Obama and evangelicals: Summer of love

June 29th, 2008 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0) |

I’ve had this post sitting in “draft” status for a while, but when I saw Shane Claiborne on the front page of CNN.com (pictured above) with the headline Young Evangelicals not a lock for Republicans, I was pushed over the edge (HT: Aaron Alexander via Twitter).

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post called Are evangelicals abandoning their political agenda? (which was featured on Reuters) in which I said “Perhaps it’s getting harder to hear the rally cries [of the Right] because John McCain is a stupendously weak GOP candidate who doesn’t really push the traditional evangelical agenda. Or perhaps it’s because Barack Obama is really the uniter who he has promised to be, erasing generations-old lines in the sand.” Since publishing that post, it seems like that argument is all that I read about. Below you’ll find several articles that present a similar proposition.

Mr. Right?: The Rise of the Obamacons (The New Republic)

But you probably have not have heard of many of the Obamacons–and neither has the Obama campaign. When I checked with it to ask for a list of prominent conservative supporters, the campaign seemed genuinely unaware that such supporters even existed. But those of us on the right who pay attention to think tanks, blogs, and little magazines have watched Obama compile a coterie drawn from the movement’s most stalwart and impressive thinkers. It’s a group that will no doubt grow even larger in the coming months.

Evangelical flock strays from the Republican fold (The Observer)

Yet McCain’s problems have led to speculation about a narrowing ‘God gap’ between Republicans and Democrats. Some of Barack Obama’s aides believe they can move into the evangelical bloc and win over many of the voters that elected Bush. In Chicago last week Obama met 30 religious leaders, including the Rev TD Jakes, pastor of a Dallas mega-church. His staff also held the first fundraiser for Obama by a new group of evangelicals called the Matthew 25 Network.

Obama’s Evangelical Biographer (The New Republic)

“For Obama, faith is not simply political garb, something a focus group told him he ought to try. Instead, religion to him is transforming, lifelong, and real,” Mansfield writes.”

Obama’s Faithful (The American Conservative)

For years progressives have dreamed of getting Evangelicals to connect with anti-poverty and environmental programs. Obama may be the one to do it. As Ross says, he is just better than McCain at framing his progressive policies as part of a moral mission.

Evangelicals Are Crucial to Winning the 2008 Election (Newsweek)

Young evangelicals reflect their pastors’ diffidence. As conservative as their parents in most respects—and more conservative in opposing abortion—many young evangelicals are fatigued by the culture war (and have greater worries about $4 gas). They say they don’t want to be Republican just because that’s what’s expected.

Young Evangelicals Aim to Broaden Agenda (Washington Post)

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.

You get the point.

A couple of observations: First, as more and more of the Obama/evangelical articles pop up, it’s beginning to all sound the same. No one is breaking any new ground. The original “Obama is attracting some evangelicals, and that’s ‘new’ in (recent) politics” is the hot election topic, so the story is being written and rewritten for myriad publications. Unfortunately, this probably means it’s all we’ll hear about for a while, and it’s all the analysts will talk about on November 4 — either way (”Are you surprised that Obama was able to pull in x% of the evangelical vote?” or “Why do you think Obama failed to bring in the evangelical vote tonight?”).

Second, although this is the hot topic, not everyone agrees with the argument. For example:

In the end, important changes surely have been afoot throughout wider evangelicalism, but neither are the most significant of these developments “recent” nor do they spell a collapse of traditional evangelical commitments in the social-political arena that equate to an exodus to the Democratic party.

What are your thought on the Obama/evangelical “summer of love”? Leave a comment and let me know. Did I miss any major stories anywhere?