Obama's mega-church visit spotlights waning `God gap'
By Mike Dorning
Washington Bureau
December 1, 2006
chicagotribune.com
WASHINGTON -- There are many forums a potential Democratic presidential candidate ordinarily might pick for a high-profile public appearance: a union hall, a black church, perhaps a teachers convention.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), curiously, has chosen a suburban California mega-church, Saddleback Church, home base of pastor Rick Warren, whose best-selling "The Purpose Driven Life" helped make him one of America's leading evangelical ministers.
Obama will be on stage Friday with one of the religious right's favorite politicians, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), as he addresses more than 1,000 evangelical pastors and church leaders at a summit on AIDS organized by Warren.
Obama's appearance at the evangelical summit is but one hint of the gathering potential many political and religious analysts see for a recalibration of the political loyalties of churchgoing Americans.
"Large portions of the religious landscape are in motion," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Exit polls and voting returns in the midterm elections last month showed Democrats narrowing the "God gap" with Republicans among Americans who attend church at least once a week--even though the increased support came mostly from Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant voters rather than evangelicals.
Frequent churchgoers still favored Republican over Democratic congressional candidates 55 percent to 43 percent, according to exit polls. But the 12-point difference is down considerably from a 19-point gap in 2004 and a 20-point gap in 2002.
At the same time, a number of prominent evangelical leaders recently have sought to broaden the movement's political agenda from traditional cultural issues of opposition to abortion and gay rights that favor Republicans to include concerns more associated with Democrats, such as the environment, the AIDS epidemic and poverty.
The president-elect of the Christian Coalition, Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of a central Florida mega-church, resigned this week because of conflicts with the group's board over his efforts to focus the group more on environmental and anti-poverty issues. Warren has been an especially powerful advocate for greater action on AIDS in Africa.
Other evangelical leaders, including Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, have fought vigorously to keep the movement focused on conservative cultural issues. But even some of them have grown discontented as years of GOP rule in Washington provided disappointing results in furthering the conservative social agenda.
Democrats reaching out
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, have been re-examining their party's relationship with religious voters, in some cases trying harder to incorporate the language of faith in their public rhetoric and broadening the party's views on abortion to include some determined abortion opponents among the new Democrats elected to Congress.
Obama has been a particularly powerful advocate among Democrats for reaching out to evangelicals and other religious Americans. He delivered a well-received speech in June advocating a greater role for religious values in political discourse and describing how his Christian faith helps shape his more liberal views.
The potential impact of Obama's appearance at Warren's church has not been lost on the religious right.
A group of prominent social conservatives and anti-abortion advocates sent an open letter to Warren this week demanding that he rescind the invitation to Obama, who supports abortion rights, on behalf of "millions of silent victims . . . of the policies of leaders like Senator Obama." Conservative evangelical Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, protested with an e-mail to reporters, asserting that Obama's views "represent the antithesis of biblical ethics and morality."
Saddleback responded with a statement acknowledging the "strong opposition" to Obama's participation but arguing that churches should reach out to new allies to fight AIDS.
"We do not expect all participants in the summit discussion to agree with all our evangelical beliefs," said a statement from the church. "The HIV/AIDS pandemic cannot be fought by evangelicals alone. It will take the cooperation of all."
The conservative leaders are right to recognize that Obama's presence among the evangelicals could have broader political ramifications, said Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
"This counts as a political move," Silk said. "It means he's not beyond the pale. We're willing to regard him as part of the conversation."
Threat to GOP's base
The status of evangelical Christians as a rock-solid pillar of the GOP coalition could be endangered if influential pastors signal that Democratic candidates also have something to offer, Silk said. Likewise, the cohesiveness of the group--even this year, 72 percent of evangelicals voted Republican--could be diluted if ministers preach a moral imperative on a broader range of issues.
"Lurking in the background are issues like poverty, the minimum wage and--who knows--health care might be around the corner. Evangelicals care about those issues like everyone else," Silk said.
Matthew Dowd, a top campaign strategist for Bush's 2004 election campaign and co-author of the book "Applebee's America," believes there is plenty of opportunity for Democrats to do well among the congregants of mega-churches such as Warren's Saddleback.
Based on exit polls from the 2004 election, Dowd estimates that about half of those who attend mega-churches identify themselves as Democrats or independents, not Republicans. And many of them are less interested in specific issues than in a principled leader who shows genuine faith and can rally them toward greater common purpose, he said.
"People's understandings of faith are not nearly as polarized as people in politics think they are," Dowd said.
He cites the success of Virginia's Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine in defending his opposition to the death penalty in a state where capital punishment is extremely popular. Kaine explained his position as an important moral teaching of his Catholic faith and gained support for taking a principled stand, Dowd said.
In any event, Obama signaled in his speech in June and will reinforce again Friday that he will make faith a part of his public persona.
"Democrats have not been able to use language in a faith-based way," Dowd said. "Somebody is going to see that conversation is not taking place in the right way, and Barack Obama is one person who recognizes that."
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mdorning@tribune.com
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