The God Vote

Are Evangelicals Obama-Curious? Over the past month we have witnessed the emergence of a veritable sub-genre of political reportage: the don’t-count-Hillary-out-just-yet story. With its Yes She Can! effusions this type of journalism does not lack in counter-intuitive charms. But I think prudence (and a glance at the polls) dictates that we start thinking concretely about Barack Obama’s prospects in a general election.

Any discussion of these prospects must take into consideration the good Senator’s ability to reverse trends that doomed the Democrats in the last election. In 2004 Kerry/Edwards lost nearly four out of every five votes cast by White Evangelicals. Compounding the problem was the strange fact that the majority of Catholics voted against their co-religionist from Massachusetts.

Jim Wallis’ autopsy of that godforsaken campaign effectively summarizes this colossal failure of religious politicking: “There are millions and millions of moderate evangelicals and moderate Catholics who are simply not in the pocket of the religious right. And yet Democrats haven’t got a clue as to how to speak to them. They have no idea! And Kerry gave them nothing to vote for.”

Moderate and liberal Catholics cannot be talked to in religious terms. The mere factor that they are moderate or liberal means that their Catholic faith is in flux, and a sort of pick and choose how serious you are going to take the Christian gospel in living your life. They tend to be more influenced by pragmatism or secular things than by the gospel. This is especially true of liberal catholics. It’s a case of “I don’t let my religion get in the way of being a Democrat way-of-thinking”.

That goes for us Protestant folks too. 2006? Barna poll suggests that 90% of those who call themselves "Evangelical" have a non-Biblical worldview and tend towards Secular Humanism as a worldview (filter) of processing all information.

I like to pose questions such as this:
A clergyman is interviewing a man and a woman who have come to meet with him about marriage. After some discussion about about their upbring, views of family life, spirituality and so forth, they are handed an application to fill out with all of the procedures they will need to adhere to listed on it, such as marriage education classes, Temperament Tests, etc. Also included is a section for contact info. Upon gathering the application, the clergyman notices that the two have listed the same address as to where they live.

What should be the clergyman's response?

I am sometimes amazed at the responses.

wait until the liberal catholics discover that Obama not only supports killing babies two minutes before they are born, he went out of his way to block a bill in the Illinois senate that would mandate treating babies that survive abortion.

Abortion up to and after live birth...yup. Proves he is religious.

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