Posted on 03/22/2008 4:43:40 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
HOUSTON (Reuters) - John McCain's Phoenix pastor, Dan Yeary, is a folksy patriotic Southern Baptist who opposes abortion and believes homosexuality to be a biblical sin, but says Christians have an obligation to love such sinners.
That puts Yeary, who heads the church attended for the past 15 years by the Republican presidential candidate firmly in the U.S. Southern Baptist mainstream, and in line with the Republican Party.
He offers a sharp contrast to Democratic contender Barack Obama's former preacher Jeremiah Wright, who has stirred controversy with his fiery comments on race and America.
Obama had been seen by some analysts as having an edge over McCain on issues of faith because of his adult conversion experience and his ease in talking about his faith. But his own preacher has proven a political liability.
In a country where religion and politics often mix, 25 percent of American adults count themselves as evangelical Christians, giving them huge influence as the country heads to the November 4 presidential election to succeed President George W. Bush.
McCain draws some support from this group but many conservative Christians are uneasy with him because of his support for stem-cell research and his past criticism of leaders in the movement.
Yeary, pastor for the 7,000-member North Phoenix Baptist Church, professes little interest in politics and prefers to focus on preaching and spiritual guidance. But McCain's affiliation with Yeary will do him no harm in wooing support from the key Republican base of evangelical Christians.
"John and I are friends, he has called on me to minister to the family in times of challenge and difficulty," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
McCain, a former prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, was raised in the Episcopal Church but has been attending Yeary's church for about 15 years. Yeary declined to comment on McCain's reluctance to finally undergo a baptism ceremony, a key ritual of the faith.
"John and I are having continual dialogue about his spiritual pursuits," Yeary said.
In an interview last year with InsideCatholic.com, an on-line Catholic forum devoted to issues of faith, McCain said he liked Yeary's "message of reconciliation and redemption which I'm a great believer in."
"And so I began attending North Phoenix Baptist church and I'm grateful for the spiritual advice and counsel that I continue to get from Pastor Dan Yeary."
McCain, like his pastor, is staunchly opposed to abortion rights but Yeary said the pair had never discussed the issue.
"Have we talked about abortion? No," Yeary said. "I believe that abortion is wrong and I believe that it is a very, very poor choice ... I believe it should be outlawed."
The 69-year-old Yeary adheres to the Southern Baptist belief that gay marriage and homosexual relations go against Biblical scripture, hot-button issues for many in the United States.
"The Bible is pretty clear about it, in my opinion it specifically calls it a sin. I also am a sinner and you are a sinner. ... Did Jesus Christ love homosexuals? I'm sure he did," Yeary said.
PRESERVE FRIENDSHIP
Obama's preacher by contrast sparked howls of protest for his angry sermons over what he called racist America, charging that the September 11 attacks were retribution for U.S. foreign policy and claiming Washington was the source of the AIDS virus.
Wright was Obama's pastor in Chicago for two decades but the Illinois senator, locked in a tight battle with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, distanced himself from Wright in a widely hailed speech addressing race issues earlier this week.
Obama would be the first black U.S. president.
"In the United States, the sacred cow is the concept of the nation -- someone who is a religious minister can say almost anything they want and not get into trouble in the political realm unless they go after the nation," said David Domke, a professor of communication at the University of Washington.
Yeary was sympathetic as a fellow pastor and said while he did not agree with Wright's comments, all preachers eventually got caught in the trap of their own exuberance.
"All preachers have a tendency to overstate because our passion is so intense. But I thought Obama did a fine job in response. He preserved his friendship with his pastor while disagreeing with him," Yeary said.
"I'm sure John McCain would probably say the same thing about me if he were asked 'So, do you agree with everything your pastor says?'" he added with a laugh.
If he was raised Episcopal wouldn’t he have already been baptized?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080207161103AAhCq17
Great discussion on the difference between christening (infant baptism in Episcopal church) and baptism (immersion as an adult) in Baptist churches.
McCain may feel he has already been *baptized* as an infant(?)
One excerpt:
******Infants are christened, but in “believer’s baptism”, professing Christians, who ideally have reached the age of reason, are dunked nowadays—normally in a church baptistry (usually concealed behind the choir loft). With Baptists, and other evangelicals, this ordinarily involves making a confession of faith before the entire congregation and being formally voted into the local church (by a show of hands). I’ve never known of a congregation that refused to accept new members. The same process takes place whether the new Christians are preteens or mature adults.******
Episcopalians accept all baptized into their church without additional baptisms.
If McCain was Episcopalian, he’s been baptized. You don’t need to do it again.
Good find!!!
John McCain: keeping faith, on his own terms
How the Arizona senator, once a POW ‘pastor,’ finds purpose in his beliefs and survival.
Ultimately, like most of the presidential candidates, McCain prefers to treat his faith as a personal matter. But in a Republican primary where the religious conservative vote is up for grabs, the fact that McCain attends North Phoenix Baptist Church – a large evangelical church that is part of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention – made the papers last month. McCain is usually still identified as an Episcopalian, though even during the 2000 campaign, it was no secret that he attended a Baptist church and had a spiritual adviser there in Pastor Dan Yeary. He still does.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1018/p01s06-uspo.html?page=3
Well, except the Baptist church McCain has been attending gets to decide whether or not he is required to be baptized as an adult believer in order to become a member of the church.
Some of those mass *river dunkings* look suspiciously like WATER BOARDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Episcopalians are so refined...but those Baptists.....!!!
tee hee
Well, I guess it is time for MoveOn.org to start running ads painting Pastor Yeary as a fire-breathing right-wing extremist. Maybe they could get clips of him preaching Jesus and patriotism. That would make the secularist majority really, really uncomfortable and restore the moral equivalence to Pastor Wright and Obamessiah.
yeah, of course. McCain’s pastor has misplaced his backbone, apparently.
I’ll bet no one falls asleep in barama’s church .
barama = a combination of barack and obama and a lot of bull !
Maybe he was baptized as an infant and doesn’t see a reason to redo it.
I was baptized in the Methodist church when I was 12, and then we started going to a Baptist church. I ended up getting baptized again, but I wasn’t happy about it. I thought it made my first baptism seem like it wasn’t good enough.
I totally understand why McCain hasn’t gotten baptized.
I’m not a McCain supporter, but I understand this position.
he may not be an “official member”
I heard McCain converted to Huckabee's religion last summer and that McCain had converted from one religion to another more than once.
>>MSM went digging hoping for preacher dirt on McCain and found nothing to help Obama.<<
True.
They looked in the wrong place. They should have noticed that McCain’s “Hispanic Outreach Director” believes that it’s OK to steal US citizens’ social security #s. Does Wright say it’s OK to commit felonies?
I have a real problem with the fact that he will not follow church doctrine and be baptized as is required for church membership.
LOL! I’m a Baptist.
But a lot of their Soros funding is similar.
I’m very relieved to find McCain is affiliated with a respectable church. All I’d seen earlier was headlines touting his being “embraced” by controversial televangelists like John Hagee and Rod Parsley.
true that...amazing when one talks to a minister who actually preaches God’s word vs social injustice themes the difference is like night and day...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.