TruthBook Religious News Blog

January 18, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama is one of a long line of leaders who has invited God to the inaugural ceremonies. Yet never in recent history has there been such a fuss. Setting the issue of public prayers aside, shouldn’t we all be ushering in a new era with a prayer or at least keep our fingers crossed—whether we’re religious or not?

Before public prayers during the inauguration became an issue, nearly 300 faithful organized to pray for Obama.

Members of the Obama Prayer Team have been gathering online, asking God to protect the president-elect and guide him through the next four years. On Sunday, some traveled to Washington on Sunday to attend a prayer service. Others set their clocks to pray at the same time, so God would hear their voices in one accord.

But the prayers didn’t stop with Obama’s victory on Election Day. Overman recalls standing in Grant Park that night, thanking God and shedding tears as the crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

Even after the inauguration, members of the team will continue to keep the First Family and the Oval Office in their conversations with God.

"Oh, the battle has just begun," said Jordan, "We can’t just leave him stranded ... He needs all of us to help hold him up."

Labels: Barack Obama, God, inauguration, prayer

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Obama And the Rise of Secular Spirituality

Sunday January 18, 2009
Categories: Consciousness

By Deepak Chopra and Dave Stewart

It's rare enough for an incoming President to inspire such a flood of hope and optimism, or so much relief that our long imprisonment in the political doldrums should be ending. But Barack Obama has done more than that. He has become a symbol of the rise of secular spirituality in this country, a liberated set of values that exists largely outside organized religion. Perhaps he himself is unaware of secular spirituality by that name. In lockstep with all previous Presidents, Obama must be seen attending church regularly, and that church must be close to mainstream.

However, if you consider what he stands for, Obama's worldview is more congruent with alternative theology than it is with churchgoers, 70% of whom were supporters of George Bush in his two election victories. Where organized religion has opted to stand by the right wing, millions of Americans who consider themselves spiritual have longed for peace, unity, nonviolence, and freedom that isn't imposed by the force of arms. We think Obama stands for the same values. In that regard, he is taking up the mantle of Martin Luther King< jr., who should be honored as one of Obama's spiritual forebears as much as Lincoln.

One senses a blessed return to rationality and the end of intolerant dogma as Obama prepares to enter the White House, but secular spirituality has expanded since the days of Jefferson and Adams. It now includes the following principles that we urge the new President to espouse (several of them he already has):

-- A spiritual duty to be benign stewards of the Earth and to preserve the ecology.
-- A responsibility to revere Nature and to be humble before it.
-- A duty to further peace among nations.
-- A pledge of nonviolence that will lead finally to total nuclear disarmament in our lifetime.
-- A refusal to use America's super power for militaristic ends.
-- A sense of compassion for the poor and wretched beset by pandemic disease, lack of political influence, and denial of basic human rights.

If Obama can further any of these values, he will be leaping miles ahead of his predecessor. Nothing about secular spirituality is radical. Most of its principles are articles of belief for millions of average Americans who have largely been shut out of politics for eight years. Our hopes for the new President won't be fulfilled until he adopts all of them. If he truly wants to reform the ways of Washington, he must extend his vision to the Congress, which under Republican domination served basically to block anything good and progressive.

But secular spirituality isn't limited to the left or the progressive movement in general. It is a national phenomenon, one that will swell steadily in the coming years, particularly among the young. Born after the divisive culture wars that gave the right wing its main chance, the younger generations yearn for new values. Obama appeals to that yearning, and we hope he takes full advantage of it. It's not good enough that he becomes the first African-American President, the first green President, or the first digital President. Nothing less than spiritual renewal is needed across the board, and there is no one of equal stature to lead it.

Labels: Barack Obama, church, Dave Stewart, Deepak Chopra, secular spirituality, values

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The pulpit and the presidency

Rick Warren has the power to broaden the evangelical agenda
By Electa Draper
The Denver Post
Posted: 01/13/2009

Rick Warren, the chubby, denim-clad, goateed 54-year-old Southern Baptist now hailed as America's pastor, was the heir apparent to 90-year-old Billy Graham long before President-elect Barack Obama asked him to give the inaugural invocation.

Warren rose to the occasion in 28 years, under circumstances very different from Graham's.

Long before the Saddleback Civil Forum last August, where Warren moderated a values-focused Q&A session with presidential candidates Obama and John McCain, the media represented Warren as the authoritative spokesman for a new generation of evangelical Christians.

"Nobody takes a vote on this kind of thing . . . but I can't imagine any other religious leader who could have pulled off (the candidate forum) the way he did," said Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

"Rick Warren has become America's pastor, replacing Billy Graham in that role," Cromartie says without qualification.

People are looking for a Graham successor and anointed spokesman for evangelical Christians because they constitute a powerful bloc politically, commercially and culturally.

Nearly eight in 10 Americans say they are Christians. Evangelical Christians
Time and Newsweek both named Warren to their lists of top American and world leaders.

Warren, who started out in 1980 with a few people in Bible study in his home, now leads more than 20,000 members at his Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. He doesn't take a salary from the church and practices a reverse tithe when it comes to his considerable income as an author, keeping 10 percent and donating 90 percent.

Warren is known as the pastors' pastor. His first book, "The Purpose Driven Church," started a small revolution among clergy in 1995. His worldwide pastor-training network has half a million alumni.

Warren heads innovative global missions, such as The Peace Plan, and is widely credited with broadening the evangelical agenda beyond abortion and gay marriage to confront poverty, disease, climate change and genocide.

Franklin Graham predicts Warren will have Obama's ear on important issues, while his father will not be a spiritual adviser to the new president. He recently told Christianity Today magazine that his father is "just happy to get up in the morning."

Billy Graham has been the confidante of 11 presidents, every one since Harry Truman. He led prayers at four inaugural ceremonies. He participated in inauguration-related events for every president since John F. Kennedy, until Obama.

Warren disavows any role for himself as cultural warrior, yet, unlike the elder Graham, whom Warren has called one of his important role models, he has been a lightning rod for people on both the left and right of the social divide.

The selection of Warren to pray at the inauguration Jan. 20 elicited sharp criticism from gay rights advocates angered by his belief — the traditional evangelical Christian view — that homosexuality is a sin.

The 2008 Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reported that 64 percent of members of evangelical churches believe homosexuality should be discouraged; while only 34 percent of mainline Protestants believe the same.

Labels: Barack Obama, Billy Graham, evangelicals, inauguration, presidency, pulpit, Rick Warren

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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

What's the Status of Religion and Politics Post-Obama?

Published Jan 1, 2009, by Carol Forsloff

It seems that many Americans have had their fill of churches being involved in politics George Bush in 2001 ushered in a period where the religious right was particularly active in governmental affairs.

In 2001 the airwaves were filled with ministers praising the election of Bush as president. His leadership was treated as something that had been divinely ordained. The Post at the time talked about the number of religious leaders who met with Bush during the first year of his Presidency who testified in their faith in Bush and his ability to lead the country as God-ordained. Web sites encouraged people to pray for the President, to recognize his position as both government leader and spiritual model, virtually a Messiah for the government at the time.

According to the Pew Forum things have changed from 2000 and the election of George Bush and the election of Obama in 2008. A survey finds a small majority of the public now declares religion and politics shouldn’t mix, and ministers and religious leaders should not express their opinions on daily activities or political matters. This change follows ten years when most Americans supported religious involvement in government with Christian leaders able to express their views on political matters.

Pew Research Center research reveals that most conservatives have reexamined their position regarding the involvement of religion in politics, and now only 50% of them express support of it. Four years ago 70% believed that churches should involve themselves in governmental affairs. So there has been a sizable shift in public opinion during the last years of the Bush Presidency. Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view. This is likely why it was said that there was only “soft support” among religious conservatives for John McCain.

Despite the fact that Congress is accused of not representing fully the religious views of the rest of the country, the fact is that Pew reports that the composition of the new Congress is similar to that of the population of the United States, although somewhat less diverse in its representation of minority religious groups. The largest main group in the Congress is Protestant, but if the denominations are considered separately the majority group is Catholic. One unique distinction between Congress and the general population is the fact that fewer political leaders claim no religious affiliation (about 1%) than the rest of the United States (16%)

It seems, however, with the public shift towards less involvement of religion in politics, politicians may not longer have to protest their specific religious views in order to be elected. Or the pendulum may swing again, depending upon future issues because that has been the pattern of American history. The country has struggled with the issue of religion and politics since the beginning of the government, with the battle never being fully won on either side. This newest finding just measures citizen opinion at this point in time.

Labels: Barack Obama, Carol Forsloff, church-state, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religion

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Friday, January 02, 2009

The Year in Religion 2008: Faith's role in election dominates religion news

12/27/2008

WESTERVILLE, Ohio - The U.S. presidential election was the impetus for the nation's top religion stories of 2008, according to a survey of more than 100 religion journalists.

The top story was the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, with Democratic outreach to faith communities and GOP vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin's selection as the second and third top stories, respectively.

Controversial sermons by Wright surfaced early this year, resulting in pressure on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who eventually withdrew his membership in his church, Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago.

Obama was named the top religion newsmaker of 2008.

An online poll of religion reporters was conducted Dec. 8 to 10.

The Religion Newswriters Association has conducted the poll since the 1970s.

The list of suggested top religion stories was compiled for the RNA with help from John W. Smith, religion columnist and retired religion editor of the Reading Eagle.

The other top 10 stories are:

4. The California Supreme Court rules gay marriage is legal.

5. Pope Benedict XVI makes his first U.S. visit

6. U.S. conservatives alienated from the Episcopal Church say they will ask Anglican Communion leaders for permission to create the Anglican Church in North America.

7. Terrorism believed motivated in part by religious fervor results in deaths of almost 200 people in a three-day siege in Mumbai, India.

8. China cracks down on Buddhists seeking Tibetan independence in a prelude to producing a peaceful Olympic games.

9. The crumbling economy and subsequent drop in contributions force many faith-based organizations to cut back on expenses.

10. Violence continues in Iraq as Sunnis and Shiites attack each other, and Christians also are targeted.

Labels: 2008 top stories, Barack Obama, China, gay marriage, Pope Benedict XVI, religion, Religion Newswriters Association, terrorism, the economy

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Friday, December 12, 2008

Obama's faith policy and our nation's future

Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Cassie Olson

In the United States, 83.9 percent of adults affiliate themselves with a religion and 78.4 percent say they are Christians, according to the Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted in 2007. Believers and nonbelievers alike wonder how Obama's faith will affect policies of the United States.

According to his campaign, Obama hopes to mend the nation's religious divide by forging common ground between the polarities, while also diverging from some of President Bush's policy.

Despite rumors spread across the country, Obama says he deeply believes in the precepts of Jesus Christ.

"I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible. I pledge allegiance and lead the Pledge of Allegiance sometimes in the U.S. Senate, when I'm presiding," Obama said in response to e-mail allegations mentioned during the 2008 Democratic debate in Las Vegas.

Obama explained his perspective on faith and politics in an acclaimed "Call for Renewal" speech in June 2006. He acknowledged religion couldn't be ignored in a country of religious people. However, Obama said church and state should remain separate.

Because the religious and the secularists are both important in solving the nation's problems, Obama said nonbelievers must realize faith is part of the solution.

"The problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect 10-point plan," Obama said. "They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness -- in the imperfections of man. Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds."

He encouraged nonbelievers to stop forcing the religious to leave their beliefs out of public debate. He brought to mind the countless reformers -- Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. -- who used their religion to foster change.

At the same time, believers need to maintain an open discussion.

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion- specific, values," Obama said. "It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason."

Obama also wants believers to ensure their policy does not exclude any one American. He reminded believers they can recognize public policy without it dictating church practices, and he reminded Americans not every mention of God is a breach in the separation of church and state.

Obama's faith will provide a moral base for his decisions, but will not dictate his policy. While campaigning in Ohio during July 2008, Obama said he hopes to reform and expand Bush's faith-based programs. However, Obama supports keeping abortions legal and promotes embryonic stem cell research.

Although some might disagree with his policy, Obama hopes Americans can join forces to prevent the nearly 1 million abortions that have occurred in the United States each year from 1975 to 2003, as reported by the Center for Disease and Control. Obama also believes United States citizens can cross party lines to eliminate the poverty 37.3 million Americans were living in during 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Americans can be thankful Obama is neither forcing beliefs on anyone nor opposing or excluding either side from the debate or the solution. The years following 2008 are a new dawn, but Obama will only succeed in mending the country and bringing the right change if Americans are willing to lay down their pride, work past their apathetic resentment and take action -- together -- for the common good.

Labels: Barack Obama, Cassie Olson, Christianity, faith, politics, religion, United States

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Friday, December 05, 2008

Obama's inaugural oath

When Obama takes the oath of office, there's no reason not to include his middle name.
November 30, 2008

When George W. Bush was sworn in for his second term in 2005, he began his oath of office with the words: "I, George Walker Bush." Never mind that Bush isn't in the habit of using his middle name (as opposed to his middle initial, which became the title of an Oliver Stone movie). In inaugural oaths, as in baptisms and other ceremonies, the addition of middle names adds an appropriate note of solemnity.

No controversy surrounded Bush's inclusion of his middle name in the oath. The same might not be true of a decision by Barack Obama to take his oath as "Barack Hussein Obama" -- which is precisely why he should do so.

Stripped of such evil intent, the "Hussein" in Obama's full name shouldn't be taboo. Nor should the idea of an openly Muslim citizen deciding to seek the presidency. That point was made eloquently by former Secretary of State Colin Powell when he endorsed Obama. "Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" Powell asked. "The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing he or she could be president?"

Most Muslim Americans believe in and are pursuing the American dream, and as Powell also noted, they are sometimes dying for it. Last year, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a survey concluding that American Muslims are "largely assimilated, happy with their lives and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world." The survey also found that "Muslim Americans reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in Western European countries."

The way to increase those numbers is to make clear that an American with an Islamic faith -- or an Islamic name -- is not a second-class citizen. When the new president takes the oath, he should say, loudly and proudly: "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Labels: American Muslims, Barack Obama, Colin Powell, inauguration, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Obama taps into our yearning for meaning, spirituality

BY DESIREE COOPER
• FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
• November 19, 2008

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States was a defeat for the Christian right, but that doesn't mean that faith didn't play a major role in Obama's resounding victory. While the Republican Party ran under the mantra of "God and country," Obama tapped into something possibly even bigger -- God and spirit.
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A survey out this month revealed that 52% of Americans age 12 to 25 say that they don't trust organized religion, but that they are increasingly spiritual. According to the Minneapolis-based Search Institute, young people are turning away from their churches, mosques and temples and finding God in nature, music, friends and community service.

A 2008 University of California Los Angeles study showed that 62% of college students see themselves as spiritual and believe attaining inner peace is an essential life goal. In that study, spirituality was defined as caring about the condition of others and of the world.

It's easy to see how Obama's rhetoric would appeal to them, and to the countless adults who consider themselves nonreligious, but spiritual. His language of hope resonated with the spiritual teachings of love over fear. For the spiritual-minded, community organizing is not something to ridicule, but to emulate. I can't tell you how many e-mails and bumper stickers I see bearing the Gandhi quote: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Change -- now there's a holy idea.
Deep connections

Opponents pegged Obama's optimism as naive. But his political rhetoric dovetailed with a pervasive spirituality that teaches that words and thoughts do shape reality. Want to know the secret? Thinking can indeed make it so.

Obama's exhortation for Americans to transcend difference was also in synch with a spiritual world view. When the Dalai Lama received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007, he, too, urged America to govern "from the perspective of the oneness of humanity, and from a profound understanding of the deeply interconnected nature of today's world."

Even Obama's slogan, "Yes we can," could have been out of the mouths of the best-selling spiritual writers of our time, from Wayne Dyer to Deepak Chopra to Eckhart Tolle.

On the day after the election, Marianne Williamson, author of "Healing the Soul of America," e-mailed a mass message. In it, she observed that "the Obama phenomenon did not come out of nowhere. It emerged as much from our story as from his -- as much from our yearning for meaning as from his ambition to be President."

For those of us who have learned to expect a miracle, we got it in our new president. But the real miracle has been our own spiritual awakening that made his election possible.

Whether President-elect Obama knows it or not, he is backed by an army of believers -- people who understand that the promised change is not just his responsibility, but the responsibility of each of us.

Labels: Barack Obama, change, Desiree Cooper, faith, hope, spirituality

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Election results pointing to new religious coalition

Poll: Social concerns go deeper than abortion

By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

The election of Barack Obama as president is a signal that the religious right is on the way out, according to several experts reviewing a newly released poll on the religious vote.

But don't look for its successor to be the religious left.

The data indicate Mr. Obama's victory was aided by the emergence of a new and diverse religious coalition that views fighting poverty, protecting the environment, and promoting world peace to be critical issues - not just abortion rights and same-sex marriage upon which the religious right has focused.

The poll, conducted by Washington-based Public Religion Research, examined the reasons given by people of faith for voting for either Democrat Mr. Obama or Republican candidate John McCain.

Robert Jones, president of Public Religion Research, said one of the key findings was that a majority of both evan-gelical Christians (55 percent) and Catholics (51 percent) said agendas best reflecting their values include the issues of poverty, the environment, war and peace, abortion rights, and same-sex marriage. In contrast, only 21 percent of evangelicals and 13 percent of Catholics said a narrower agenda focused on abortion rights and same-sex marriage best reflected their values.

The new coalition includes black and Latino voters, younger white Christians, new evangelical pastors and students, progressive Catholics, and Protestants...

The poll reported that while only 21 percent of white evangelicals voted for Mr. Obama, of those who did, 39 percent considered him to be friendly to their religion and 39 percent felt he shares their values.

Among Catholics, 54 percent voted for Mr. Obama while 64 percent said the Democratic candidate shares their values.

Among all religious groups, 58 percent considered Mr. McCain friendly to religion and 54 percent said Mr. Obama was friendly to religion. Mr. Obama's numbers in that category are 16 points higher than his party's; only 38 percent of voters said the Democratic Party was friendly to religion.

The survey also reported Mr. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate proved to be a net loss for the party. The Alaska governor increased support among 30 percent of evangelicals, but decreased support among every other religious group and among political independents, according to poll data.

The most important issue by far among religious voters was the same as that of the general public: the economy. Seventy percent of all religious groups cited the economy as the most important issue, followed by the Iraq war (35 percent), health care (31 percent), terrorism (19 percent), abortion rights (14 percent), and same-sex marriage (6 percent).

The Public Religion Research survey polled 1,277 voters between Nov. 5 and Nov. 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. It was sponsored by Faith in Public Life, Sojourners, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Labels: abortion, Barack Obama, David Yonke, Iraq, John McCain, Public Religion Research, the economy

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Exit poll: Tennessee still buckle of Bible Belt

2 of 3 white voters identify themselves as evangelical Christians

Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press
Thursday, November 13, 2008

Their presidential candidate lost and their influence in national politics may be waning, but white evangelical Christians clearly dominated the 2008 election in Tennessee.

Even for a Bible Belt state that is headquarters to the Southern Baptist Convention, their majority was surprising — two of every three white voters in Tennessee identified themselves as evangelical Christians in exit polls.

This in a state where 84 percent of the voters were white, according to surveys of 1,520 randomly selected voters by Edison Media Research for The Associated Press and television networks.

McCain carried Tennessee convincingly, and the white evangelical turnout likely contributed to Republicans taking control of both chambers of the Tennessee Legislature for the first time in 140 years.

Out of the 40 states where exit polls asked voters if they are born-again Christians, only Arkansas had more white evangelicals than Tennessee. Arkansas had 55 percent. Tennessee and Oklahoma each had 52 percent. For Tennessee, that was virtually unchanged since 2004.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, meaning white evangelicals actually could make up anywhere from 48 percent to 56 percent of Tennessee’s voters.

Arkansas is home to Mike Huckabee, the former governor and ordained Baptist minister who beat McCain in the Republican presidential primary in Tennessee in February.

White evangelicals made up 26 percent of voters nationwide in this election.

They voted 3-1 for McCain across the country and in Tennessee. But for the first time in several election cycles, white conservative Christians weren’t a factor in the national contest. Obama won easily — 53 percent to 45 percent — without them.

Tennessee exit polls showed that a presidential candidate’s values were most important to about a third of voters overall, but to an even greater number — 41 percent — of white evangelicals.

More than half of white, evangelical Christians in Tennessee said the economy was the No. 1 issue, slightly fewer than all voters statewide, followed by terrorism, slightly more than voters across the state.

Tennessee white evangelicals were far more likely to be Republican and live in East Tennessee.

White, evangelical Christians were 44 percent Republican, 37 percent Independent and 19 percent Democrat, compared with Tennesseans overall, who are 32 percent Republican, 37 percent Independent and 30 percent Democrat, according to the poll.

They represented two of every three voters in East Tennessee and slightly more than half the voters in the rural counties of Middle and West Tennessee. They were just less than half the voters in metropolitan Nashville and about two of every five voters in greater Memphis.

Labels: Barack Obama, Duncan Mansfield, election, evangelicals, John McCain, Tennessee, voters

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Obama backed by all religions, Pew says

Nov. 10, 2008
By Sommer Ingram
Staff Writer

Along with becoming the nation's first African-American president-elect, Barack Obama gained more support in this election from nearly every religious group than Democratic nominee John Kerry did four years ago.

According to the Pew Forum, Obama won 26 percent of the white evangelical vote compared, to the 21 percent that voted for Kerry in 2004.

Although his gains were minimal, Obama seems to have made the religion element work for him in a way other Democrats historically haven't.

Though polls show white Roman Catholics and Protestants backing Republican candidate John McCain, Obama won nearly all of the black and Hispanic Protestant votes. Catholics supported him over McCain 54 percent to 45 percent. He also improved the minority evangelical vote significantly.

These groups have wider and more diverse views than are traditionally publicized."

The traditional concerns of the evangelical world, primarily abortion and gay rights, are not seen as prevalently among younger evangelicals.

Economical issues proved to overshadow the traditional cultural concerns for both parties, which could have also have contributed to his success among the religious electorate. More than six in 10 cited the economy as the nation's top concern.

Despite the fact that white evangelicals between the ages 30 and 64 remained a center pillar in the Republican support base, Obama's concentrated outreach to the religious community resulted in modest gains on Kerry's percentages in Colorado, North Carolina and Ohio.

The Democratic candidate's campaign may signal the beginning of reversing the prevailing stereotype that casts Democrats as worldly and anti-religious.

"I believe we will continue to see various strategies with religious voters," Allman said. "I think we'll have to go through a couple more election cycles to see whether there will be a more varied voting pattern. It's a little early to tell, but however small these movements we saw, they were all in the direction of the Democrats."

Labels: Barack Obama, election, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religious community, Sommer Ingram, voters

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Religious voters helped Obama to victory

His focused effort to target a group that had heavily favored Republicans paid off, an exit poll shows.

By Cathleen Decker
November 9, 2008

As he vaulted into national acclaim with his 2004 Democratic convention speech, Barack Obama directly took on the assumption that his party should cede religious voters to the Republicans.

Exit polls showed the dramatic effect: Obama won 43% of voters who said they attend church weekly, eight percentage points higher than 2004 Democratic nominee John F. Kerry. Among occasional worshipers, Obama won 57%, 11 percentage points higher than Kerry, according to the National Election Pool exit survey.

When looking at how members of different faiths voted, the movement among Catholics is striking. They sided 52% to 47% with President Bush in 2004. But this year, they went 54% to 45% for Obama. That means Obama had more support among Catholics than did Kerry, himself a Catholic, by seven percentage points.

"Obama did better than Kerry among pretty much every religious group," said Greg Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life who analyzed the poll results.

Even among voters who describe themselves as born-again Christians or evangelicals, a group that tends to vote Republican, Obama improved on Kerry's standing -- although he came in a distant second to GOP nominee John McCain. Kerry had won 21% of evangelical voters; Obama won 26%.

Nearly two years ago, when voters knew little about him, the Illinois senator stood alongside nationally known author and Pastor Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest for a televised AIDS conference. Earlier, Obama had asked Warren to review a chapter of his book "The Audacity of Hope."

Obama again gained the attention of Christian voters in July when he pledged to expand a controversial White House program to give federal grants to churches and small community groups. The proposal, which would build on efforts by the Bush administration to direct government money to church groups, was announced in Zanesville, Ohio, a hotly contested state that Obama won on election day.

And at the Democratic National Convention in August, which held its first-ever interfaith prayer gathering, the party platform endorsed by Obama -- while not backing away from its support for abortion rights -- emphatically reached out to women with children who rely on programs meant to ease their struggle.

Obama's ease in talking about his religion also helped him win over religious voters. During a presidential forum held in August at Saddleback Church, where he and McCain were interviewed separately by church leader Warren, Obama spoke about "walking humbly with our God" and quoted from the Gospel of Matthew. His acceptance speech Tuesday night echoed in parts the church-inspired speeches of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Religion, for a time, became a thorn for Obama during the presidential race. He was harshly criticized for his association with the now-retired Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose incendiary sermons about white America caused an uproar and led Obama to part ways with his longtime pastor, and endured a viral e-mail campaign falsely asserting that he is Muslim.

The election results returned Catholics to their historical Democratic moorings, which many had fled for the GOP during the Reagan years.

Labels: Barack Obama, Cathleen Decker, faith, religion, voters

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Friday, November 07, 2008

Obama made inroads with religious vote

The Democrat prevailed with Roman Catholic and Jewish voters. He even picked up support among Evangelicals.
By Alexandra Marks
New York

This year it appears the Democrats got religion, at least in terms of the vote.

In becoming the president-elect, Barack Obama made gains among religious voters of almost every type compared with recent Democratic presidential candidates. He handily won the Catholic and Jewish votes, and even picked up support among Protestants and some Evangelicals, long a pillar of Republican ballot-box strength.

Some theologians suggest that the religious shift signals the emergence of a faith-based coalition that will counterbalance or, perhaps, replace the religious right. It’s made up of mainline religious progressives, black and Hispanic Evangelicals, and a growing number of younger, white Evangelicals and Catholics.

During the campaign, both presidential camps made a point of reaching out to the opponent’s core religious constituencies. Obama’s campaign spearheaded a grass-roots drive to bring in young Evangelicals and Catholics. The McCain campaign relied more on surrogates like Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I) of Connecticut to try to bring Jewish voters into the GOP.

Their success varied. The McCain campaign had hoped to exploit Jewish voters’ initial unease with Obama, raising questions about the depth of his support for Israel and his willingness to negotiate with its enemies, such as Iran. It ran television ads in Florida and other places with large Jewish populations that quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “Ahmadinejad says Israel won’t survive…. Obama says he would meet with him personally.”

Senator Lieberman, a leading political Jewish voice and a former Democratic vice presidential nominee, was frequently with Senator McCain on the stump. When he wasn’t, he was often in Florida working on behalf of his GOP Senate colleague.

Some Republicans also sought to exploit fears that Obama was secretly a Muslim or had close associations with anti-Semitic black leaders such as Louis Farrakhan.

That did not sit well with some Jews, who organized rabbis and others to counter such attacks on Obama.

Then there was Sarah Silverman to contend with. The young Jewish comedienne became the spokeswoman for the so-called Great Schlep. It signed up more than 25,000 young Jewish voters and urged them to go to Florida to get their grandparents to support Obama.

Obama managed to solidify Jewish support: 78 percent supported him over McCain, according to an analysis of election polls by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. In 2004, 74 percent of Jewish voters backed Democrat John Kerry for president.

The Obama campaign was more successful in making inroads with some of the GOP’s core constituencies. It reached out to Catholic voters who attend mass regularly – a group that went for Mr. Bush by 12 percentage points in 2004. This year, Obama and McCain split that vote. Among Catholics who attend mass less often, Obama won overwhelmingly.

“In 2004, Bush split with Kerry those Catholics who attended less often, but Obama won that group by 18 percentage points. That is a very significant shift,” says Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Part of the explanation is the significant shift to Obama among Hispanic Catholics.”

Obama also worked to reach out to the Republicans’ white evangelical base, but he had less success there. He did win more support among them than Senator Kerry did in 2004, but only by a few percentage points.

“When we’re looking at white Evangelicals, we’re looking at one of the strongest Republican constituencies in the country – a group that would be very hard to move into the Democratic column under any circumstances,” says John Green, senior fellow in religion and American politics at the Pew Forum. “From that perspective…, one could argue that this may be some evidence of success.”

Other analysts say Obama did make inroads with younger white evangelicals in key states like Colorado and Indiana, where he boosted his support among Evangelicals by 14 percentage points and 8 percentage points, respectively, over Kerry’s 2004 levels.

Labels: Alexandra Marks, Barack Obama, Catholic, evangelicals, voters

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Monday, November 03, 2008

Muslims In America

Powell's remarks solace for many
By LINDSAY WISE
Oct. 25, 2008

On the TV screen, former Secretary of State Colin Powell was telling host Tom Brokaw he was disturbed that some Republicans have been spreading rumors that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim," Powell said. "He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no. That's not America."

...Powell's remarks seemed like a tonic for a presidential campaign that has often made them feel marginalized and vilified.

A humiliating feeling

From e-mail campaigns spreading false rumors that Obama is a secret Muslim to Republicans invoking Obama's middle name, Hussein, at rallies to cast doubt on his faith and background, Muslims resent the implication that their faith makes them unpatriotic or even dangerous.

Obama has clarified repeatedly that he is not a Muslim, but he has not denounced the prejudice behind the rumors, as Powell did last week.

Neither campaign has visited a single mosque on the campaign trail.

Recent studies by the Pew Research Center found that 35 percent of Americans have a negative view of Muslims and about half think that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence.

The reality is that Muslim Americans are diverse, middle class, and mostly mainstream in their outlook, values and attitudes, according to a national survey published by Pew last year. In fact, Muslims tend to be much more conservative than the rest of the American public on hot-button social issues, such as prayer in schools, gay marriage and abortion, the survey reported.

And that's why Powell's remarks came as such a pleasant surprise.

As Obama shot ahead of McCain in the polls over the past few weeks, the media started buzzing about a possible "Bradley effect" — coined for 1982 California gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley, who is black, and led in the polls until election day but lost. Analysts theorized that voters weren't honest with pollsters about their support for a black candidate.

In the 2000 presidential election, Muslims supported Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore, 42 percent to 31 percent, according to a Zogby International poll.

Three years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, however, Muslim support shifted decisively toward the Democratic Party. Only 7 percent of Muslims said they planned to vote for Bush for president in 2004, compared to 68 percent who backed Democrat John Kerry, Zogby reported.

This year, in Texas, the Muslim American Republican Caucus decided not to endorse the Republican nominee for president for the first time since the organization was formed in 2000. The caucus will still support Republicans in all local and congressional contests.

Board Member Farha Ahmed said the decision not to endorse McCain was based on several conferences with his national campaign in which the caucus asked officials to address Muslim voters' concerns about the war on terror, civil rights and anti-Muslim rhetoric attributed to McCain, his campaign and other GOP supporters.

In time, the idea of a Muslim becoming president of the United States might no longer seem so outrageous, said Ruth Nasrullah, the 47-year-old manager of an Islamic bookstore in Willis.

Labels: Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Lindsay Wise, Muslims, politics

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Monday, September 29, 2008

Religion and Politics: Combustible Combination Influences Voters' Choices

September 25, 2008 —

Americans who regularly attend worship services tend to hold more conservative religious views, so if they decide to be similarly dedicated to voting in November, their votes could tip the presidential election to John McCain.

But if Barack Obama can rouse the more lackadaisical Christians among us, they may swing the election in his favor, based on historical trends.

Those were some of the links between religion and politics highlighted by Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, who spoke Monday evening at a University of Virginia Center for Politics event.

Lugo presented findings from the Pew Forum's recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which was based on interviews with more than 35,000 American adults.

The survey found strong correlations between Americans' degree of religiosity, as measured by church attendance, and voting patterns in the 2004 election. Survey respondents were asked to describe how often they attended church: more than weekly, weekly, monthly, a few times a year, or seldom to never. Those who attend church more than weekly chose Bush over Kerry by 64 percent to 35 percent, while 58 percent of weekly churchgoers voted for Bush.

In a nearly symmetrical reversal of those preferences, those who seldom attend church favored Kerry by 62 percent to 35 percent. The preference for Bush declined steadily in correlation with attending church less often.

This so-called "God gap" is more accurately described as a church attendance gap, Lugo said, and the Obama campaign is absolutely determined to close this gap.

Political preferences can also be broken down by religious affiliation, Lugo said. White evangelical Protestants, who make up nearly a quarter of the American electorate, voted for Bush at a 78 percent clip in 2004. In contrast, even higher percentages of Jews and black Protestants favored the Democratic candidates in 2000 and 2004.

But despite all the efforts of Obama to appeal to Christians, surveys show that he has made no progress appealing to self-described white "evangelical" voters. About 71 percent of them back the McCain-Palin ticket, according to a Pew survey conducted Sept. 9-14 — up from 61 percent in June, and about the same proportion as supported Bush in 2000, said Lugo.

Catholics make up nearly 20 percent of the electorate, and they have become a key swing vote in American politics, Lugo said. Gore won the overall Catholic vote by 3 percentage points in 2000, but Kerry lost that bloc by 5 points in 2004.

While about two-thirds of Hispanic Catholics favored both Gore and Kerry, white Catholic voters were much more evenly divided, with Bush garnering 52 percent of their vote in 2000 and 56 percent in 2004. How these white Catholics vote will be critical to the upcoming election, Lugo predicted.

Religion has always been important in American public life, with attitudes only shifting gradually, and over decades. From 2000 through 2008, a steady 70 to 72 percent of Americans agree with the proposition: "It's important to me that a president have strong religious beliefs." In the 1950s, Americans were much more open to electing an atheist or someone without strong religious convictions, Lugo said.

The increase in pro-religion sentiments in the past 50 years was spurred in part by facing the "godless" enemy of communism in the Cold War, said Charles Mathewes, a professor of religious studies. If Americans continue to face a significant threat from fundamentalist Muslim terrorists for the next 30 to 40 years, he wondered, will the importance of religion in public life wane?

As for this year's election, the "fundamentals" of an unpopular Republican president, a tanking economy and a derided war appear to favor the Democrats, Lugo said. But current polls show a very tight presidential race.

"In this election, everything is against the Republicans," Lugo said. "To be honest, I'm just surprised it's so close. ... I guess there's a lot of underlying discomfort in closing the deal with Obama."

— By Brevy Cannon

Labels: Barack Obama, Brevy Cannon, church, election, John McCain, Luis Lugo, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics

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Friday, September 19, 2008

How different faiths view major issues

By CATHY LYNN GROSSMAN • USA TODAY •
September 18, 2008

God is punishing us.

Guardian angels protect us.

The Earth is in grave danger.

So finds Baylor University’s newest survey on Americans’ religious beliefs and practices.

The survey, to be released today, is based on interviews with 1,700 adults conducted in fall 2007. Among the highlights:

Environment

Evangelicals less worried about global climate change

Most respondents to the Baylor Religion Survey agree that “if we do not change things dramatically,” global climate change will be ”a disaster” (67%); coal, oil and natural gas will be exhausted (70%) and most plant and animal life will be destroyed (57%).

But evangelical Protestants are significantly less likely (55%) than other religious groups to be alarmed about global climate change or to forecast destruction of life unless changes are made (49%).

While 56% of U.S. adults say the government is not spending enough to improve and protect the environment, fewer evangelicals do — 41%, says Baylor sociologist F. Carson Mencken.

Indeed, evangelicals are at least twice as likely as any other major religious group to say the government is already spending too much. Most likely to say spending is too little: Jews, 81%, and people with no religious affiliation, 79%.

Environmentalism has been controversial among evangelicals. When the National Association of Evangelicals launched a “Call to Action” on climate change in 2006, some religious conservatives, led by James Dobson of Focus on the Family, strongly opposed it.

Gender and politics

Are women suited for politics? Americans are deeply divided

The survey reveals deep divisions over women’s roles in society, splits that may play out in the November elections.

For example, 33% of Americans say ”Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than most women.” But 44% of evangelical Protestants agree, more than other Christians and markedly higher than Jews (29%), other religions (23%), and those with no religion (14%).

The Baylor data was gathered in 2007, when Sen. Hillary Clinton was seeking the Democratic nomination, but long before Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was named to the Republican vice-presidential ticket, putting motherhood and gender in the spotlight. Palin is a mother of five, including an infant with Down syndrome.

Both Republican candidates are evangelical Protestants (John McCain is Baptist and Palin non-denominational). Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is a mainline Protestant (United Church of Christ), whose running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, is Roman Catholic.

The survey also finds:

• 41% say a preschooler suffers if the mother works (54% of evangelicals say so, nearly double for other groups).

• 31% say “it’s God’s will that women care for children” (48% for evangelicals).
Will these views shape votes?

Tragedy and evil

Dealing with evil: Candidates disagree

God either causes or allows “major tragedies to occur as a warning to sinners,” say 20% of U.S. adults.

While 43% say most evil is caused by the devil, 47% disagree — a statistical tie.

But most (68%) would not say human nature is basically evil.

So where does evil dwell — in the devil or in mankind? The Baylor survey allows for overlapping views; it finds 36% strongly agree with both statements.

"Those who believe God causes or allows bad things to happen did not speak in terms of tragedies being God’s fault,” says Baylor sociologist Christopher Bader.

Bader says people told him that “tragedies are our fault. We have sinned as a nation and God has stood aside and allowed terrible things to happen.”

Among the questions that the Rev. Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates at his Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency was, ”Does evil exist?” Both candidates said yes.

Sen. Barack Obama said it is “God’s task” to ”erase evil from the world” but “we can be soldiers in that process.”

Sen. John McCain said, ”Evil must be defeated,” and linked it entirely to “the transcendent challenge of the 21st century — radical Islamic extremism.”

Labels: Barack Obama, Baylor Religion Survey, Cathy Lynn Grossman, environmentalism, evil, John McCain, politics, women

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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Poll: Most want church out of politics

By DAVID PAUL KUHN | 8/21/08 2:46 PM EST

Page one of two - please click on "external source" for complete article

For the first time in a dozen years, a majority of Americans believe that churches and religious institutions should “keep out” of politics, according to the annual Pew Religion and Public Life Survey.

It’s the highest level of public concern with faith’s effect on politics since Pew began asking the question in 1996.

The rise in Americans’ desire to separate religion and politics — from 44 percent in 2004 to 52 percent today — appears due to a surprising increase in conservative distaste for mingling the institutions — from 30 percent in 2004 to half of conservatives expressing the view today.

Among white evangelicals, 36 percent want religious groups to stay out of politics, a dramatic rise from 16 percent four years ago.

The findings come in the wake of the Saddleback Civil Forum on Saturday, when, in unprecedented fashion, both presidential candidates — Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama — joined popular evangelical leader Rick Warren at his megachurch for their first back-to-back campaign appearance.

But the study, the most authoritative national survey of politics and religion, was conducted prior to event, July 31 to Aug. 10. Conducted on mobile and land line phones, the survey had a large national sample of 2,905 adults, with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

In the survey, released Thursday, about half of Americans who view gay marriage and abortion as “very important” voting issues say churches should not be involved in politics. In 2004, only one in four voters who saw gay marriage as a top issue said the same, while a third of those who saw abortion as a top issue agreed.

Overall, 48 percent of Americans believe that social conservatives wield “too much” influence in the GOP.

Yet older adults appeared most irked by the mingling of religion and politics. Only 18 percent of Americans age 65 and older said churches should endorse candidates, while roughly a third of voters under age 50 believed a church support for a candidate was appropriate.

The public is also increasingly split over whether they feel “discomfort” when politicians discuss religion in the sphere of public policy, as both Obama and McCain did at length Saturday.

Yet more Americans — half in fact — still say it does not bother them “when politicians talk about how religious they are.” Forty-six percent said they were offended.

American religiosity, however, remains no less prevalent. The public appears to continue to support expressions of faith by public figures while feeling increasingly uncomfortable when that faith falls into the sphere of politics.

The public believes that a president should have “strong religious beliefs.” Fully 72 percent say so today, a modest uptick since 2004 — including 85 percent of voters who attend church at least once a week and 66 percent of independent voters. Equally, only 29 percent of the public believes there is “too much” expression of religious faith by political leaders.

At the same time, the public’s perception of Democrats' unfriendliness to people of faith has significantly improved, though the issue persists.

Labels: abortion, Americans, Barack Obama, David Paul Kuhn, gay rights, John McCain, Pew Religion and Public Life Survey, politics, religion

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Friday, August 15, 2008

New Barna Group Survey on Religion and the Presidential Election

August 12, 2008, 10:27 am
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny

Senator Obama seems to be ahead of Senator McCain among most faith groups.

Among Catholics, he leads 39 percent to 29 percent. But he has slipped since June.

What’s interesting to me about polling, although I know nothing about it, is the formulation of categories. Here is what the article says about categorizing evangelicals. Anybody know if they have as complicated an approach to categorizing Catholics?

Understanding Evangelicals

One of the most frequently reported on groups of voters is evangelicals. Most media polls use a simplistic approach to defining evangelicals, asking survey respondents if they consider themselves to be evangelical. Barna Group surveys, on the other hand, ask a series of nine questions about a person’s religious beliefs in order to determine if they are an evangelical. The differences between the two approaches are staggering.

Using the common approach of allowing people to self-identify as evangelicals, 40% of adults classify themselves as such. Among them, 83% are likely to vote in November. Among the self-reported evangelicals who are likely to vote, John McCain holds a narrow 39% to 37% lead over Sen. Obama. Nearly one-quarter of this segment (23%) is still undecided about who they will vote for.

Using the Barna approach of studying people’s core religious beliefs produces a very different outcome. Just 8% of the adult population qualifies as evangelical based on their answers to the nine belief questions. Among that segment, a significantly higher proportion (90%) is likely to vote in November, and Sen. McCain holds a huge lead (61%-17%) over the Democratic nominee. Overall, just 14% of this group remains undecided regarding their candidate of choice.

Labels: Barack Obama, Cathleen Kaveny, election, evangelicals, John McCain, politics

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Friday, August 08, 2008

Religion, the Election, and the Media

By: Welton Gaddy
Thursday August 7, 2008

The Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life have published a report that confirms my suspicions about the use of religion on the campaign trail. The study found that we are in the midst of an election for a Pastor-in-Chief rather than a Commander-in-Chief.

An analysis of over 13,000 news stories from January 2007 through April 2008 revealed that religion is playing a disproportionate role in this election. Religion accounted for roughly ten percent of all stories that did not focus on political strategy or tactics. By comparison, foreign policy issues garnered 14 percent of these stories, and stories about race and gender only made up 11 percent.

The United States is in the midst of two wars, one of which is costing our taxpayers $6 billion every month. Terrorism represents the greatest foreign policy crisis of our generation. At the same time, American society is being transformed as Senators Clinton and Obama challenged traditional stereotypes of who is best fit to be president. And despite these profound changes and challenges, religion is receiving almost as attention in the media as foreign policy and race/gender issues. And the scary thing is that George W. Bush, who revolutionized using religion for partisan gain, isn't even on the ballot.

There is much blame to go around that explains this troubling trend. The presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle were more willing than ever to seek the endorsement of religious leaders, incorporate religious rhetoric into their speeches, and promote their religious affiliation as a misguided proxy for sound judgment and clear vision.

Both Senators McCain and Obama had some buyer's remorse after seeking the support of controversial clergy. But candidates cannot have it both ways. They cannot continue to use clergy for political gain and then discard them when it no longer fits their agenda.

The media deserve much of the blame as well. Last summer, CNN's Soledad O'Brien asked Senator John Edwards to name his biggest sin. Multiple debate moderators asked various candidates to name their favorite Bible story.

These types of questions have no bearing over a candidate's ability to serve as president. The media are the staunchest supporters of the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and press, yet it appears they have not read Article VI of the Constitution, which prohibits imposing a religious test for public office.

The problem is not that religion is being incorporated into the presidential campaign. Rather the problem is that religion is being used as a divisive tool instead of a unifying power. The candidates need be less concerned with appearing "holier than thou" and focus instead on explaining the role their values play in their political worldview. The media needs to stop asking irrelevant (and irreverent) questions about the candidates' religion and start asking the candidates to outline their views on the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

If we can nurture a more positive relationship between religion and politics, a survey result like this one would be encouraging rather than lamentable.

Labels: America, Barack Obama, John McCain, Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religion, Welton Gaddy

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Keeping faith with the American voter

Saturday April 19, 2008
FOO YEE PING

The Catholic vote has become the focus of both Democrat presidential hopefuls with Pope Benedict XVI visiting the United States.

THERE is a mantra going around that the best way to know how Americans vote is to find out where they are on Sunday.

Over the past five decades, the Gallup Poll frequently surveyed Americans on the role of religion in their lives. Very often, at least 55% indicated that their faith was “very important” to them.

Women, Southerners, senior citizens, non-whites and lower income people were more inclined to say that religion was huge for them.

This week’s first official trip by Pope Benedict XVI to the United States has led to discussions about the Catholic vote; and how the Democratic presidential candidates are chasing it.

In the critical Pennsylvania round this Tuesday, an estimated 36% of the voters are Catholics.

According to news reports, Obama have tried to connect to this group of people by speaking about his time attending a Catholic school during the four years he spent in Indonesia as a child.

Clinton, a Methodist, has been reported as saying that she had felt the presence of God in her life ever since she was a little girl. “And it has been a gift of grace that has been, for me, incredibly sustaining.”

Back in 1960, there had been concerns about John F. Kennedy being a Roman Catholic. But he was a young candidate who offered a different kind of fresh politics to voters, who were also assured that faith would not interfere with any state decisions.

So, what role does religion play in secular America?

“Some people say the United States is the most religious nation in a secular set-up. With the state having no role in promoting religion, the state, too, has an obligation of not interfering in the private lives of its citizens,” Wang said.

“Thus, religion outside of the state flourishes. It plays an important role in America in determining political decisions. No where in the western world would the focus of an election include matters such as abortion.”

But how religious are Americans? USA Today reporting on a survey last year, noted that 60% of Americans could not even recall five of the Ten Commandments.

“Being religious does not mean being ritualistic or having a strong sense of religiosity,” Wang said. “It’s not about taking a quiz to determine a person’s faith.”

He explained that the changes in western society in the past 30 years included individuals trying to be more spiritual than ritualistic.

“At the same time, the tendency to equate religion with morality is prevalent in America,” he added.

In that sense, Americans would never vote for an atheist.

“As religion equals morality, atheism is seen as the end of morality, turning society into chaos,” Wang said.

“Americans, although firm believers in individual freedom and a free market, can accept protectionism or even a soft socialist as their president, but they will never accept an atheist.”

Jimmy Carter, for example, was left leaning but voters liked his strong Christian beliefs, he said.

Republican Mitt Romney failed in his bid for his party presidential nomination because Americans were mostly uneasy about his Mormon faith.

“He also did not succeed because he tried to pretend to be someone he isn’t, He tried to be more conservative than he actually is,” Wang pointed out.

Both Clinton and Obama have employed Catholic officials to speak on their behalf in their clamour to win over the faithful. A vast majority of the earlier arrivals among working class Hispanics are professed Catholics, too.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found in a recent survey that one in four Americans aged 18 to 29 declared they were not affiliated with any religion.

Be that as it may be, a person’s personal faith and religious views is a weighty factor in determining the choice of political candidacy in the United States.

Labels: Barack Obama, faith, Foo Yee Ping, Hillary Clinton, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religion

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Monday, March 31, 2008

A God of War? Presidential Faith and U.S. Foreign Policy

By Lyn Boyd-Judson

The religious values held by George W. Bush have undoubtedly informed his foreign policy decisions. This simple fact should give every American voter pause.

For the past eight years, many like-minded Americans have rejoiced in the current president's conservative Christian worldview and its foreign policy consequences, rather than recognizing that this worldview is a profoundly disturbing element of his presidency. They take comfort in the belief that their president receives God's guidance in political matters, both domestic and foreign. Their logic is that if good and evil exist in our world, the tension between the two manifests in the political realm and plays out in our foreign policy.

In contrast, those Americans - both secularists and liberal Christians - who find the current president's claims of divine guidance profoundly disturbing argue that one of the key principles on which the U.S. was founded is freedom from religion in state institutions. They argue that the founding fathers were deists who advocated a natural religion based on human reason rather than divine revelation. They understand that one's religious beliefs or worldview can never truly be divorced from decision-making, but they also hold that these religious assumptions should constantly be re-evaluated by rational and factual criteria when applied to matters of state. So when it is reported that President Bush says he receives divine guidance on matters of U.S. foreign policy - for instance, that God told him to invade Iraq? - these Americans believe that all citizens, Christian or otherwise, should be profoundly disturbed, because an unjust war can never be a divine war.

This contrast between American Christian worldviews is starkly apparent in the recent media reports of controversial comments made by religious leaders connected to the current presidential candidates. Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has made inflammatory remarks about the U.S. government, suggesting that the U.S. is racist on the home front and that its foreign policy is unjust, aggressive and foments Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens. John McCain has close ties to pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee. Parsley has claimed that Islam is a false religion that America should destroy, and John Hagee has called for bombing Iran to hasten the Christian apocalypse.

Several political pundits describe the current politico-cultural divide in the U.S. as a rift between God-fearing Christians and "secular" (read atheist) liberal intellectuals from (pick your coast). Of course, this distinction is inaccurate and misleading. The divide in American political culture over God is not so much about whether Americans believe in God as it is about how the 90 percent of Americans who believe in God? want to define his purpose in our political world. In this sense, the divide in American political culture over a presidential God is an argument between the politically left-leaning Christian who embraces a God of peace, inclusiveness, forgiveness and social justice, and the politically right-leaning Christian who embraces a God Almighty whose main attributes are judgment, the strength to vanquish enemies, and the righteous impulse to devalue - even destroy - all things not Christian. Again, which presidential God will shape the foreign policy decisions made in the Oval Office?

As Americans, regardless of our religious beliefs or political commitments, it is our duty as voters to reflect deeply on what we value in foreign policy initiatives, why we hold these values, and how we express them in the public sphere. We need reasonable voices speaking to reconcile the factions in the religio-political divide - a divide not over whether a candidate knows God, but over how Americans want to define the role of a candidate's God in a president's foreign policy. While religious values can certainly inform our moral impulses, the distinction between an exclusive or inclusive God is where war and peace often hang in the balance.

Labels: Americans, Barack Obama, Christianity, George Bush, John McCain, Lyn Boyd-Judson, politics, religion, war

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

Faith news

March 29, 2008

— One in every ten voters in America believes Barack Obama to be a Muslim, a survey has revealed. White evangelical Protestants and Americans from the Southern, mid-Western and rural states are the most likely to hold this view, according to the poll commissioned by the Pew Research Centre.

— A hotel in Nashville is removing the Bible from its bedrooms and offering guests a “spiritual” reading menu instead. Reports in the Tennessee press say the Hotel Preston will invite guests to call room service to ask for the religious book of their choice. The selection offered will include the Koran, Book of Mormon, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism as well as the King James Bible. “Our guests come from different places and they definitely come from different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, so we want everyone to feel welcomed and comfortable,” said Dina Nishioka, public relations director for Hotel Preston.

— A German security agency has published a teenage comic illustrated with Manga cartoon sketches as an attempt to combat the appeal of Islamic extremists. One hundred thousand copies of Andi, a comic relating the adventures of a schoolboy with a Muslim girlfriend who is influenced by a radical preacher, have been published and distributed to every secondary school in Germany. They have been produced by the intelligence and security department of the interior ministry of North-Rhine Westphalia. Spokesperson Hartwig Moller explained: “We had to make clear we weren't aiming against Muslims, but only those people who want to misuse Islam for political aims." The magazine is intended for use in citizenship and religion lessons for 12-16 year olds.

— Yale University is running a course on the theology of Harry Potter. Danielle Tumminio, a graduate from Yale Divinity School has devised a study programme that examines Christian themes of sin, evil and resurrection in JK Rowling's seven Harry Potter books. She described the course as “a critical endeavour” adding that she did not wish to “indoctrinate students.”

— A church magazine in Canada has become the first sponsor in North America of a travelling exhibition devoted to the life and work of Charles Darwin. David Wilson, editor of The United Church Observer, decided after learning the exhibition had attracted no corporate funding that the magazine should sponsor the exhibition. “There is nothing in the exhibit that threatens or diminishes religion. If anything, it shines a light on the inherent beauty and wonder of a creation that is constantly and eternally evolving,” he explained. Darwin: The Evolution Revolution is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto until until August 4 and will later come to the Natural History Museum in London.

— The governing body of the Church of Wales is to vote on whether women should be ordained as bishops. The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan said: "I do not personally see how, having agreed to ordaining women to both the diaconate and priesthood, the church can logically exclude women from the episcopate.” The vote will take place on Wednesday when the governing body is due to meet.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bible, bishops, Darwin, Harry Potter, Islam, women

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Saturday, September 01, 2007

Religion Shaping Race and Defining Candidates

August 27, 2007
New York Daily News

NEW YORK - A crowd cheered fervently in Iowa this month as Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback quoted Mother Teresa telling him, "All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus."

Barack Obama's recently launched Spanish-language radio ad in Nevada tells the targeted Hispanic audience, "Barack Obama is a Christian man."

Hillary Clinton doesn't hesitate to let voters know the importance of prayer in her life, while Rudy Giuliani awkwardly dodges questions about his standing as a Catholic.

And then there's Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Everywhere he goes, Romney faces questions about his Mormon faith.

Religion has played a role in presidential elections throughout history. But not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic elected to the White House, has it been as omnipresent on the campaign trail.

Historians and political experts say it's unlikely religion - or social issues embraced by Christian conservatives - will dominate the 2008 path to the Oval Office because the war in Iraq and homeland security seem uppermost in voters' minds.

"Nothing in the conversation, thus far, makes it sound like gay marriage and abortion are going to outshine the war," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center.

But there's no escaping religion on the campaign trail. While other issues loom large, voters want to know where candidates stand when it comes to faith.

Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School and professor of church history, said the campaign now under way showcases the nation's "continuing religious saga."

A century ago, "nobody would have believed" a Catholic could be elected president, Leonard said. The 2008 race is "just another illustration of the power of pluralism in American religious experience, that indeed a Catholic was elected and that indeed a Mormon is running as such a potentially viable candidate."

Earlier this year, a Pew Research Center survey revealed religion continues to play a role in shaping voters' decisions. Nearly four in 10 Americans said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is Christian, and 63 percent would not support a candidate who doesn't believe in God.

The poll showed 30 percent of Americans admitting they were less likely to vote for a Mormon. That hurdle rises to 46 percent for a Muslim.

For Clinton and Giuliani, the two New Yorkers seeking the Oval Office, the role of religion in their campaigns is a study in contrasts.

Clinton, a Methodist, talks freely about the power of prayer in her life. She's spoken publicly about how religion helped her overcome tough struggles, most notably her decision to forgive infidelity in her marriage.

"Obviously, my faith was crucial to the challenges I faced," Clinton recently told The New York Times, when asked whether her religion influenced her to stay married to Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky affair.

But Giuliani, who had an affair with his current wife while married to his second wife, took a virtual vow of silence when asked in Iowa this month about his religious beliefs.

"My religious affiliation ... and the degree to which I am a good or not-so-good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests," said Giuliani, who once considered becoming a priest.

Former Sen. John Edwards, a Methodist, sparked controversy when he cited his faith as influencing his opposition to same-sex marriage. Later, at a forum on gay issues, he recanted. "I shouldn't have said that," said Edwards, drawing applause.

Many candidates, especially Democrats, feel compelled to discuss religion openly because President Bush's profession of faith played a prominent role in his successful 2000 and 2004 White House bids, giving the religious right plenty of political clout.

But when it comes time to pulling the lever, most experts said they doubt religion will be the deciding factor.

"There are some regions of the country where religious ideology and a certain kind of (faith) shape voters' decisions very much," Leonard said. But bottom line, Americans "want to know who is going to get us home from Iraq, and are any more bridges going to fall down, and what do we still do about New Orleans."

Labels: Barack Obama, faith, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Pew Research Center survey, politics, religion, Sam Brownback, voters