Conservatives Send Message (re: Pombo Loss) - Stockton Record

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Pastor Larry Thomas of Gloryland Missionary Baptist church in Stockton said his congregation was evangelical but did not follow the political views of megachurches that emphasize issues such as abortion and homosexuality. He said he voted for most of the recent winners.

"We're not interested in what's going on in their bedroom, we're interested in what they believe in," Thomas said. "A lot of times, (the bigger churches) jump up and grab these issues and ignore the fact that some of the people in the congregation are suffering from those same issues.

"We've had a case of that in Colorado recently - no matter how many smiling faces you see in the pews, there's a lot of suffering on the inside," he added, referring to the case of Ted Haggard, a prominent evangelist pastor who allegedly paid a male prostitute for sex and drugs.

Voices such as Thomas' may become louder as the 2008 election approaches, said George Randels, chairman of Pacific's religious and classical studies department.

"We're seeing more people who are liberal socially and who used to keep their religion private getting organized," Randels said. "Within Christianity, people who are not right-wing evangelicals are starting to speak up."

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Link: http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061118/A_LIFE/611180307

I think our party needs to reach out to these people.

:shrug:

We don't need to get every evangelical in every red state to vote Democratic; we just need to make inroads into that group.

Remember, the person with whom we on the left vent frustration as a "values voter" is quite likely to be the same person we embrace as a WalMart employee. We do have something to offer these people, snd it doesn't have to be a ban on abortion or gay marriage.

Really, I'm all ears.

Jim Wallis' book "God's Politics" has sold big.

I donated before the election so they could print & distribute copies of 'Voting God's Politics"
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.display&item=VGP_resources

Sojourners Website
http://www.sojo.net/

On edit: And share Sojo books & pamphlets & emails with friends!

:hi:

:bounce::hi::bounce:

even though I'm not a Christian, i think it's important to help their voice be heard over the right wing machine.

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While it's never disclosed in the movie, Jesus Camp is in fact a Pentecostal camp, which puts it far to the right theologically and politically, even within the evangelical movement. The directors explained that they didn't want to confuse audiences by disclosing this and instead referred to the camp only as "evangelical." Unfortunately, they unwittingly added to the enormous confusion that people like Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, has been trying to clear up for years.

Wallis, who is the founder and editor of Sojourners, a progressive Christian magazine, spends much of his time traveling the country talking to students and meeting with evangelical leaders. Wallis believes the future of the country is in the hands of moderate evangelical voters. He estimates, based on polls and personal experience, that about half of evangelicals are the immovable Religious Right but the other half are open to, if not hungry for, progressive leadership.

"The facts on the ground are changing," says Wallis. He reports a marked increase in attendance of his speeches on Christian campuses and the issues he gets asked about the most are not gay marriage or abortion. Wallis says abortion will naturally remain important issue to the moderate evangelical voter, but it is not a litmus test. They want leaders who will acknowledge their moral concerns about this issue and who are committed to decreasing the number of abortions, a position that puts them well within the mainstream of Democratic voters.

And it's no different if Wallis is meeting with the leader of an evangelical mega-church. One such leader recently told Wallis, "I'm a conservative on Jesus, the Bible and the Resurrection, but I'm becoming a social liberal." When Wallis asked why, he heard what has become a familiar refrain: evangelicals are increasingly despairing over the neglect of the poor, the environment, and the U.S. inaction on fighting the genocide in Darfur.

White evangelicals make up close to 25 percent of the electorate and, in 2004, a whopping 78 percent of them voted for George Bush. But evangelicals didn't always line up behind the Republican candidate. According to Pew Research, in 1987, white evangelicals were almost evenly divided between the two parties. And today, many evangelical leaders believe that a growing number of these voters are prepared to return to the Democratic fold, but only if Democrats stop misunderstanding, neglecting, and even intentionally ignoring what was and should be a natural constituency.

From this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-powers/evangelical-voters-and-de_b_22914.html

Link to Sojourners: http://www.sojo.net/

I'm not religious, so I'll have to let others speak to strategy.

:hi:

leadership to organize their flock- not for us to "reach out".

My ideas on "reaching out", frankly, have to do with real-world solutions for the lives of "heartland voters": Things like a liveable minimum wage and a SPHC system. If we can frame those in a non-sectarian values context (and we should), all the better.

My problem with the incessant refrain re: "reach out to evangelicals" is, it almost invariably comes with language or demands regarding soft-pedaling our commitments to reproductive choice, gay rights, or the separation of church and state. If, for instance, "reaching out" requires that atheists get thrown under the bus, I'll have to pass. Even Obama, in what was otherwise a fairly decent speech, couldn't resist a few elbow jabs at "secular extremists" who don't like having their kids forced to pledge to a Deity every morning in public schools. :eyes:

Frankly, I think the values we should be enunciating are two-pronged, and not tied to any creeds other than fairness and freedom. First off, I think the majority of Americans are far more socially libertarian than either party currently recognizes, and as such we should pursue an agenda of letting people make their own decisions about their lives and their bodies, while standing up for the sep. of church and state. On the fairness, values side, like I said, we should support a liveable minimum wage and a SPHC system, for starters.