Posted on 03/24/2012 6:41:51 AM PDT by NYer
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, March 22, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Politicians usually calculate every action to maximize their popularity among future voters, especially during an election year. But a prominent leader of the nation’s second largest denomination says President Barack Obama’s HHS mandate has the potential to unite Catholics and Protestants into a coalition that will turn him out of office in November.
Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “The thing that frightens our opponents the most is the specter of an evangelical-Catholic alliance – because they can count.” He told listeners of his radio program, Richard Land Live, “You take evangelicals, and you take Roman Catholics, and you are over 50 percent of the population of the country.”
Land said, while two-thirds of Baptists voted for “born again” candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976, the vote began to turn against Democrats in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount that Catholic voters are turning against the president as the election nears.
On Thursday Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, cited a new poll from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that found the number of white Catholics who saw the Obama administration as “hostile” to religion climbed from 17 percent in 2009 to 31 percent. In a press release e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com, he said, “It is not hard to fathom why the Obama administration is having a hard time with Catholics.” In addition to the HHS mandate, “the administration recently denied funding to a Catholic social service agency that helps women and children merely because it is pro-life.”
Looking ahead to the election Donahue said, “Everyone knows that Protestants vote Republican, and Jews vote Democrat. It’s Catholics who are up for grabs.”
Exit polls show in 2008, 78 percent of Jewish voters supported Obama, and 73 percent of evangelical Christians voted for John McCain. Meanwhile, 54 percent of Catholics cast their ballots for Obama. In 2004, they narrowly favored George W. Bush over fellow Catholic John Kerry.
Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the 10,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, told LifeSiteNews.com that Southern Baptists tend to vote for candidates who share their convictions about life and faith, not because of anything their church is doing, but because more conservative people are drawn to evangelical churches.
“Frankly, I’m disappointed that more pastors in the Southern Baptist church don’t encourage their members to get out and vote,” he told LifeSiteNews. “Our primary mission is to win people to faith in Jesus Christ, but we’re also called to be salt, preservatives in our society to prevent a premature collapse of our society.”
For generations, Christians saw politics as something dirty or beneath them. Pastor Jeffress disagrees. “Politics simply means to be influencing the culture in which you’re living,” he said. “I believe as Christians we are called to influence our culture.”
He dedicated a chapter in his book Twilight’s Last Gleaming to ministers, entitled “For Pastors Only.”
“I believe pastors need to boldly stand, not for partisan politics, but for Biblical issues like the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage, and encourage their people to vote for those who uphold those Biblical standards,” he told LifeSiteNews.com.
Signs of a burgeoning evangelical-Catholic alliance against the secular state are multiplying. In February, members of the Southern Baptist Convention sat side-by-side Catholic Bishop William Lori in a House Oversight Committee hearing to defend religious liberty.
Land’s comments came during an interview promoting the new book Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late by Southern Baptist televangelist James Robison and Roman Catholic scholar Jay Richards.
Former Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee told the CPAC convention in Washington, D.C., “We are all Catholics now.”
It is unclear how important such an alliance will be to the president’s re-election prospects, let alone future Democrats’ electoral fortunes. Strategists say Obama will be the first president to entirely write off white working class voters. If unaddressed, changing demographics will marginalize the shrinking white vote as they have other decreasing ethnic groups.
Jeffress, who caused a controversy when he endorsed Texas Governor Rick Perry in the Republican presidential primaries last October, said preachers need to regain a sense of their prophetic ministry to the broader culture.
“In the Bible, prophets didn’t just speak to their own people, but they actually confronted ungodly cultures and ungodly leaders,” he said.
No huge biggy.
Accepted.
I try to practice forgiveness almost as faithfully as breathing.
Mostly succeed, by His Grace . . .
And, my hope is that on such threads as this, both sides, could be on their mostly best behavior.
And, I would note . . . even in your post I’m replying to . . . Proddys could lob equally strong, justifiable etc. counter points, historical facts etc.
Let us NOT GO THERE! Sigh.
That is why I personally came to the Church.
However, anyone who has a full, daily relationship with our Lord and Savior gets my total respect.
In a lot of ways, being a Catholic is easier. We have the Mass, the structure and the history to make turning to God and admitting our faults and sins easier. Not easy, but as you well know any good Father will not let you half a$$ a confession. It makes you think on your sins and faults.
Our Protestant brethren don’t have that (mostly). They are running on will power and God’s grace. I’d back many people here sword, wallet or back on their say so.
The gentle and wise man that welcomed me into the Church reminded me that we are ALL God’s children, and there is more than one path to the Truth.
However, with folks I have as much affection as I have for you, I'd rather avoid the more contentious stuff.
Given the enemy's increasing assaults in this era,
it seems to me, we could all on Christ's side, use a lot more of the following vs the gilded rock throwing (and, believe me, I'm not compromising my values and priorities at all--as some Charismatics and Pentecostals could recently attest. Sigh):
.
They are called libertarians.
thatsahoot! True ... and funny.
When the number of Catholics who found neither candidate worth voting for is considered Obama got less than 23% of the Catholic vote.
“Catholic social ministry begins and ends with Jesus Christ,” he said. “If it doesn’t, it isn’t Catholic.”
~Archbishop Chaput
C.S. Lewis described true ecumenism as a willingness on the part of Christians to work together for a common good cause for the sake of those things they do agree on ( i.e. the Creed ) while honestly admitting and respecting one another's differences.
As a Catholic, I for one am humbly grateful for the charity of those evangelicals and other non-Catholic Christians who are willing to march shoulder to shoulder with us Roman Catholics in the name of religious freedom for all.
This Catholic says AMEN!
Thanks for your kind reply.
God’s best to you and your loved ones now and in the coming dramas.
“If I can be on my better behavior . . . most anyone should be able to be so.”
Awwww.
Hugs.
Thanks for your kind reply.
May God lead you ever closer to Him and to His perfect will for you.
Same, my friend.
Blessings upon you and I hope to have much discussion in the future!
The sequel novel has taken an interesting turn one chapter in - I may well be freepmailing you for your thoughts!
For real Catholics, Jesus was very clear when He told us to stop looking at petty problems with our brothers when when ourselves have major problems. If you ever hear a “Catholic” bashing another major religion, something I have NEVER heard a priest do, know that most Catholics will percieve that as being Christian, Matthew 7.3 We are told to love and care for the less priveledged.
Most Catholics will *NOT percieve criticism and antogonism towards others ad being real Christians. Catholics certainly have a fair share of followers who are really Catholic in name only, but most faiths have the same problems, that’s why I try tp pray for all God’s people and leave the judgement to Him.
Sounds interesting, as I’d expect.
Oh, Dear, I need to read someone else’s. Sometimes I get too many balls in the air. Sigh.
Ah, my brain kicked up the idea of an honorable and honest demon and ran with it.
You and me both about the too many balls in the air! Still, it stops life from getting boring.
Hmmmmmm
That must take some mental gymnastics to play with such mutually exclusive notions!
Got the other reading done for our other Bro. Yea.
I still hope you can escape the big city. LOL.
Hugs and prayers.
Later,
Well, I picked the one denizen of the hell dimension that most cultures respect - a dragon. Plus, as you know, the protagonist has what you might call a moral amorality ....
Blessings and hugs to you!
I don’t care, I just want to say thank you to anyone who is willing to stand with the Catholics now. We are only the ones in view, not the only ones in target. All of us are targets. We will fight, we will not step down and anyone who stands with us, considering us Brothers and Sisters are righteous people.
I will not comply....to quote a righteous Mormon.
Thank you.
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