Author Archives: Fred Yi

Doug Pagitt: Sarah Palin and the Role of Women in Religion and Politics

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I attended my first-ever political convention last week–the RNC in St. Paul. I must say it was a good one to start with. The Sarah Palin effect was all the buzz of the arena and gave a unified theme to the night that I was on the convention floor. I interviewed dozens of delegates from at least 10 states and found an amazing amount of consistency among them:

They were only marginally familiar with Sarah Palin. All the people I talked to had only heard of her by name or not at all before John McCain made his announcement on August 29.

They are passionate about her. I heard “she is almost over-qualified;” “she is the best person for the job;” “she will bring balance to McCain who is too far to the middle”

John McCain made the perfect pick. There was a total commitment to her.

The most surprising response for me was to the role of a woman as vice-president and as it related to the worldview of religious conservatives. I asked questions about how people who hold that women should not be in spiritual leadership over men (a view called “complementarian”) would respond to having a woman vice-president and potentially president). If you are not familiar with the line of thinking, it goes something like this:

Men and women are created in a relational order. Men are under God and women are under men. This is not to say that women are lesser than men, but just as tools are designed for specific purposes so is gender a guide to relational order. The Bible is used to support this view specifically passages like Genesis 2:7, 21-24; 1 Timothy 2:12-15; 1 Corinthians 11:8-9; Genesis 2; 1 Corinthians 11:8-10; Romans 5:12-19.

This is not a totally fringe view. It is supported by the Southern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church in America, and many independent churches. It is perhaps the most common perspective among the evangelical religious right.

mccainpalin.jpgThere is an additional line of thinking that this vice-presidential nomination raises. It comes from reading Hebrews 13:17 and 1 Peter 2:13-14 in the same way as the above passages are read: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.” “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.”

Many religious conservatives have used these verses to make the argument that God places our leaders over us, and to obey them is to obey God. For that leader to be a woman would mean that men would have a woman over them as a leader. This is a problem.

Many who hold to the complementarian view would say there is a difference between church leadership and governmental leadership. But this poses a problem for those who want to suggest that the president is God’s appointed leader.

I raised some form of this question with the delegates I interviewed. I asked, “Do you think it will be a problem for religious conservatives who hold that women should not have authority over men and who do not allow a woman to be a pastor of a church or teach a Sunday school class with men in it? Will they have a problem with a woman vice-president?”

To a person the response was Yes, I am sure they will. But they will just need to get over it.

I was fascinated to think that this nomination could actually weaken the complementary view or the view of the president being God’s chosen leader because of the commitment to support the pro-life ticket. It will be quite a dilemma for some religious conservatives who will have to choose between commitments. And there is no doubt that the support for Governor Palin rests squarely on her pro-life stance.

From the delegates I spoke to I am sure that the times, they are a changin’.

–Doug Pagitt is the author of A CHRISTIANITY WORTH BELIEVING and founder of Solomon’s Porch, a Christian community in Minneapolis.

Gary Dorrien: Back to the Subject

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When the Democratic Convention started, Barack Obama’s main challenge was to change the focus of the election from himself to a miserably failing economy, including its energy-and-environment dimension. By the time the Republican Convention started, Obama had the same problem with the Sarah Palin phenomenon. The McCain campaign would love to have an election that revolves around Obama and Palin. More than ever, Obama needs to turn the election into a referendum on larger matters.

John McCain had no chance of uniting the Republican Convention by himself, let alone of energizing and elating the party’s right-wing base. He was the first Republican since 1948 to win the nomination without the support of the party base, and he knew that flag-waving militarism would take him only so far at the convention and in the election campaign. He struck a political gusher by turning to Palin, which electrified the party base and improved McCain’s chances with evangelicals, Reagan Democrats, Westerners, hunters, non-feminist women, and perhaps suburban independents.

Palin does not help McCain in his weakest area, his bankruptcy on economy/energy/ecology. Her knowledge base about the world beyond Alaska is worrisome. And it is very much in question whether McCain’s Janus-faced convention strategy will play for two months of everyday campaigning. The Republican Convention featured three nights of right-wing bombast for the base, all approved by the candidate, followed by the candidate’s assurance that he floats above partisanship and attack politics. That dubious combination smacks of the Fox Network’s claim to be “fair and balanced,” which no one takes seriously. McCain needs to be careful not to flunk the laugh test.

But his desperate turn to Palin has already paid off enormously. Palin is a huge plus for the Republicans in her current role, dwarfing the contribution that any other running mate would have made. She is charismatic and unlike any nominee of the past. Her strong, spunky, skillfully delivered speech was by far the highlight of the convention. It was also the most sarcastic and mean-spirited acceptance speech in memory at any convention, filled with mocking zingers that apparently are her stock in trade.

Rudy Guliani tossed out lots of red meat, but he was speaking as a primary campaign loser and convention energizer, not a nominee. Mitt Romney won the prize for red meat, declaring that even the Roberts Supreme Court is liberal, like the rest of “liberal Washington.” But Romney had his eye on 2012, not this November. Still, envisioning himself as the favorite of the party’s culture-warring base, he had in mind Goldwater in 1960 and Reagan in 1976 — passionate cries from the far right that paid dividends four years later. Somehow Romney has not absorbed that the evangelical right will never rally behind a Mormon, especially him. In the meantime, Palin sailed past Romney, Mike Huckabee, and all other claimants to the favor of the religious right, shoring up a presidential nominee who was never in the running for it.

For the Republican base, Palin’s nomination is a realized fantasy and a delicious play to Hillary Clinton’s supporters. For the Obama campaign, it is a dangerous distraction from what the election needs to be about. For Democrats, the economy is the key to winning the election. For Republicans, the key is to drive up voter unease with Obama.

On the edge of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Republicans had astonishingly little to say about skyrocketing mortgage foreclosures and job losses. The exception was Fred Thompson, who ridiculed Democrats (with an echo of whiner-hating Phil Gramm) for complaining about economic stress.

The case for throwing out the ruling party is awfully strong; thus the Republicans rarely mentioned George W. Bush or even used the word “Republican.” The U.S. economy needs to create at least 100,000 jobs per month to keep up with a growing population. This year the economy has lost jobs in every month, totaling 605,000 lost jobs in 2008 thus far. McCain, mindful of the Phil Gramm fiasco, aptly remarked that the Bush Administration seems not to care about the human suffering behind these figures. But McCain has no plan that differs from Bush or Gramm.

The mortgage meltdown is colossal, totaling $2.5 trillion of lost value thus far. To a large degree it was caused by the Bush Administration’s ideologically driven refusal to sensibly regulate the mortgage industry, but McCain has the same ideology. The Bush budget deficits are similarly enormous and self-inflicted, fueled chiefly by Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and five years of consequences for invading Iraq. But McCain would make the deficits worse by cutting corporate taxes, eliminating the alternative minimum income tax, ramping up military spending, and making permanent Bush’s tax cuts for the upper class.

Keeping Bush’s tax cuts would cost the federal treasury $1 trillion over four years. McCain’s only idea for cutting the budget deficit is to cut earmarks. If he somehow managed to cut all of them, the savings would total only $19 billion per year. The U.S. spends more than that in Iraq every two months. For McCain to keep a straight face about earmarks, he must explain a running mate who specializes in competing for them. As mayor of tiny Wasilla, Palin lobbied for earmarks totaling $27 million, and in less than two years of governing Alaska she sought nearly $750 million of special federal funding, by far the greatest per capita request by any U.S. governor. Her gas pipeline for Alaska would be a monument to her skill at the earmark game. She boasts of taking on the oil industry, but that was only for a larger share of windfall profits, not to break America’s addiction to oil. The oil companies are hoping fervently for a McCain-Palin victory.

McCain once had a sensible position on the Bush tax cuts, which he dropped to make himself competitive in Republican presidential primaries. He once aspired to be known as a green conservative, but on his way to the nomination he deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill that would expand America’s wind and solar industries. He once opposed offshore drilling on the ground that the environment matters, but he dropped environmentalism on the way to the nomination. He still opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), savoring his last dissent from Bush-style oil politics, but now he has a running mate who advocates drilling in ANWR.

McCain’s alliance with a drill-everywhere enthusiast is apparently a case of one thing leading to another, not a coincidence. One of Palin’s chief boosters for the vice-presidential nod was neoconservative pundit and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who touted her brassy toughness and urged McCain operatives not to rule her out. In mid-August, Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes urged McCain to meet with Palin to hear her case for drilling in ANWR. McCain indicated that he was willing to do so. The Weekly Standard, not content to wait for an actual meeting, announced McCain’s promise in a splashy article by Hayes featuring a picture of Palin. Now that lightning has struck for Palin, McCain’s conversion on ANWR drilling is probably immanent.

mccainpalinBannerII.jpgThat gives the Obama campaign two enormous distractions to overcome–the endless fascination of Obama and the explosion of fascination with Palin. This week, while Palin studies up on the world, the election is mostly about her. A certain amount of time has to be spent highlighting her howlers and extremism. For example, in her convention speech Palin claimed that Obama has never authored a single major law or reform, “not even in the state senate.” Either she did not know the truth or did not feel constrained by it. Obama pushed through two major bills in Illinois dealing with racial profiling by police and the recording of interrogations in potential death penalty cases, and in the Senate he has been a leader on ethics reform legislation and intercepting illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction.

But dwelling defensively on Palin and her worldview is a loser for the Democrats, who must summon the discipline and moxie to swing the discussion back to jobs, homes, credit, energy, the environment, and the world.

Democrats should not assume that an electoral windfall awaits when Palin debates Joe Biden. Palin is sharper than George W. Bush in give-and-take exchanges, and the mention of Bush calls up painful memories. In 2000, Al Gore wiped the floor with Bush in the first debate, but the media fixated on Gore’s grunts and sighs. In the second debate Bush relied on slogans to cover his ignorance of foreign policy, but it didn’t matter; Gore shut down and the story was still about his strangeness. By then Gore’s lead was gone and the election was a toss-up.

The debates are enormously important this year, as is the necessity of mounting a focused, essentially populist campaign. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Obama is weak in all four of the crucial swing states that will decide the election—Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida. Hillary beat him badly in Ohio and Pennsylvania, though Biden is now helping Obama in Pennsylvania; he has never competed in Michigan and Florida; and Florida may be out of reach.

In the past eight years nearly all U.S. economic growth went to the top five percent of earners, while the middle class was saved from drowning only by taking on greater debt. But now the debt resort has reached its outer limit, and middle class and working class people are losing their homes and jobs. We need massive new investments in education, health care, and green technology to meet our human and ecological needs and to utilize the productive capacity of the economy. The nations that succeed economically over the next generation will be the ones that successfully convert to alternative forms of energy. The others will decay and choke on their waste.

If Obama can summon his inner populist in a disciplined, passionate, compelling manner, he can win the election and put the U.S. on a better course. If he doesn’t, he won’t.

–Gary Dorrien is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and professor of religion at Columbia University.

Mark G. Toulouse: The Religion of the Republic

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The conventions are over. Truckloads of trash have found their way to landfills, despite best efforts to “go green.” Massive sets of Democratic Doric columns and the 51 foot by 30 foot high-definition screen of the Republicans, composed of 561 Hibino four-millimeter Chroma LED panels and often filled with shots of an American flag flapping in the breeze, have all been returned to wherever it is such things go. Pundits, left and right and indifferent, have offered their takes on anything and everything. Religion and the conventions has been a popular theme.

For the first time in their history, the Democrats seemed to do “religion” right, reflecting Obama’s firm belief that all religious voices belong in debates concerning public policy. Appointing a Pentecostal minister as the chief executive officer of the convention brought new religious twists, including a rousing interfaith service on Sunday afternoon and four “faith caucuses” held throughout the convention. Both Republicans and Democrats began and ended each session with prayer from a variety of religious leaders, though the Democrats, as was especially true of their delegations as a whole, held a decided edge in the diversity department. The important speeches all ended with the obligatory “God bless America” or similar ritualistic catch-phrases meant to communicate the piety of our great country. Speeches were carefully crafted to include meaningful religious references where appropriate, but unplanned references crept in here and there. In addition to the two references to God scripted in his VP acceptance speech, Joe Biden added four impromptu, colloquial, perhaps even profane references in actual delivery (not quite the pious references Democrats had in mind), as in “God, I wish that my dad was here tonight.” Family values got their pitch as well, as both parties highlighted (exploited?) the children, spouses, and parents of their candidates.

Democrats hope their efforts to take faith seriously will close the perceived “God gap” between the political parties. A Pew Forum poll released the week before Denver indicates that Obama has made some progress in closing the gap. Thirty-eight percent of Americans (it was 26 percent just two years ago) find the Democrats generally friendly toward religion. But they are still behind the 52 percent of Americans who see the Republicans that way. If Democrats can pick up a few percentage points among white Catholics and evangelicals, the election would be much harder for Republicans to win in November.

To be honest, I’m less interested in these kinds of analyses of religion and the conventions than I am in how the conventions actually demonstrated a religious vision of America and its role in the world. This slant on religion and the political parties has been largely ignored by most. In what ways did the conventions reveal how parties and candidates think about America religiously, something Sidney Mead described as “the religion of the Republic”? Mead, an American religious historian who died in 1999, argued in his book THE LIVELY EXPERIMENT that America itself possessed a transcendent and universal religion that is “articulated in terms of the destiny of America, under God, to be fulfilled by perfecting the democratic way of life for the example and betterment of all mankind.” These conventions demonstrated well that American civil religion, or the religion of the Republic, still moves many Americans to convention ecstasy, including Americans who claim to take Christian faith, or other traditional faiths, so seriously.

For the Democrats, signs proclaimed a commitment to “change you can believe in.” But the theme of the convention consistently emphasized a need to renew the “promise of America.” America is the one “glorious nation” under God “where anyone who works hard enough can make the most of their God-given potential.” “This,” proclaimed New York Governor David Paterson, “is the promise of America.” Throughout, Democratic leaders sounded the theme that the essential promise of America (and therefore, the country’s mission) is threatened by the fiasco of the last eight years of Republican leadership. From states like Missouri, Iowa, West Virginia, and others the convention heard speeches emphasizing how hardworking people have survived the challenges of life to make it, and how the past decade has threatened to take away their hopes at keeping their slice of the “American dream” alive. In this way, the Democrats appealed to the self-interest of every American. They spoke of an America focused on individual accomplishment and advancement. Hillary Clinton hammered the theme well: “I ran for President to renew the promise of America. To rebuild the middle class and sustain the American Dream. . . .We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend of American confidence and optimism . . . who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit there are no limits to what is possible in America.” Bill Clinton echoed these phrases with his own as he stressed that the “American Dream is under siege at home.”

obamawide.jpgIn his inspiring address, Obama spoke of his parents who believed in an America where “their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.” “It is that promise that has always set this country apart — that through hard work and sacrifice each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.” The mission of America, for Democrats, is to keep “the American promise alive.” Thus, if threatened from the outside, Democrats can and will take the military actions necessary to secure the American future, to keep America “that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.” In other words, America is the great example for the world and must be protected, but its promise must never be abused or misused. Bill Clinton spoke a one-liner that said it best: “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.” Obama summarized “the promise of America — the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper. . . . Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility — that’s the essence of America’s promise.” Then, continuing his use of biblical allusions to apply to Americans, Obama closed his speech with “Let us keep that promise — that American promise — and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.” Is he talking of the hope Christians have in Christ? No, here the hope is the one that all Americans share in the promise of America — the hope that we can succeed, have a good life, and teach the world how to live by our example.

The Republican “religion of the Republic” stressed other commitments. While the Democrats emphasized the disastrous economy and the loss of America’s standing as example across the world, the Republicans emphasized placing “Country First.” While they also sounded well the note that all Americans should prosper, they emphasized that Obama was not tough enough to insure America’s safety. He would, warned Mike Huckabee, “continue to give madmen the benefit of the doubt.” Fred Thompson told the convention that John McCain would be the kind of president “who feels no need to apologize for the United States of America.” Republicans believe in an America whose mission is threatened more by external forces than internal economic problems. “Our country is calling,” Thompson reminded listeners. President Bush emphasized the “dangerous world” we live in and the need for a president who will protect America by staying “on the offense [and] stop attacks before they happen.” Rudy Giuliani touted McCain as the “man who believes in serving a cause greater than self-interest [then, going off-script] and that cause is the United States of America — America comes first!” McCain’s address to the convention offered a kind of religious testimony. In moving terms people often use when talking of their experiences of God, he said that the prison in Hanoi changed him: “I wasn’t my own man anymore. I was my country’s.”

rncconvention.JPGIn the well-established tradition of President Bush and any self-respecting religion, Republicans spoke often of good and evil and America’s representation of the good in the world. Romney said it clearly: “Republicans believe that there is good and evil in the world. . . John McCain hit the nail on the head: radical violent Islam is evil, and he will defeat it!” In facing the threat posed by radical Islam and all other evils, John McCain and Sarah Palin will “keep America as it has always been — the hope of the world.” This Republican hope for the world does not rest in the American example of living freely, but rather in its proactive expansion of freedom across the world. Republicans are, Giuliani exclaimed, the party that “believes unapologetically in America’s essential greatness.” Palin attacked Obama as one who “wants to forfeit” in Iraq and is “worried that someone won’t read [al Qaeda] their rights.” But McCain possesses “the special confidence of those who have seen evil, and seen how evil is overcome.” Though she did not do so at the convention, she told ministry students meeting at her former church in Anchorage that American troops in Iraq are serving in a “task that is from God.” In the Republican understanding of the religion of the Republic, little seems to separate America and expansion of freedom from good, and the threats to these from evil. While McCain’s speech was much more subdued than Palin’s and underscored that government should “make sure you have more choices to make for yourself,” he claimed to “know how the world works” and to “know the good and the evil in it.” Where Democrats are running to renew the promise of America and its example, Republicans are running, in McCain’s words, “to keep the country I love safe,” and to “see the threats to peace and liberty in our time clearly and face them.”

These are two very different versions of the religion of the Republic. One emphasizes the life of the ordinary American and the divine right existing in the promise of America to fulfill all God-given potential. It is largely a religion aimed at self-interest. As Hillary Clinton said, “it comes down to you — the American people, your lives, and your children’s futures.” In this version, America serves as an example of freedom to the world, the nation where human beings can thrive and succeed and live the life that God intended them to live in harmony and peace with one another — a nation that models what God intends for all nations. Americans can fight external enemies, if need be, to preserve the promise of the nation, but they are not proactively looking for a fight. No word about how the American drive for success, even at the individual level, affects the rest of the world, or how the American freedom to consume impacts resources for everyone else.

mccainsign.JPGThe other version highlights evil in the world and is confident that America is the divine agent called to fight it, a nation on the offensive. Here the nation is the church, the place where God is present and active in mission, but it is clearly the nation, on God’s behalf, that defeats evil and brings freedom and democracy, by any means necessary, to the rest of the world. Like the Democrats, Republicans can also quote the Bible, as President Bush did at Ellis Island on the first anniversary of 9/11 when he said, “This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. May God bless America.” Without acknowledging it, President Bush used John 1:4, a passage describing the Word of God, in whom “was life, and the life was the light of all people,” to refer to the hope of America and its role as a light to the nations. This messianic, and very religious, understanding of America contains profound, and usually tragic, implications for all other peoples and nations in the world.

So what are good people of faith to do with these versions of the religion of the Republic? Of the two versions, I’m more drawn to the former than the latter, to an understanding of example rather than imperial mission. But from a Christian perspective I am put off by its constant appeal to self-interest. I genuinely miss some expression of the prophetic vision of Jimmy Carter’s understanding of the “spiritual malaise” that continues, I think, to affect American life. But others will have to make their own choices. My hope is that they will do so with the full recognition that, while both parties try to convince us that they are hospitable to people of faith, each is actually proposing a competing religious vision to those that the traditional faiths espouse.

— Mark G. Toulouse is professor of American religious history at Brite Divinity School and the author of GOD IN PUBLIC: FOUR WAYS AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY AND PUBLIC LIFE RELATE (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). Beginning January 1, he will be principal and professor of the history of Christianity at Emmanuel College, Victoria University, in the University of Toronto.

Listen Now / Read the Transcript

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Listen to this episode now:
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TRANSCRIPT:
Episode no. 1201

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Coming up – the Republican ticket is in place and conservative evangelicals say they love Sarah Palin.

KIM LEHMAN (Iowa Delegate): It was like taking a rubber band, pulling it backwards and just shooting it through excitement.

ABERNETHY: And moderate Muslim televangelists challenging fundamentalist Islam and reaching millions through satellite television.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

BOB ABERNETHY: Welcome. I’m Bob Abernethy. It’s good to have you with us as we begin our 12th year on the air.

Senator JOHN MCCAIN (during acceptance speech, Republican National Convention): Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight.

ABERNETHY: Over patriotic shouts and symbols, John McCain this week officially accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president.

Sen. MCCAIN: We’re Americans and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history. Thank you and God bless you, and God bless America.

ABERNETHY: McCain’s surprising choice of Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate was overwhelmingly popular among Republican social conservatives. Kim Lawton covered the Republican Convention, and has our report.

KIM LAWTON: Kim Lehman is a Roman Catholic and an Iowa delegate to the Republican National Convention. Her opposition to abortion was one of the reasons she got involved in politics. Like many other religious conservatives, Lehman came here not feeling completely enthused about John McCain’s candidacy.

KIM LEHMAN (Iowa Delegate): It wasn’t as lukewarm as much as it was waiting to see if John McCain was going to hold to his commitment to have a pro-life administration.

LAWTON: Lehman says McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate changed everything.

Ms. LEHMAN: It was like taking a rubber band, pulling it backward and just shooting us through excitement. And so all of us, being on the reciprocating end of emails, phone calls -everybody’s excited.

Governor SARAH PALIN (during acceptance speech, Republican National Convention): We are expected to govern with integrity, good will, clear convictions, and a servant’s heart.

LAWTON: The nomination of Palin, an evangelical Christian who bly opposes abortion, has been controversial in some quarters. But it has clearly mobilized the Republican Party’s social conservative base and given the McCain ticket a big boost of energy. Many in that base were deeply concerned in the weeks leading up to the convention when McCain’s campaign floated the idea of picking a pro-choice running mate.

Dr. RICHARD LAND (President of the Ethics and Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention): I told the McCain people flat out that would inflict a mortal wound on his campaign, one from which he could not have recovered. If he had picked a pro-choice candidate, he was going to lose. He still may lose. But that would have, that would have been it. He could never have recovered among evangelicals and social conservative Catholics if he had picked a pro-choice running mate.

LAWTON: Pro-family conservatives here were not fazed by the news that Palin’s unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. And as media questions about Palin’s family life intensified, so did conservative resentment.

GARY BAUER (President, American Values, speaking at Republican Convention): They have taken a 17-year-old girl and they are trying to use the crisis pregnancy that she finds herself in as a battering ram, as a club to damage her mother, her family, to damage Senator McCain. It is outrageous. It’s tabloid journalism and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

LAWTON: Leaders here said they did not expect a widespread evangelical backlash over the fact that Palin is a working mom with small children, especially because Palin’s husband Todd shoulders much of the family responsibility.

CHARMAINE YOEST (Americans United for Life Action): To me it appears that they may have made a real conscious decision to move forward in a family partnership in a mission that she’s been called to. And so I think we have to be very careful as we look at each family and the decisions they have made, particularly when they very clearly have made decisions to have the father very heavily involved in taking care of the children.

LAWTON: Evangelicals and other social conservatives have been a key part of the Republican’s winning coalition. And the GOP is depending on them again this year. But the party also has to walk a fine line. According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, nearly half of all Americans think religious conservatives have too much control over the Republican Party.

Still, Republican strategists are developing a wide-ranging effort to mobilize religious voters. Nancy Pfotenhauer is a senior policy advisor to the McCain campaign.

NANCY PFOTENHAUER (Senior Policy Advisor, McCain Campaign): They’re a crucial part of the electorate. And you know, we get a lot of energy from this part of our base. I’m a proud member of the faith community. This community knows how to impact elections. And they’ve got the networks in place than can do so – everything from going door to door to speaking to their communities, to getting information out, to turning out the vote.

LAWTON: Evangelicals gathered for a prayer breakfast at a local Christian club, even though the venue was far away from the main convention events. They are the single largest religious voting bloc and they are entrenched in many levels of the Republican Party apparatus. People like Tamara Scott, a delegate from Iowa, believe they are part of a longstanding tradition of faith influencing American politics.

TAMARA SCOTT (Iowa Delegate): Once I got into politics, I was even more encouraged to find out our founding fathers had the same basic tenets of faith that I do, and that’s what created this great country. It was their faith that spurred them on and gave them the courage to take the brave steps that they did in signing that Declaration of Independence.

LAWTON: But the GOP has a challenge in reaching out to younger evangelicals who appear to be embracing a broader set of issues than their parents. At a local church here, 26-year-old Bjorn Amundson is an undecided evangelical who’s against abortion, but describes himself as a social liberal on other issues.

BJORN AMUNDSON: I can’t just pick Republican or Democrat. I have to know who they are. So I think that actually makes me end up voting less, but caring about more who I vote for.

JIM WALLIS (Author, “The Great Awakening”): The monologue of the Religious Right is over and now it’s a new dialogue. Sarah Palin will be evaluated not just on her stance on abortion, but her stance, her record, on poverty, on the environment, on the war in Iraq. So there’s a wider conversation now and that’s a good thing for politics and certainly for the faith community.

LAWTON: The GOP is aggressively reaching out to another key constituency: Catholics. In 2004, a slight majority of Catholics voted Republican. But in the 2006 mid-term elections, a slight majority voted Democratic, and the Democrats took over Congress. Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is helping to lead McCain’s Catholic outreach.

Senator SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS, speaking at Republican National Convention): The Catholic vote is a swing vote, it is a critical vote in swing states. It is a vote we can win but only if we work to win it. LAWTON: Republicans are also hoping for some new inroads among Jewish voters who have long been an important base for the Democrats. Now surveys show that while a majority of Jews are still supporting Barack Obama, the numbers are significantly lower than in other recent elections.

MATTHEW BROOKS (Republican Jewish Coalition, during panel discussion). I think there is real concern about statements and votes on positions he has taken with regard to issues like Iran. I think that there are very serious questions regarding his views as it relates to Israel and the peace process. I think there are very real questions about his naivet�, his lack of experience when it comes to foreign policy in a very, very dangerous time, in a very, very dangerous world where we find ourselves.

LAWTON: McCain has never appeared comfortable addressing issues of faith directly. But his campaign is stressing character and courage in its appeals across the faith community.

Ms. PFOTENHAUER: Doing the right thing when it’s easy, you know, a lot of us can fall into that category. But doing the right thing when it’s difficult is where character is shown. And you really see that in Sen. McCain’s walk in life and I think you see that also very much in his running mate.

LAWTON: The Republicans hope that will sustain enthusiasm through November 4. I’m Kim Lawton in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

ABERNETHY: Kim, tell us more about Sarah Palin, especially Sarah Palin and religion.

LAWTON: Well, Sarah Palin was baptized as a Roman Catholic when she was an infant. When she was a teenager, her family started to the Assemblies of God Church. And so she was re-baptized in the Assemblies of God – that of course is the flagship denominations of the Pentecostal movement – this very fast-growing part of Christianity that really emphasizes the Holy Spirit. She went to Assemblies of God churches until about 2002 and now she attends an independent, non-denominational Bible church.

ABERNETHY: Now, Pentecostals typically believe that speaking in tongues is an important sign of holiness. Is that in her background?

LAWTON: Well, we don’t know exactly what Sarah Palin’s specific beliefs and practices are because she hasn’t talked about them a lot. We don’t know if she does speak in tongues. But certainly in the Assemblies of God that is a very common practice. Not everybody at an Assemblies of God church speaks in tongues, but that is a very common practice.

ABERNETHY: And her religious background is now being scrutinized very carefully, isn’t it?

LAWTON: Well, just like we saw with Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright, Sarah Palin’s former pastors are being scrutinized. People are looking at the sermons that they’ve preached and the theology that they’ve taught. And certainly in this age of “YouTube” and blogging, it’s being sent allover the place and being given a real political spin too.

ABERNETHY: You were at the Democratic Convention as well as the Republican Convention. How did they compare in their attention to religious life?

LAWTON: Well, religion was part of both conventions, but it was handled very differently. At the Democratic Convention, it was really front-and-center this time around – a big change from the past. And the Democrats were really trying to advertise, “Hey, we do like religion” because a lot of Americans think they don’t. So all of their events were very high-profile. On the Republican side, it wasn’t so much front-and-center, but it was certainly there. Religious people were very involved, but it tended to be more on the sidelines a little bit – not in primetime. Also, in the Democratic Convention you saw all these faith groups coming together – diversity gathered. In the Republican Convention, it was a little more narrowcasted, so you had Roman Catholics meeting together, evangelicals meeting together – separately. But they both really paid attention to religion.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton, many thanks. We have more campaign coverage and analysis on the “One Nation” page of our Web site. Join us at pbs.org.

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BOB ABERNETHY: Along the Gulf Coast, faith-based groups joined the massive relief effort to help residents in the path of Hurricane Gustav. Gustav was not as fierce as many had feared and not as devastating as Hurricane Katrina three years ago, but it did wipe out power to more than a million homes and forced more than two million people to evacuate the region. Volunteers helped the families who took refuge in shelters.

Unidentified Woman: My son and my daughter-in-law and my grandbaby had a safe housing to keep out of the rain and tornadoes and things.

Unidentified Man: We thought a hur – twister – a tornado was going to come and hit us, so we had to come inside. And it was really nice to have a place to go to besides the car.

ABERNETHY: Catholic Charities, World Vision, and the Southern Baptist Convention were among the groups that sent workers and supplies. The SBC said its volunteers and the Red Cross have provided 600,000 meals a day.

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BOB ABERNETHY: The United Nations is appealing for immediate aid to stave off famine in North Korea. An assessment team said more than $500 million is needed over the next 15 months, $60 million of it immediately. The aid would provide high-protein biscuits and other food supplies to help those left vulnerable because of poor harvests, the rise in global food prices, and the government’s mismanagement.

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BOB ABERNETHY: In Central Africa, a plane carrying humanitarian workers went down, killing all 17 aboard. The passengers were working in Congo for the UN, Doctors Without Borders, and other aid groups. They were French, Canadian, Indian, and Congolese. Officials have yet to determine the cause of the crash.

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BOB ABERNETHY: In Eastern India, Hindu extremists continued to attack the minority Christian community. The clashes that broke out in the state of Orissa late last month have left at least 16 dead, thousands displaced, and dozens of churches destroyed. The World Council of Churches and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom called for more protections for Christians. Within India, many Christians protested what they said was a lax government response. One Catholic leader said if the violence is beginning to abate, it’s because, quote, “there are no more targets to attack.”

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BOB ABERNETHY: Meanwhile, in another part of India, the Dalai Lama left a hospital in Mumbai. The 73-year-old spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism spent last weekend being treated for abdominal pain and exhaustion. Aides said he has recovered and is in good health.

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BOB ABERNETHY: This past week, Muslims around the world began observing the holy month of Ramadan. In this country, the holiday coincided with the annual Islamic Society of North America Convention, the largest gathering of Muslims in the U.S. Leaders emphasized the community’s growing political power. The two Muslim members of Congress, Representatives Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Andre Carson of Indiana, said Muslims have a responsibility both to vote and to run for office.

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BOB ABERNETHY: It’s a common complaint of moderate Muslims around the world that the minority of radical Islamic fundamentalists gets too much attention. But that may be changing. We re-run a story today we told a few months ago about moderate Muslims in the Middle East challenging the fundamentalists, especially on television. Young, moderate Muslim televangelists are preaching a combination of piety and modern life, and they have become very popular. Our reporter was Kate Seelye in Cairo.

KATE SEELYE: At a cultural center in Cairo, there’s a buzz of excitement. Thousands of youth have gathered – but not for a concert or a play. They’ve come to hear a lecture by a young Muslim preacher.

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Moez Masoud.

SEELYE: He’s 29-year-old Moez Masoud, a former advertising executive who turned to religion the death of several close friends. Masoud opens his lecture with a prayer and an appeal.

MOEZ MASOUD (Muslim Televangelist, speaking to audience, through translator): It’s not good to separate religion from life because life will turn into a jungle. Let’s take a closer look at religion and it won’t seem as so gloomy.

SEELYE: The audience is captivated by his message: it’s a call for compassion and love as well as tolerance.

Mr. MASOUD (speaking in Arabic to audience, through translator): Islam respects the principle of freedom of opinion, as long as the opinion is respectful of Islam.

SEELYE: Often referencing the Qu’ran, Masoud jumps from topic to topic. One moment he’s gently poking fun of religious fanatics, the next he’s talking about the beauty of art. Tonight he focuses on music. Is it allowed in the Qu’ran?

Mr. MASOUD (speaking in Arabic to audience, through translator): Is it really mentioned you shouldn’t play certain instruments? Or does it depend on the religious interpretation? There is a belief that certain instruments might be used for a good cause.

SEELYE: And then the highlight of the night: a musician comes on stage and sings about the beauty of marriage.

UNIDENTIFIED MUSICIAN (singing in Arabic)

SEELYE: The audience loves it. Afterwards, many say Masoud’s message gives them hope.

MOHAMMED (through translator): I used to have some extremist ideas about faith, but when I heard Moez, so many things changed in my life. In my view so many things were wrong, wrong, wrong until I met him.

SEELYE: Masoud’s ideas are breath of fresh air for many young Arabs. In stark contrast to Islamist fundamentalists, he tells them they can be good Muslims and also enjoy life.

Mr. MASOUD: A lot of the Islamic faith is presented to them as only religious – meaning only outward things. It’s presented as a bunch of do’s and don’ts. And you know, with just globalization and a lot of the quote on quote, “Western culture” finding its way here, if Islam is not presented in its most expansive interpretation and really to just used, you know, every day in the coolest way possible, then there is no way people are going to approach it.

SEELYE: But Masoud doesn’t just encourage youth to believe, he also urges them to be active.

Mr. MASOUD: You’re also here to develop Earth and to make sure there’s charity and to make sure that everyone is eating and to make sure that there’s hospitals, and to just play God’s role on Earth.

SEELYE: Masoud began preaching about eight years ago after graduating from the American University of Cairo. In 2002, he landed his first TV show, but it was this program that introduced him to millions. “The Right Path” launched in 2007 on a popular religious satellite channel. Every week, Masoud travels the world, discussing issues like drugs and dating. He tries to help Muslim youth better understand the West. In one episode, he condemned the 2005 London bombings.

Mr. MASOUD (on “The Right Path,” speaking Arabic, through translator): The Qu’ran says the one who kills or spreads corruption, kills all humanity.

SEELYE: Masoud isn’t alone in calling for greater tolerance and reform. He’s one of a new wave of moderate Muslim preachers. Their goal: to mobilize Arabs and improve their societies. The most famous of them is Amr Khaled. Khaled started as an accountant but rose to fame about seven years ago with a TV show that encouraged piety and community activism. Khaled is now so popular in the Muslim world that his Web site gets more hits than Oprah Winfrey’s.

Abdullah Shleifer teaches media at the American University of Cairo. He says many young Muslims, like those at this university, don’t relate to traditional religious scholars. They’re turning to what Shleifer calls the “New Preachers” like Masoud and Khaled for guidance.

Professor ABDULLAH SHLEIFER (American University of Cairo): The new preachers share with their audience modernity. They have clarified, no doubt, their own inner discourse on how you can be moderates and pious. And by modern I don’t mean, you know, using appliances. I mean a modern lifestyle that at the same time is a pious lifestyle, you know. And that’s very difficult for people and particularly when you’re getting images coming in from MTV where modernity means anti-piety.

SEELYE: Shleifer says the new preachers are using a very modern tool to get their message across – satellite television. There are now more than 300 satellite channels in the Arab world. They reach tens of millions, and they’re allowing voices like Masoud’s and Khaled’s to target large numbers of people.

Amr Khaled’s latest show airs on this channel – Risala. It’s a new, 24-hour religious station run by Tarek Suweidan, a Kuwaiti cleric. It airs talk shows and religious call-in programs. Today Suweidan hosts a show called “Wasatiya”- “In the Middle.” Suweidan says Risala brings fresh voices and opinions to Arab audiences with a specific goal in mind.

Sheikh TAREK SUWEIDAN (Station Director, Risala): We want them to be more moderate. We want them to be more modern. The second thing that we would like to change is the interests. Many off our youth, their interest is marginal. They care about things that have no real effect in their lives, in the future, or the modernization of the Arab world.

SEELYE: Suweidan says Risala has the power to help transform the region.

Sheikh SUWEIDAN: Satellite TV is the most powerful weapon in the hands of the Islamic revival today.

SEELYE: And that revival is taking place against the backdrop of increased religious fervor here. In the past decade, mosque attendance has exploded. Most Muslim women have donned the headscarf. Some are even starting to wear the all enveloping niqab.

Widespread poverty, political stagnation, and loss of hope have all fed the boom in religion. In poor neighborhoods like these, fundamentalist imams are increasingly popular with their promises of a better afterlife. They are known as Salafis, and they’ve also benefited from the media revolution. The Salafis dominate the many religious channels in Egypt and preach a rigid morality as well as a paranoia about other faiths and cultures like this cleric, Mohammed Hassaan.

MOHAMMED HASSAN (on TV, speaking in Arabic, through translator): Recent events have been exploited by Jews and their supporters to stab Islam.

SEELYE: So in today’s Egypt who has the greatest impact – the fundamentalists or the new preachers? Khalil Anani is a scholar with the Al Ahram Institute and an expert on Islamist movements. He says the Salafis are very influential among the poor, but the new preachers also play an important role.

HALIL ANANI (Al Ahram Institute): I think the main task off this new preacher phenomenon is to spread tolerance and the values of coexistence and to be civilized in your thinking. This is the most important benefit now to decrease the tension between the West and Islam.

SEELYE: But Anani doesn’t think the new preachers, like Moez Masoud, will have much lasting impact.

Mr. ANANI: They are a temporary phenomenon. They have no organizational or institutional bodies. They won’t be effective in the future of Egypt.

SEELYE: American University of Cairo professor Abdullah Shleifer bly disagrees.

Prof. SHLEIFER: I don’t think Moez is a temporary phenomenon. I think his message so meets the growing concerns of this new young portion of the mainstream that is, is becoming the mainstream as they grow. He is in rapport actually, now with television, with millions and will be in rapport with still greater millions and this is not a passing fad. This is part of the transformation of Arab society.

SEELYE: Back in his Cairo apartment, Masoud relaxes with his guitar. He’s playing a song he wrote, “Coffee for the Heart.” It’s about spiritual rejuvenation.

Mr. MASOUD: So, what I’m doing right now is at least, you know, trying to put the light back into the attempts to religiously revive any thing because religion, when misunderstood, can take on a very dark form.

SEELYE: Masoud isn’t worried about the impact he’ll have. He’s pretty confident that with time more and more Muslims will discover what he calls “the right path.”

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Kate Seelye in Cairo.

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BOB ABERNETHY: Finally, as many religious denominations lose members, a new study finds a big increase in the number of the Amish, the strict sect of so-called plain people who avoid most modern conveniences. The Amish population in the U.S. doubled in the last 16 years to a quarter of a million, according to researchers at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. They’ve also spread out, with communities now in 28 states. Very few people convert to the Amish faith, but very few leave, too. Most important, the average Amish family includes five or six children.

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BOB ABERNETHY: That’s our program for now. I’m Bob Abernethy. There’s much more on our Web site. Audio and video podcasts of our program are also available. Join us at pbs.org.

As we leave you, music from Christian singer Rachael Lampa at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

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2008 WNET-TV. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Prepared by Burrelle’s Information Services, which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce any copy of the material except for user’s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be reproduced, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any manner that may infringe upon WNET-TV’s copyright or proprietary interests in the material.

Harold Dean Trulear: Judicial Activism, Judgment, and Middle America

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The call and response rhythm of McCain and crowd achieved a comfortable, if predictable, pace on the final night of the Republican National Convention. Call out issue, respond with affirming applause (accompanied by that annoying “woo-woo” sound that I can never seem to–and, quite frankly, don’t really want to– make). The issues moved from the hot buttons of the economy and the war to the Republican brands of cutting business taxes and school choice. But one issue interrupted the rhythm and elicited a mighty chorus of ascent in an unexpected manner. The audience leapt to its feet and cheered wildly when its hero declared that he would appoint persons to the judiciary who did not legislate from the bench.

Whoa. A fresh dig at judicial activism. Why such an emotive response to an issue seemingly demoted to the second string by the varsity concerns of Iraq, oil prices, and homeownership? From what quarter arose such a raucous chorus of affirmation? One answer would be that the disaffected middle of American society, those to whom Sarah Palin spoke directly on Wednesday, needed to hear some familiar calls to arms. This would include the anti-abortionists (most of whom are just that–anti-abortionists; to be actually pro-life is to affirm the quality of life for children after birth on such issues as health care, education, and gun control that minimizes their chances of getting shot) who seek redress from the judicial activism of Roe v. Wade. This would include Christian conservatives who clamor for the return of prayer, and by implication God, to public schools. (N.B.: As long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in schools.)

The judicial activism hot button burns precisely because it bypasses the consensus reflected in the legislative process, and those who form the American consensus represent the target at which both parties aim in this election, though the Republicans made a much clearer and more direct appeal than their Democratic counterparts. The fight for the middle frames the bulk of what we will hear for the next two months. If you are a part of that pool of the poor and dispossessed, or a citizen battered by collateral sanctions that minimize your opportunities for employment, or someone who looks decidedly different than 99 percent of the faces we saw on TV for the past few days, don’t fret if there seems to be a disconnect between the speeches and your situation: they are not talking to you anyway.

No, this is about grabbing the self-interest of the middle, and to the extent that the middle interest can help the poor, so be it. When the interests of the dispossessed conflict with the interests of the middle, problems such as “judicial activism” arise. The interests of the middle included segregation and discrimination for most of this nation’s history, and it took appeal to the “activist” Warren Court to jump start an assault on an evil consensus in the form of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education in 1954. The middle never looked back on the Dred Scott decision and called it “judicial activism.” The middle never considered the decision of Plessey v. Ferguson to be judiciary intrusion on the legislative process. No, these decisions reflected a consensus of the middle embodied by its legislation.

Charles H. Houston and NAACP legal team

To right the middle’s wrong on race, a civil rights lawyer by the name of Charles Hamilton Houston, dean of the Howard University Law School and head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, marshaled his best students–including Thurgood Marshall–and began a litigious path to the Supreme Court, stimulating a growing gap between the middle and the bench, the proposed closing of which drew wild applause last night. In a sense, the very judicial activism the middle now decries is the judgment against it for being wrong on race for so many years.

The great religious traditions of our nation all affirm care for the poor more so than the prosperity of the middle as benchmark of a people’s greatness. But the middle, the consensus, receives the attention for the next two months. Somehow, the middle consensus must expand to include justice for the poor and oppressed as a centerpiece, not just a member of the et.al. list concluding McCain’s acceptance speech to the middle last night. As long as the middle refuses to embrace the outcast as a central reality of the American dream, judgment looms, whether from benches or trenches, courts or creation, justices or just desserts, appointments supreme or Divine.

The agenda of the middle cannot fulfill the demands of justice. Our record on race, and the judicial activism it took to begin to fix it, should teach us so.

–Harold Dean Trulear is associate professor of applied theology at the Howard University School of Divinity.

2008 Campaign: Religion at the RNC

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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Over patriotic shouts and symbols, John McCain this week officially accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president.

Sen. MCCAIN: We’re Americans and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history. Thank you and God bless you, and God bless America.

ABERNETHY: McCain’s surprising choice of Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate was overwhelmingly popular among Republican social conservatives. Kim Lawton covered the Republican Convention, and has our report.

KIM LAWTON: Kim Lehman is a Roman Catholic and an Iowa delegate to the Republican National Convention. Her opposition to abortion was one of the reasons she got involved in politics. Like many other religious conservatives, Lehman came here not feeling completely enthused about John McCain’s candidacy.

KIM LEHMAN (Iowa Delegate): It wasn’t as lukewarm as much as it was waiting to see if John McCain was going to hold to his commitment to have a pro-life administration.

LAWTON: Lehman says McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate changed everything.

Ms. LEHMAN: It was like taking a rubber band, pulling it backward and just shooting us through excitement. And so all of us being on the reciprocating end of emails, phone calls—everybody’s excited.

Governor SARAH PALIN (during acceptance speech, Republican National Convention): We are expected to govern with integrity, good will, clear convictions, and a servant’s heart.


Kim Lawton

LAWTON: The nomination of Palin, an evangelical Christian who opposes abortion, has been controversial in some quarters. But it has clearly mobilized the Republican Party’s social conservative base and given the McCain ticket a big boost of energy. Many in that base were deeply concerned in the weeks leading up to the convention when McCain’s campaign floated the idea of picking a pro-choice running mate.

Dr. RICHARD LAND (President, Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission): I told the McCain people flat out that would inflict a mortal wound on his campaign, one from which he could not have recovered. If he had picked a pro-choice candidate, he was going to lose. He still may lose. But that would have been it. He could never have recovered among evangelicals and social conservative Catholics if he had picked a pro-choice running mate.

LAWTON: Pro-family conservatives here were not fazed by the news that Palin’s unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, and as media questions about Palin’s family life intensified, so did conservative resentment.

GARY BAUER (President, American Values, speaking at Republican Convention): They have taken a 17-year-old girl and they are trying to use the crisis pregnancy that she finds herself in as a battering ram, as a club to damage her mother, her family, to damage Senator McCain. It is outrageous. It’s tabloid journalism and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

LAWTON: Leaders here said they did not expect a widespread evangelical backlash over the fact that Palin is a working mom with small children, especially because Palin’s husband Todd shoulders much of the family responsibility.


Charmaine Yoest

CHARMAINE YOEST (Americans United for Life Action): To me it appears that they may have made a real conscious decision to move forward in a family partnership, in a mission that she’s been called to. And so I think we have to be very careful as we look at each family and the decisions they have made, particularly when they very clearly have made decisions to have the father very heavily involved in taking care of the children.

LAWTON: Evangelicals and other social conservatives have been a key part of the Republican’s winning coalition, and the GOP is depending on them again this year. But the party also has to walk a fine line. According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, nearly half of all Americans think religious conservatives have too much control over the Republican Party. Still, Republican strategists are developing a wide-ranging effort to mobilize religious voters. Nancy Pfotenhauer is a senior policy advisor to the McCain campaign.

NANCY PFOTENHAUER (Senior Policy Advisor, McCain Campaign): They’re a crucial part of the electorate, and you know, we get a lot of energy from this part of our base. I’m a proud member of the faith community. This community knows how to impact elections, and they’ve got the networks in place that can do so, everything from going door to door to speaking to their communities to getting information out to turning out the vote.

LAWTON: Evangelicals gathered for a prayer breakfast at a local Christian club, even though the venue was far away from the main convention events. They are the single largest religious voting bloc, and they are entrenched in many levels of the Republican Party apparatus. People like Tamara Scott, a delegate from Iowa, believe they are part of a longstanding tradition of faith influencing American politics.

TAMARA SCOTT (Iowa Delegate): Once I got into politics, I was even more encouraged to find out our Founding Fathers had the same basic tenets of faith that I do, and that’s what created this great country. It was their faith that spurred them on and gave them the courage to take the brave steps that they did in signing that Declaration of Independence.

LAWTON: But the GOP has a challenge in reaching out to younger evangelicals who appear to be embracing a broader set of issues than their parents. At a local church here, 26-year-old Bjorn Amundson is an undecided evangelical who’s against abortion but describes himself as a social liberal on other issues.


Bjorn

BJORN: I can’t just pick Republican or Democrat. I have to know who they are. So I think that actually makes me end up voting less, but caring about more who I vote for.

JIM WALLIS (Author, “The Great Awakening”): The monologue of the religious right is over, and now it’s a new dialogue. Sarah Palin will be evaluated not just on her stance on abortion, but her stance, her record on poverty, on the environment, on the war in Iraq. So there’s a wider conversation now, and that’s a good thing for politics and certainly for the faith community.

LAWTON: The GOP is aggressively reaching out to another key constituency — Catholics. In 2004, a slight majority of Catholics voted Republican. But in the 2006 mid-term elections, a slight majority voted Democratic, and the Democrats took over Congress. Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is helping to lead McCain’s Catholic outreach.

Senator SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS, speaking at Republican National Convention): The Catholic vote is a swing vote, it is a critical vote in swing states. It is a vote we can win but only if we work to win it.

LAWTON: Republicans are also hoping for some new inroads among Jewish voters who have long been an important base for the Democrats. Now surveys show that while a majority of Jews are still supporting Barack Obama, the numbers are significantly lower than in other recent elections.

MATTHEW BROOKS (Republican Jewish Coalition, during panel discussion). I think there is real concern about statements and votes on positions he has taken with regard to issues like Iran. I think that there are very serious questions regarding his views as it relates to Israel and the peace process. I think there are very real questions about his naiveté, his lack of experience when it comes to foreign policy in a very, very dangerous time, in a very, very dangerous world where we find ourselves.

LAWTON: McCain has never appeared comfortable addressing issues of faith directly. But his campaign is stressing character and courage in its appeals across the faith community.


Nancy Pfotenhauer

Ms. PFOTENHAUER: Doing the right thing when it’s easy, you know, a lot of us can fall into that category. But doing the right thing when it’s difficult is where character is shown, and you really see that in Sen. McCain’s walk in life, and I think you see that also very much in his running mate.

LAWTON: The Republicans hope that will sustain enthusiasm through November 4. I’m Kim Lawton in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

ABERNETHY: Kim, tell us more about Sarah Palin, especially Sarah Palin and religion.

LAWTON: Well, Sarah Palin was baptized as a Roman Catholic when she was an infant. When she was a teenager, her family started to go to the Assemblies of God church, and so she was rebaptized in the Assemblies of God. That, of course, is the flagship denomination of the Pentecostal movement, this very fast-growing part of Christianity that really emphasizes the Holy Spirit. She went to Assemblies of God churches until about 2002, and now she attends an independent, nondenominational Bible church.

ABERNETHY: Now Pentecostals typically believe that speaking in tongues is an important sign of holiness. Is that in her background?

LAWTON: Well, we don’t know exactly what Sarah Palin’s specific beliefs and practices are because she hasn’t talked about them a lot. We don’t know if she does speak in tongues. But certainly in the Assemblies of God that is a very common practice. Not everybody at an Assemblies of God church speaks in tongues, but that is a very common practice.

ABERNETHY: And her religious background is now being scrutinized very carefully, isn’t it?

LAWTON: Well, just like we saw with Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Sarah Palin’s former pastors are being scrutinized. People are looking at the sermons that they’ve preached and the theology that they’ve taught. And certainly in this age of YouTube and blogging, it’s being sent all over the place and being given a real political spin, too.

ABERNETHY: You were at the Democratic Convention as well as the Republican Convention. How did they compare in their attention to religious life?

LAWTON: Well, religion was part of both conventions, but it was handled very differently. At the Democratic Convention, it was really front-and-center this time around — a big change from the past, and the Democrats were really trying to advertise, “Hey, we do like religion,” because a lot of Americans think they don’t. So all of their events were very high-profile. On the Republican side, it wasn’t so much front-and-center, but it was certainly there. Religious people were very involved, but it tended to be more on the sidelines a little bit, not in primetime. Also, in the Democratic Convention you saw all these faith groups coming together — diversity gathered. In the Republican Convention, it was a little more narrowcast, so you had Roman Catholics meeting together, evangelicals meeting together — separately. But they both really paid attention to religion.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton, many thanks.

Nancy Pfotenhauer: McCain and the Faith Community

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On the floor of the Republican National Convention, Nancy Pfotenhauer, senior policy advisor to the McCain campaign, talks to Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton about the role people of faith will play in the campaign and how John McCain will appeal to them despite his discomfort in speaking publicly about issues of faith.

Ingrid Mattson: Democrats, Republicans, and American Muslims

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Just before the start of Ramadan, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton interviewed Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, during the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Mattson spoke about the values and expectations of American Muslim voters, their views of Senator Barack Obama, and what they hoped for from the Republican Party. She was one of the keynote speakers at the Democratic convention’s interfaith gathering.

David Gray: Republicans and Muslim Americans

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Rudy Guiliani spoke about how the Democrats are in a state of denial about September 11 because they won’t use the phrase “Islamic terrorism.” Guiliani said, “Please tell me, who are they insulting when they use the words ‘Islamic terrorism’? They are insulting terrorists.” Rudy is in a state of denial about what the phrase “Islamic terrorism” means to Muslim Americans. It insults and stereotypes Muslims and divides Americans. It is a very unfortunate statement from the keynote speaker.

–David Gray directs the New America Foundation’s Workforce and Family Program. An attorney and ordained Presbyterian minister, he is a chaplain at American University in Washington, DC.

Adam Hamilton: Sarah Palin Changes the Game

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Sarah Palin is a “game changer.” The game she has changed is that played by the more conservative members of the Republican Party — and that is exciting. She is a woman taking the leading role in her family. She is a woman who is the primary bread winner. She is a woman with a large family with small children who is also pursuing a high-powered career. And she is a woman with children who are not perfect when it comes to “biblical sexual values.” And the Republican right loves her. And that is a win for everyone. Sarah Palin has conservatives sounding like feminists, speaking up for women’s rights. She models what a strong woman can look like, standing on her own in what once was a “man’s world.” As the father of two adult daughters, I am grateful to see a strong woman on the Republican ticket. Whether I agree with her politics or not, I believe she has already changed the game in a positive way.

–Adam Hamilton is senior pastor at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, and the author of SEEING GRAY IN A BLACK AND WHITE WORLD: THOUGHTS ON RELIGION, MORALITY, AND POLITICS (Abingdon Press, 2008).