Free Republic

In January, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson ruled out voting for John McCain, if he won the Republican nomination. “Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances,” Dobson said in a statement. In February, just as McCain was wrapping up the GOP nod, Dobson reiterated that McCain was unacceptable. As recently as April, Dobson told the WSJ, “I have seen no evidence that Sen. McCain is successfully unifying the Republican Party or drawing conservatives into his fold. To the contrary, he seems intent on driving them away.” Dobson added that McCain has...

There seems to be a kumbaya moment occurring on the conservative front, and it’s one that would apply a salve to Senator John McCain’s uneven, unsettled relationship with the religious right. Enter James Dobson, who has at times been blistering in his criticisms of Mr. McCain. The religious right’s more favored candidates — from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to even former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson — are no longer options. Thus, The Associated Press is reporting, in a preview of Mr. Dobson’s radio show tomorrow, that he is amending his views to be more embracing of the presumptive Republican...

McCain's Lead Among Evangelicals Smaller than Bush's in '04 Religiously Unaffiliated Voters Strongly Favor Democratic Candidate July 17, 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a smaller lead among white evangelical Protestants than Republican George W. Bush had at a similar point in the 2004 campaign, even though Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has made few inroads into this key constituency. Those who are unaffiliated with a particular religion, on the other hand, are just as supportive of the Democratic candidate as they were at this point in the 2004 campaign and are substantially more supportive of Obama than they...

Randy Brinson says he "almost fell out of my chair" when he heard that expected Democratic nominee Barack Obama had chosen Zanesville, Ohio, as the setting for a recent speech in which he embraced the concept of using faith-based groups to help carry out government social service efforts. It wasn't that Zanesville struck Brinson as an odd locale. Quite the opposite. It was that Obama had clearly figured out something that Brinson already knew. "Zanesville is Ground Zero for conservative evangelicals in Ohio," says Brinson, who, as founder of the voter registration organization "Redeem the Vote," knows a thing or...

I’m blown away by how bubbly some supposed evangelicals have become over Barack Obama. Several major “evangelical” ministers, Christian entertainers (whatever that means), and lesser pundits have thrown their names and crowds behind BHO for POTUS. I’d like to name their names, but that would somehow flatter them and then their posse would email/call me and I’d have to talk to them and act nice and stuff, which is about as appealing to me as watching Joan Rivers make out with Cher. Before I’m labeled a hater by the Ichthus wing of the Obama camp, I’d like to clarify for...

While it is sometimes useful to think of political and social groups as either "left" or "right," there are times when such labels are extremely misleading. Political commentators run into particular problems when they think of evangelical voters as the "Christian right." A recent USA Today editorial, for instance, was headlined “Why the Christian right fears Obama." The author argued (in essence) that the Christian right fears Sen. Barack Obama because the Christian right isn't all that fond of Sen. John McCain and might shift its support to Obama. The author here is only one of many commentators who, not...

Sen. John McCain is making surprising headway with religious conservatives - that part of the Republican electoral coalition he was expected to find the most resistant. For a campaign that Republican critics have called ill-managed, disorganized and message-challenged, the Arizona senator's organization has, from all outward appearances, been doing things right in its appeals to evangelicals and other religious conservatives. In the past week, Mr. McCain won over a major group of social conservatives, thanks to personal appeals, and the campaign has made personnel moves appealing to religious voters. In Denver last week, a meeting of nearly 100 religious conservative...

B. Hussein Obama has it in for America’s evangelicals. That is evident in his anathema of evangelical leader Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Evangelicals stand at the direct opposite of B. Hussein’s creed. He is a moral relativist. That is, for B. Hussein there are no moral absolutes. To state it in other terms, B. Hussein defines morality by “situation ethics.” That twosome was quite popular among liberals a few years ago; the term has since faded out as a frequency. However, it means that the specific situation governs the ethic of that situation. For example, if...

DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate Barack Obama has promised a more active approach to faith-based social programs in a bid to bolster his support among evangelical and religious voters. Obama visited a community ministry in a conservative region of the election battleground state of Ohio today to unveil a plan to reinvigorate faith-based community programs pioneered by President George W. Bush. The Illinois senator, who will face Republican John McCain in November's presidential election, said he would put more money and emphasis on strengthening the link between government and community faith programs. "The fact is, the challenges we face today - from...

CNN) -- Democrats have usually conceded the evangelical vote during presidential elections, but Sen. Barack Obama is trying to change that by mobilizing what some call the "Christian left." As part of his outreach to evangelical voters, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Tuesday will tour the Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio, and give an address on how he plans to build what he calls a "real" partnership between faith-based organizations and the White House if he becomes president. Obama's outreach to evangelical voters has also included private summits with pastors, an effort to reach out to young evangelicals and...

Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and -- in a move sure to cause controversy -- support some ability to hire and fire based on faith. Sen. Obama was unveiling his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday in Zanesville, Ohio, at Eastside Community Ministry, which provides food, clothes, youth ministry and other services. "The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone," Sen....

Sen. Barack Obama did patriotism yesterday, today it is faith and by the end of the day both speeches will have been done in back-to-back states that swing: Missouri and Ohio. The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator plans to go to Zanesville, located in eastern Ohio, to visit a church program that provides food and clothing assistance to those in need.

WASHINGTON — Politically speaking, Susan Speakman is a different kind of evangelical. Mrs. Speakman, 59, a pastor and educator at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Bridgeville, Pa., an activist evangelical church southwest of Pittsburgh, backs Senator Barack Obama in the presidential race. Along with her 23-year-old son, Stephen, she supports Mr. Obama because of his stands on the Iraq war and matters of social justice. The two of them plan to spread the word in their community and beyond. “What caught my attention early on was his comment that we don’t want red states and blue states, but we want to...

The Anglican Church faces what is in effect a schism this weekend after the declaration last night of conservative evangelicals to create a “church within a church”. The new body, called the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, will have its own bishops, clergy and theological colleges. Details of the fellowship were announced in Jerusalem last night at a summit of conservative Anglicans, It follows a protracted battle within the church over gay clergy. Many evangelicals were outraged when it was revealed this month that the civil partnership of two gay priests had been blessed in a London church with a traditional...

There is no secret to the fact that John McCain’s moderate stances have turned away large segments of the Conservative Religious Right base. In poll after poll, McCain has only enjoyed 80% of the Republican vote, a number that all political analysts say he must increase. The McCain campaign has been sharply criticized for its failure to court evangelical support; creating a visible rift that the Obama campaign has realized and attempted to exploit by...

An older article, but relevant today in light of the Dobson-Obama dust up! Christians of ALL races must be on guard against the deceivers who will try to convince us Obama's extreme agenda is compatible with a biblical faith!Burns Strider. Joshua DuBois. Shaun Casey. Eric Sapp. Mara Vanderslice. Not household names, these five professed evangelicals may hold the key to Democratic victory in the 2008 presidential election. Their mission: Convince white evangelical voters that a liberal agenda is consistent with the Bible and that the expressed Christian devotion of Democratic candidates is authentic. Three of the five are official religious...

Princeton, New Jersey (Reuters) - Matt Dunbar is not your typical evangelical Christian. With his tousled hair, sideburns and a scruffy "soul patch" beard, the 26-year-old New Yorker belongs to a growing minority of young evangelicals who want to broaden their political agenda beyond the traditional opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Evangelicals like Dunbar are eager to move on and tackle such hot topics as global warming and social justice. As they move to the center of the political spectrum, they are deciding whether Republican presidential candidate John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama aligns best with their values and...

WASHINGTON -- With the Democratic presidential nomination in his grasp, Sen. Barack Obama is making a full-throttle push for centrist evangelicals and Catholics. It's a move that's caught some conservative evangelicals off guard. They say they are surprised and dismayed to see a liberal-minded politician attempting to conscript their troops. At the same time, they say that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has done little to court their affections. "I've never seen anything quite like it before," said evangelical author Stephen Mansfield, who wrote "The Faith of George W. Bush" and has a forthcoming book about Obama. "To be running against...

...Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is actively courting Christian voters, many of them the children of evangelical Protestants who have voted Republican for decades and were instrumental in putting George W. Bush in the White House.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy among some Christian conservative activists, Sen. John McCain so far is performing well among rank and file evangelical voters. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week found McCain collecting about 68 percent of the white evangelical vote, compared to Barack Obama's 22 percent. That number is very similar to level of support President Bush received in June 2004, when he led then Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry 65 to 30 among white evangelicals. And it's essentially unchanged from polls in March, despite the Arizona senator's distancing of himself from evangelical pastors...

What was New York Times blogger Judith Warner thinking when she compared evangelical fathers at a purity ball to an infamous Austrian rapist? John Podhoretz called it the most repulsive blog item of the year. New York Times blogger Judith Warner shocked many last week when she compared “fathers, stepfathers, and fathers-in-law-to-be, at the ninth annual, largely evangelical ‘Father-Daughter Purity Ball’” to Josef Fritzl, the 73-year-old Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered her seven children. For Warner, the difference between fathers attempting to preserve the innocence of their daughters and one of...

President Bush may follow in the footsteps of his brother Jeb and convert to Catholicism, several European papers are reporting. In the wake of the president’s visit to see Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, Italian newspapers, citing Vatican sources, said Bush was open to the idea of converting to Catholicism. The Italian newspaper Il Foglio referred to such talk about Bush’s possible conversion and stated that “anything is possible, especially for someone reborn like Bush.� Noting that Tony Blair converted to Catholicism after leaving office as Britain’s prime minister last year, the paper also stated that “if anything happens,...

Quietly for now, perhaps more visibly later, Sen. Sam Brownback has set himself a missionary task. That task involves persuading the so-called "religious right," his core constituency, to get behind the John McCain presidential candidacy. .... "You get down to the raw points of it, and that's the (Supreme Court)," he said. He tells conservatives that McCain's "very reliable on that... and so (in a different way) is Barack Obama." "Barack's a good guy - I like him - but he's a very liberal Democrat," Brownback said. "If you have a liberal Democrat plus a Democratic House and Senate, that's...

For religious conservatives at the Texas Republican Convention, even the song list at Friday's prayer rally suggested dark days ahead for the GOP. "We're going to support McCain," he said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "He may not have been all of our first choice, but he is our choice." "I'm going to support McCain and try to help people see the reality of the total picture and how dangerous Barack Obama is," said state Sen. Dan Patrick, a conservative talk-radio host with a strong evangelical following. "There is no other choice."

Barack Obama targets the religious Right By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 8:46PM BST 11/06/2008 Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama is aiming to lure members of the religious Right, as the movement that twice helped George W Bush win the White House. His campaign is set to launch the Joshua Generation Project, an initiative that will include household gatherings, blogs and concerts, to attract young evangelicals and Catholics ahead of November's US presidential election. The campaign has noted an "unprecedented energy" among young religious people for the Illinois senator and aims to bring them into a new coalition of...

Barack Obama discussed Darfur, the Iraq war, gay rights, abortion and other issues Tuesday with Christian leaders, including conservatives who have been criticized for praising the Democratic presidential candidate. Bishop T.D. Jakes, a prominent black clergyman who heads a Dallas megachurch, said Obama took questions, listened to participants and discussed his "personal journey of faith." The discussion "went absolutely everywhere," Jakes told The Associated Press, and "just about every Christian stripe was represented in that room." Jakes, who does not endorse candidates and said he also hopes to meet with Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said some participants clearly have...

Senator Barack Obama is about to launch his latest outreach to religious voters, but the name of the group could land him in legal trouble. First reported on Friday by Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, Obama's "Joshua Generation" is designed to help the presumptive Democratic nominee appeal to young evangelicals. But "Generation Joshua", a division of the Home School Legal Defense Association, has been established since 2003 and is pursuing legal action against the Obama campaign.

A panel of researchers from the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics discussed the results of a survey aimed at gauging the voting tendencies among religious groups by splitting the groups in categories. The main categories were “Mainline Protestant”, “Evangelical Protestant, “Roman Catholic”, and “Religiously Unaffiliated”. One breakthrough discovery the panel found was that for the first time ever, more mainline Protestants (approximately one-fifth of the electorate) support the Democratic Party over the Republican Party. According to the survey, Roman Catholics, who have been traditionally associated with the Democratic Party, are now split evenly between the two...

Lori Viars, an evangelical activist in Warren County, Ohio, essentially put her life on hold in the fall of 2004 to run a phone bank for President Bush. Her efforts helped the president’s ambitious push to turn out evangelicals and win that critical swing state in a close election. But Ms. Viars, who is among a cluster of socially conservative activists in Ohio being courted by Senator John McCain’s campaign through regular e-mail messages, is taking a wait-and-see attitude for now toward Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. “I think a lot of us are in a holding pattern,” said...

A well-connected authority in the evangelical world said in an interview this week that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama could get up to 40 percent of the evangelical vote.

The Brody File’s good friend, Dan Gilgoff over at Beliefnet.com has a great interview with Evangelical Public Relations Executive Mark DeMoss. DeMoss has a good read on the climate among Evangelicals. He’s well respected. He believes Barack Obama could get up to 40 percent of the Evangelical vote this November. Read below and then get my take. Gilgoff: Barack Obama is trying hard to win evangelical voters. Does that effort stand a chance? DeMoss: If one third of white evangelicals voted for Bill Clinton the second time, at the height of Monica Lewinsky mess—that’s a statistic I didn’t believe at...

Bobby Jindal may not yet be a household name across the entire United States. But hopefully that's about to change. At age 36, Jindal is a former member of the United States House of Representatives; a former Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, where he took the state agency from a $400 million deficit to a $200 million surplus without tax increases; and is now the current Republican Governor of Louisiana. Governor Jindal made national news last week when he, along with Florida Governor Charlie Crist and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney schmoozed at John McCain’s private...

Among Republicans, the move of religious conservatives to the campaign fringe has come about for two reasons, one intentional, the other accidental. When McCain was nominated, Republican voters knew that the Religious Right wasn't going to play the role it had with Bush in 2000 and 2004. The natural affinity didn't exist between these religious activists and the religiously reserved McCain. The expectation remained, however, that through an effective faith outreach, the McCain campaign would bring reluctant religious conservatives into the fold. It would be a tough sell, but given the choice between Obama, the "infanticide candidate," and the pro-life...

It may turn out to be the stuff worthy of mention in half a news cycle or it may be a lasting point of historical reference. In terms of its political significance, I expect it will be the former. In terms of the long history of evangelicals trying to situate themselves within what they view as the larger culture, I expect it will have at least a minor place in any future discussion of our religious and cultural circumstance. “An Evangelical Manifesto: A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment” was rolled out at the National Press Club on May...

Evangelical pastors, scientists and policymakers have launched a petition drive intended to spread the truth about global warming: That Christians should be good stewards of God's creation and that government policies and regulations based on "faulty science" will hurt people who should be helped. "The 'We Get It' declaration speaks for me, and I believe it speaks for the vast majority of evangelicals, who are as tired as I am of being misrepresented by people who don't bother to get their theology, their science or their economics right," said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.). "Consequently, they put millions of the world's...

Evangelical Writers Challenged to Avoid Alienating the Unchurched Evangelical writers nearly always alienate non-evangelicals in their works, noted long-time Christian writer and editor Tim McLaughlin. Fri, May. 09, 2008 Posted: 12:04:29 PM EST PORTLAND, Ore. – “I have a bone to pick with you,” a Christian writer told a group of fellow evangelical writers Thursday. Evangelical writers nearly always alienate non-evangelicals in their works, noted long-time Christian writer and editor Tim McLaughlin. While most writers write to impact non-believers, as well as believers, the phrases they use and how they ignore some faith passages are real obstacles to reaching the...

Some prominent Christian leaders said this week that they will not sign the “An Evangelical Manifesto,� listing reasons such as vague wording and theological differences. The manifesto’s definition of evangelical itself was among the top concerns for some leaders who refused to sign the document. The document’s description for evangelicals is “Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth.� Several evangelical leaders said that while the definition is true, it is too broad and therefore not a good definition to distinguish who evangelicals are. “Those are wonderful words filled with...

I have been telling Brody File readers for months that if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee he will make a pitch to win over independent/moderate Evangelicals. Well, we now have evidence. In Kentucky, he is making a direct appeal to Evangelicals with flyers that mention his conversion experience and they highlight a big old cross. Remember Mike Huckabee’s supposed subliminal cross in his Christmas campaign ad? Well, the Obama campaign ditches the subliminal and goes for the in your face cross. Look at the flyer here. The Obama campaign has consistently believed that their candidate can compete for the...

Obama and his Kentucky cross TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Chris Brody, the senior national correspondent for Christian Broadcast Network (CBN), is reporting Sen. Barack Obama has a flier for next week’s primary contest in Kentucky that shows Obama standing with a substantial-sized cross to his left. Brody writes that Obama “is making a direct appeal to evangelicals with fliers that mention his conversion experience and they highlight a big old cross. Remember (Gov.) Mike Huckabee’s supposed subliminal cross in his Christmas campaign ad? Well, Obama campaign ditches

Pastor John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, wrote a letter of apology to the Catholic community. ...In so far as some of my past statements regarding the Roman Catholic Church have raised concerns in your community, I am writing in a spirit of respect and reconciliation to clarify my views. Out of a desire to advance greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful. After engaging in constructive dialogue with Catholic friends and leaders, I now have an improved...

Ah, spring. Fresh flowers, fresh leaves, fresh leases on life...and, in step with a tradition dating back to around 2004--the year when Christian "values voters" reportedly seized our fragile nation's helm--there's also a fresh crop of new books unabashedly bashing evangelicals. Leading the pack is "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," which is yet another entry in the behind-the-scenes, just-like-Skull-and-Bones Christian conspiracy genre. Luckily for yawning readers, there's also a newer, cuter, echoes-of-Jon-Stewart form of Christian-bashing on the 2008 market, which involves shelving the drama, loading up on the irony, going undercover and making merciless...

AP Newsbreak: Evangelicals say faith is now too political May 2 09:08 PM US/Eastern By RACHEL ZOLL AND ERIC GORSKI AP Religion Writers Conservative Christian leaders who believe the word "evangelical" has lost its religious meaning plan to release a starkly self-critical document saying the movement has become too political and has diminished the Gospel through its approach to the culture wars. The statement, called "An Evangelical Manifesto," condemns Christians on the right and left for "using faith" to express political views without regard to the truth of the Bible, according to a draft of the document obtained Friday by...

Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome The Abandonment of Sola Scriptura as a Formal Principle By Bob DeWaay The February 2008 edition of Christianity Today ran a cover story about evangelicals looking to the ancient Roman Catholic Church in order to find beliefs and practices.1 What was shocking about the article was that both the author of the article and the senior managing editor of CT claim that this trip back to Rome is a good thing. Says Mark Galli the editor, “While the ancient church has captivated the evangelical imagination for some time, it hasn’t been until recently that...

Whose 'Evangelical Manifesto'?Warren Smith - Guest Columnist - 4/17/2008 6:00:00 AM If all goes according to plan, on or about May 7, a group of evangelical leaders -- including the Rev. Rick Warren (of Saddleback Church and "Purpose Driven Life" fame) and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals -- will publish a document to be called "An Evangelical Manifesto: The Washington Declaration of Identity and Public Commitment." Though the document has been circulating around the Internet for a month, it has been "embargoed." For purposes of our discussion here, I will honor the embargo and not delve...

Most American Christians – regardless of their denomination and background – say they feel a "moral and biblical obligation" to support the State of Israel, according to a new survey conducted by a D.C.-based evangelical organization. Though figures released this week by the Joshua Fund differed among Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals and non-Evangelicals, the new figures confirmed that American Christians as a whole believed that a “biblical obligation� exists behind their support for the State of Israel. According to the survey, evangelical Christians were the most supportive of Israeli causes; nearly 90 percent said they felt a “moral and biblical obligation�...

What do Gays and Lesbians Hear? (repost) March 28th, 2008 by Michael Spencer Before getting into the substance of this essay, I want to mention how little I care for much of the terminology I’m going to use.As a Christian humanist, there are two sources for my view of human beings: The image of God in creation, and the image of humanity in the incarnation/resurrection of Jesus. I am resistant and reluctant to speak of human beings through other identifiers, such as race or sexual preference. For example, I don’t believe terms such as “black” or “gay” accurately communicate...

Despite withering criticism from the leader of the Reform movement, there is growing evidence that America’s leading Christian Zionist, Pastor John Hagee, is winning acceptance in pro-Israel circles. And some politicians are taking note. While nervously distancing himself from the controversial Hagee’s endorsement when addressing other audiences, Sen. John McCain last week raised the Hagee connection in an interview with a Jewish newspaper. Those are only two elements in an increasingly tangled controversy that reflects bitter divisions among Jewish groups about Middle East peace — and that is colored by Hagee’s fundraising for Israel. This week the San Antonio pastor...

Have evangelicals abandoned the Religious Right for a more moderate center? Some say yes. ... Mr. McLaren says global poverty, destruction of the environment and increasing violence in the world must be addressed and calls for the church to "change its framing story" and to start trying to change public opinion in these areas. He launched a tour called "Everything Must Change" and is currently traveling throughout the country rallying support. ... Well-known liberal evangelical Jim Wallis called evangelicals the swing voters in '08. Not everybody agrees with his statement, but political analysts do a note a shift. Some religious...

* To watch the Epicenter Conference in Jerusalem on-line, please click here. U.S. Christians 'morally' support IsraelBy Etgar LefkovitzThe Jerusalem PostApril 10, 2008 More than 80 percent of American Christians say they have a "moral and biblical obligation" to support the State of Israel, and half say Jerusalem should remain its undivided capital, according to a survey released on Thursday. While evangelical Christians are the strongest supporters of the Jewish state, strong pro-Israel convictions cut across all key Christian denominations in the US, according to the poll carried out on behalf of the Washington-based Joshua Fund, an evangelical organization....

Think Evangelicals Vote In Lockstep? Meet The Routhe Family By Melinda Henneberger   Like the families they grew up in,  Aaron and Ginny Routhe are devout evangelical Christians. Like his parents and hers, they also consider themselves pro-life. But where that's led them politically comes as a bit of a shock to their staunchly Republican elders. "It is generational; the way we view the Gospel is more well-rounded-or we see it that way," laughs Ginny, 33, who runs an eco-friendly diaper business while her husband works on a graduate degree at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. "We vote Democratic,...