Two relatively new religious coalitions are combating the burgeoning influence of Christian conservatives. The Interfaith Alliance, created in 1994, is largely a mishmash of fading, old-line Religious Left fixtures whose predictable denunciations of Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson have failed to attract sustained attention or new allies. But the Call to Renewal, which Sojourners publisher Jim Wallis helped create last year, has been considerably more successful in portraying itself as a viable alternative to the Christian Right.

Of the Call's 100 prominent endorsers, eighteen are Roman Catholic, including Bishops Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit; Raymond Lucker of New Ulm, Minnesota; LeRoy Matthiesen of Amarillo, Texas; Francis Murphy of Baltimore; Peter Rosazza of Hartford, Connecticut; Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Virginia; and, Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee. Other Catholics are Gerald Brown of the Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men's Institutes, Margaret Cafferty and Joan Chittister of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Marie Dennis of Maryknoll Justice and Peace, J. Bryan Hehir of the Harvard Center for International Affairs, and Carlotta Ullmer of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross. Catholic conservatives will not be surprised by these endorsers, but media coverage has contrasted high-level Catholic support for the Call to harsh criticism of the Christian Coalition by some Catholic leaders.

SNIP

Cafferty was joined by Wallis and other Call founders, including Baptist evangelist Tony Campolo, who seemed to summarize the Call's objective when he said, "We want to change the purpose of evangelism. . . Political issues are at the heart of the Christian faith. We thank them [the Religious Right] for making America aware that politics is religious." Campolo, whom President Clinton has cited as one of his ten most admired preachers, pledged that the Call's "progressive evangelical caucus" would "avoid Left and Right" while advocating community programs to battle "gay-bashing, racism, and poverty." He said they would seek "reconciliation and not polarization."

SNIP

"The National Council of Churches has gotten a warm reception from the Clinton administration. I welcome it," said Granberg-Michaelson. "Clinton is a Bible-believing Baptist who has been vilified by fellow Christians. . .

Candidates advised to avoid religious mudslinging

A leading interfaith group has released guidelines for political candidates, advising them not to cooperate with controversial voter guides or engage in religious mudslinging. The Interfaith Alliance, founded in 1994 to counter the growing influence of the religious right, said candidates “have the right and responsibility” to talk about their personal faith but should not exploit it in a search for votes. . .The book was drafted with input from a bipartisan group of politicians and religious leaders, including former Rep. Robert Drinan, D-Mass., a Roman Catholic priest; 1980 independent presidential candidate John Anderson; the Rev. Jim Forbes, pastor of New York’s Riverside Church; and Rep. Amo Houghton, R-N.Y.

Religious Left Says It's Ready for Major Political Push

The Rev. James Forbes, pastor of Riverside Church in New York, delivers a sermon at the Let Justice Roll rally. Riverside is a focal point of the revitalized religious progressive movement. (Photo by Harry DiOrio)

With a full-page ad in the New York Times, a flashlight-illuminated protest on Broadway and a plea from rock star Bono for spiritually motivated, poverty-fighting activism, the religious left has sent a message to the presidential candidates and the voters during the Republican Convention.

SNIP

"What we're seeing in this campaign is a reinvigoration of the progressive religious voice," said John Podesta, president of the Washington-based Center for American Progress and a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. . .

SNIP

It was Clinton who, with prophet-like fervor, uttered this week's first cry from the religious left's wilderness.

"Political involvement dictated by faith is not the exclusive province of the right wing," the former president said at a Sunday service in New York's interdenominational Riverside Church.

In religious language, Clinton accused Republicans of lying about the Vietnam war record of the Democrats' candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

"Sometimes I think our friends on the other side have become the people of the Nine Commandments," Clinton said. "It is wrong to bear false witness."

Riverside, an ethnically diverse megachurch, is the mother ship of "Mobilization 2004" and "Let Justice Roll," nationwide efforts advocating "prophetic justice principles" for this year's voters and candidates.

The Rev. James Forbes, Riverside's pastor, said he has traveled to Seattle, Portland, Ore., Eugene, Ore., Minneapolis, Rochester, Minn., and Boston preaching that "the elimination of poverty" must be a core faith value. He and others say they will keep up such visits until the election.

"What we're seeing is a revitalization of progressive religion," said Paul Sherry, the National Council of Churches' poverty mobilization coordinator, who has traveled with Forbes. "This is far beyond an isolated phenomenon. We've been impressed, even surprised, by the depth of commitment we're seeing in all the cities."

CHURCH IN LURCH ($510G pastor accused of liberal church rip-off)

REV. JAMES FORBES Gets 510G a year.

A group of parishioners at storied Riverside Church has charged that $10 million has "simply disappeared," finances are in disarray, and the church's high-profile minister has received excessive, unauthorized raises. . .The parishioners say Riverside's leader, the Rev. James Forbes, receives a $280,000 salary and a $240,000 housing allowance, and claim he gets increases "never submitted or approved by the church council.". . .

[samcgwire]

They can slap as much paint as hey want to on that jalopy, but I still trust dems about the same as I believe the Koranic adherents.

[Liz]

It was Clinton who, with prophet-like fervor, uttered this week's first cry from the religious left's wilderness. "Political involvement dictated by faith is not the exclusive province of the right wing," the former president said at a Sunday service in New York's interdenominational Riverside Church. "Sometimes I think our friends on the other side have become the people of the Nine Commandments," Clinton said. "It is wrong to bear false witness."

Figures don't lie, BillyBoy, and you are left out in the cold, that's why you're felling blue (snicker). Even Hillary is slithering to the right. Here's why:

Conservative pro-life Christian voters made monumental contributions to GWB's 2004 vote totals. Pres Bush won with 63 Million Votes (13 million more than 2000).

The map, though impressive, conveys the misleading impression that blue state Catholics voted for Kerry (a CINO).

According to EWTN "The World Over Live" analysts, with the exception of VA, where Catholics spit 70/30 in favor of Bush, the majority of Catholic voters split 55/45 for Bush.....a whopping number of votes since Catholics number about 52 million Americans.

According to CNN exit polls, Bush voters included 38% of union members, 40% of those with union members in their households, 42% of those earning $15,000-$30,000, 44% of those who earn under $50,000 and 44% of Latinos, 45% of youth (aged 18-29), 13% of liberals—even 11% of Democrats voted for Bush. 2004 Election polls indicated 34% called themselves conservative, 21% liberal.

These trends represent a major shift over the past forty-five years. White Evangelicals in 1960 favored Democrats by a two-to-one margin; now they are Republican by a 56 – 27 percent margin. Seventy-eight percent of them voted for President Bush in 2004. In 1960, 71 percent of Catholics were Democrats and now Democrats have only a slight edge among Catholics (44 – 41 percent) and Catholics voted for President Bush (52 – 47 percent) in 2004. These trends have also brought an increased acceptance of religion in the public square.

If you look closely, the map appears to place the insignificant "Other Voters" in the ocean.....that's accurate, because "Other Voters--RINO Republicans" were on cruise ships.

(MAP UPDATE Bush won Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico later.)

[JudgemAll]

You're right. They want to destroy family blessings & the Christian charity family of supporting brothers & the innocent in poverty.

Instead it's the government which comes with guns to smear a family & launder the low lives of homos by giving them marriage & adoption rights as well as job protection perks and what not.