WASHINGTON (ABP)—While only 33 churches signed up to participate in a conservative Christian group’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday Sept. 28, planners viewed it as a success.

That is, organizers said, because its stated purpose was not to inject politics into the pulpit, but rather civil disobedience aimed at prompting a legal battle over an Internal Revenue Service restriction against churches endorsing candidates as a condition of their tax exemption.

However, new polls show that Americans are increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of injecting partisan politics into the pulpit.

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund said they are prepared to defend any pastor targeted by the IRS for endorsing a candidate based on the First Amendment guarantee of the right to free speech.

Meanwhile, Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed complaints with the IRS against six churches for violating federal law by endorsing candidates from the pulpit.

“These pastors flagrantly violated the law and now must deal with the consequences,” said Americans United Executive Director Barry Lynn.
“Houses of worship exist to enrich people’s spiritual lives, not act like political machines that issue marching orders to voters. They are tax-exempt because their work is religious and charitable, not political.”

At Bethlehem Baptist Church in Bethlehem, Ga., Pastor Jody Hice endorsed John McCain for president, telling worshipers the Republican candidate has a more biblical worldview than Obama when it comes to issues of abortion and gay marriage.

“These are not political issues,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted the Southern Baptist pastor and local talk-radio host as saying. “These are moral issues.”

“According to my Bible and in my opinion, there is no way in the world a Christian can vote for Barack Hussein Obama,” said Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif. He used Obama’s middle name, which is a common Arabic name. Allusions to it have fed unfounded rumors that Obama is a Muslim. He is a practicing Christian.

But instead of endorsing McCain, according to the Los Angeles Times, Drake suggested his parishioners vote for a different presidential candidate—himself. A past vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Drake is on the ballot in California as running mate of American Independent Party presidential candidate Alan Keyes.

The pulpit initiative comes at a time when many Americans are growing increasingly wary of politics in the pulpit.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press found that for the first time since the question was first included in their poll 10 years ago, a majority of Americans said churches should stay out of politics instead of expressing their views on social and political concerns.

Another poll, conducted by the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm, found that 59 percent of Americans disagreed with the statement: “I believe it is appropriate for churches to publicly endorse candidates for public office.”

“We saw a very strong response that Americans don’t want churches to be actively campaigning for political candidates,” commented Ed Stetzer, president of the research arm of LifeWay Christian Resources.

Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said that’s because the ADF initiative was “misguided” and a “brazen attempt to blend the worship of God with electoral politics.”

“This initiative certainly will politicize churches more than it will Christianize politics,” Walker wrote in an opinion article prior to the event. “It will assuredly turn our pulpit prophets into political puppets. It will, no doubt, convert our churches into virtual political action committees—where candidates will line up at the church door to seek endorsement, especially those that are on television.”

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (ABP) — Voters hoping to know more about the vice-presidential candidates’ faith-influenced views on contentious policy issues probably learned little from the Oct. 2 debate between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Sarah Palin.

Only one question posed by moderator Gwen Ifill, host of PBS’s Washington Week in Review, in the debate dealt directly with a religiously contentious social question — same-sex marriage. Instead, the only scheduled debate between the Democratic senator from Delaware and the Republican governor of Alaska focused mostly on the economy and foreign policy.

Same-sex couples 

When asked about benefits for same-sex couples, both candidates seemed to agree that couples, regardless of sexual orientation, should be granted the same civil benefits.

Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin

Biden emphasized that same-sex couples should not be discriminated against for insurance and other benefits. He also said gay partners should enjoy the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts in areas such as hospital visitation and jointly arranged legal contracts.

“In an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple,” Biden said, referring to running mate Barack Obama.

Claiming she has not discriminated against same-sex couples as Alaska’s governor, Palin said she is “tolerant of choices adults make in their relationships.”

But, she added, “in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose — not in a McCain-Palin administration — to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated, between parties.” Her running mate is John McCain.

“But I will tell Americans straight up that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman,” she added, “and I think through nuances we can go ’round and ’round about what that actually means.”

He, too, opposes the use of the term “marriage” for same-sex couples, Biden said. “And I take the governor at her word that she wouldn’t discriminate” in civil matters.

Gay-rights issues 

However, the two have differing records on gay-rights issues. Although Biden did vote in favor of a 1996 federal law that defines marriage in exclusively heterosexual terms, Obama has vowed to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Biden has also voted in favor of other gay-rights measures.

Palin’s record has suggested she is more opposed to gay rights. As an Alaska gubernatorial candidate in 2006, she listed "preserving the definition of marriage as defined in our constitution" as one of her top three legislative priorities. She supported Alaska's decision to amend its charter to ban same-sex marriage.

She also said, during her gubernatorial campaign, that she disapproved of a recent Alaska Supreme Court ruling that the state had to provide spousal benefits to same-sex partners of government employees. While Palin later signed legislation that enforced the decision, she said at the time that she would support a ballot initiative that would effectively overturn the court ruling by banning gay spouses from state benefits.

She vetoed a legislative attempt to overturn the ruling, but said at the time she was doing so only because attorneys informed her the law would have been unconstitutional.

Nonetheless, gay supporters of Palin have noted, she has devoted very little political capital to opposing gay-rights measures during her term as governor.

Support of Israel 

Voters looking to the candidates’ stand on Israel would have learned that both Biden and Palin seek to protect that nation through diplomatic means, if possible. However, they were sharply divided on the primary threat to peace and stability in the world.

Palin focused on McCain’s insistence that the United States must win the war in Iraq, and that a timeline to withdraw American troops could not be established. Withdrawal, she said, must be based on Iraq’s ability to assume its own protection.

Although she did not specify what a McCain-Palin administration would do about it, she insisted that a nuclear threat from Iran, particularly against Israel, must be stopped.

“Israel is our strongest and best ally in the Middle East,” Palin said. “We have got to assure them that we will never allow a second Holocaust, despite, again, warnings from Iran and any other country that would seek to destroy Israel — that that is what they would like to see.”

War in Iraq 

McCain is “wrong” in his insistence that Iraq is the primary threat, Biden responded, emphasizing his “passion” for Israel.

“John continues to tell us that the central war in the front on terror is in Iraq,” Biden said. “I promise you, if an attack comes in the homeland, it's going to come as our security services have said, it is going to come from al Qaeda planning in the hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Throughout the debate, Biden hammered at Bush administration policies, suggesting that a McCain-Palin ticket would simply perpetuate Bush’s mistakes. He emphasized the Obama-Biden ticket as the true agents of change.

Palin repeatedly alleged that Biden “only looked backward” to criticize the Bush administration, rather than being “forward-looking” to move into the future, and called the McCain-Palin ticket the true “team of mavericks.”

— Robert Marus contributed to this story.

Read more

Palin terms sexuality ‘choice,’ sidesteps abortion in interview (10/1)

Social conservatives express delight at McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin (8/29)

WASHINGTON (RNS)—There may never be a female pastor leading Tony Perkins’ Southern Baptist congregation in Louisiana, but there could be a woman taking over the vice president’s mansion in Washington. And as Perkins sees it, there’s no contradiction there whatsoever.

“It’s not a spiritual role,” said Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who calls Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a “brilliant pick” for the Republican ticket. “An elected official is not a spiritual leader—and that’s what the Scripture speaks to.”

That view—that female politicians are fine, but female pastors are not—has sparked debate about the role of women inside and outside of the home and the church.

“Even though the Bible reserves final authority in the church for men, this does not apply in the kingdom of this world,” said David Kotter, executive director of the Louisville, Ky.-based Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which believes men and women have separate and distinct roles in the home and the church, in a column on his organization’s “Gender Blog.”

But some evangelical leaders, including women at the helm of prominent conservative Christian organizations, chafe at such viewpoints, arguing women should be considered for leadership both in and out of the pulpit.

Jane Hansen Hoyt leads Aglow International. Hoyt, an ordained minister in a Pentecostal denomination, is “disappointed” by fellow religious conservatives who affirm women in politics but not in the pulpit.

“I personally believe that from the beginning—and I’m going back to the third chapter of Genesis … the role of the woman was very strong because that’s when God said he would send a help to the man,” Hoyt said. “Well, it wasn’t just a help to cook his meals. It was a help to walk alongside him, even as we see John McCain and Sarah Palin walking side by side.”

These views appear to be a change for some evangelicals. As recently as March 2007, the Pew Research Center found 56 percent of white evangelicals viewed the idea of mothers with young children working outside the home as a “bad thing” rather than a good one.

But Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said such polling numbers may be a “rather stark” look at situations that vary from family to family, including Palin’s.

“What people have seen as they’ve watched Gov. Palin is that she has integrated her family and her work,” she said. “There are situations where people are able to bring their children to work.”

Palin—who now attends a nondenominational Bible church—has religious roots in the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination that ordains women but where female clergy still have difficulty getting prominent pastoral roles, said Margaret Poloma, research professor at the University of Akron.

She calls the views of evangelicals who support women politicians but not women pastors a matter of “selective interpretation” of the Bible.

“The whole thing is contorted, but they really believe that,” she said. “That’s their interpretation.”

The Southern Baptist Conven-tion declares in the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement that “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture” and a wife should “submit herself graciously” to her husband’s leadership.

But those beliefs, based on New Testament teachings, do not apply to women in secular leadership, said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

“Where the New Testament is silent, we’re silent,” he said. “Where the New Testament speaks, we’re under its authority. …

“The only thing that would disqualify Gov. Palin from being governor or vice president, in my opinion, would be if her husband didn’t want her to do it.”

Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow at Concerned Women of America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, said she’s appeared on Christian radio talk shows since Palin’s nomination, and is shocked by callers who complain that the Alaska governor “has no business being in politics.”

Crouse, whose mother is an 85-year-old United Methodist minister, thinks those comments reflect a fear of women not only having a greater role in politics but a greater place in the nation’s pulpits.

“Quite frankly, it is threatening because the more you see Christian women out in the professions and doing things publicly, the more people get adjusted to that idea and the more acceptable it is,” she said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Four in 10 Americans believe religious leaders should be permitted to endorse political candidates from the pulpit without risking their organization’s tax-exempt status, a new survey by the First Amendment Center shows.

Twenty-two percent of respondents “strongly” agreed and 18 percent “mildly” agreed that religious leaders should be able to make such endorsements, currently prohibited by IRS regulations. In comparison, 39 percent strongly disagreed, 15 percent mildly disagreed and 6 percent didn’t know or refused to answer.

The finding was based on a new question in the Washington-based center’s annual “State of the First Amendment” national survey.

When asked to name specific rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, just 15 percent mentioned religion—the lowest percentage to recall that topic since 2000.

Asked if Americans have too much or too little religious freedom, 6 percent said they had too much, 28 percent said they had too little and 62 percent said they had about the right amount.

Fifty-five percent strongly or mildly agreed people should be permitted to say things in public that could be offensive to religious groups. Forty-two percent mildly or strongly disagreed.

Asked about freedom of worship, 54 percent said the concept applies to all religious groups regardless of how extreme their beliefs may be. In comparison, 29 percent said it was never meant to apply to religious groups that the majority of people consider to be extreme.

The national telephone survey of 1,005 respondents was conducted this summer has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

ATLANTA—Retired high-ranking military officers and national security experts at a national summit on torture agreed—a policy that permits torture does not make the United States or its troops safer.

Speaking on the seventh anniversary of terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., Steve Xenakis, retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army, disputed the assertion that “9/11 changed everything”—including acceptable rules for the treatment of detainees.

Xenakis, a medical doctor, participated in the two-day summit on “Religious Faith, Torture and our National Soul” held on Mercer University’s Atlanta campus.

Violation of foundational principles

Torture violates at least four key principles, he insisted, labeling it as:

° Un-American. George Washington set the standard during the American Revolution by insisting on the humane treatment of prisoners during wartime.

° Ineffective. Information obtained through extreme coercive physical and mental abuse is unreliable.

° Unnecessary. Skilled interrogators know more effective ways to obtain reliable actionable intelligence.

° Damaging. “The person who is tortured in damaged. But so is the torturer, the nation and the military,” Xenakis concluded. Torture creates “increasing risk of retaliatory measures” that endangers military personnel on the front lines.

Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law, described to participants at the National Summit on Torture the events that led to shifts in national policy that permitted torture as a means of interrogation. (PHOTO/Stephen Jones)

Fear, anger and politics all contributed to the climate that allowed the torture of detainees to become national policy, said Don Guter, retired rear admiral and former Navy Judge Advocate General.

Shameful downfall for an exemplary nation

Coercive physical and mental abuse of prisoners occurred not just because of “a few bad apples,” but because “those higher up in the chain of command” authorized it, said Guter, dean of the Duquesne University School of Law.

“There is a marked difference between something that happens in spite of administrative policy and something that happens because of it,” he said.

Guter characterized that policy shift as a “shameful downfall” for a country that set the standard for the humane treatment of prisoners in World War II.

Groundbreaking shift in national policy

Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law, recounted the events that led to “groundbreaking” shifts in national policy, making torture an acceptable form of interrogation.

By the time the American public saw the first photos detailing the degradation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, at least a dozen reports had been commissioned—mostly by military personnel—following persistent allegations of detainee abuse, she noted.

The commander of Joint Task Force 7, the senior U.S. military official in Iraq, ordered a report prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, specifically on alleged abuse of prisoners by members of the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib.

“Reading the Taguba report was like being transplanted to Mars,” Greenberg said.

Beyond the report itself—which detailed the way prisoners were stripped, hooded and subjected to sexual humiliation—more than 1,000 pages of documentation appended to the report revealed the detention and essentially unrestrained interrogation of suspected terrorists had become U.S. policy, she observed.

The Military Order of Nov. 13, 2001—an executive order issued by President George W. Bush—granted all authority regarding the detention, treatment and trial of non-citizens in the “war on terror” to the Secretary of Defense.

“America could do what it wanted with detainees,” Greenberg said.

Five lawyers from the White House, Pentagon and Justice Department—a “war council” convened by Bush and Cheney—developed the legal rationale for circumventing the military code of justice, federal courts and international treaties.

High-ranking military and national security officials initially were excluded from those discussions, she noted. And once they learned about the change in policy, they could not believe people they knew and trusted would implement it.

What torture produces

“I do not think that torture makes us safer as a country,” Greenberg said.

Information gained through interrogation is less reliable than data obtained by the established intelligence community, she said, pointing to the experience of Sen. John McCain as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. For the first three and half years of his captivity, when subjected to torture, McCain gave false information to deceive his captors.

Greenberg also noted McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has said his love for country, family and faith grew much deeper as a result of his brutal treatment by those who interrogated him.

She asked if the United States wants to support a policy that makes suspected terrorists more committed to their nations, tribes and religions.

ATLANTA (ABP)—A new survey suggests the very Americans who claim to follow the Bible most assiduously don’t consult it when forming their views about torture and government policy.

The poll of 600 Southern white evangelicals was released Sept. 11 in Atlanta in connection with a national religious summit on torture. It shows not only are white evangelical Southerners more likely than the general populace to believe torture is sometimes or often justified, but also that they are far more likely—to tweak a phrase from Proverbs—to “lean on their own understanding” regarding the subject.

However, their views seemed to change when asked to consider torture policy in light of the Golden Rule. When respondents were asked if the United States should “never use methods against our enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers,” more than half agreed.

While a recent Pew survey showed 48 percent of the general public believes torture sometimes or often is justified in order to obtain information from suspected terrorists, the new poll shows 57 percent of white Southern evangelicals hold that belief.

Among that demographic and despite their high levels of religious belief and practice, the survey found, “white evangelicals in the South are significantly more likely to rely on life experiences and common sense (44 percent) than Christian teachings or beliefs (28 percent) when thinking about the acceptability of torture.”

Meanwhile, among the minority who pointed to the Bible and Christian doctrine as the primary influences on their view of torture, more than half—52 percent—oppose government use of such tactics.

“This is a spiritual crisis, I suggest, that should alarm all Christian leaders regardless of what we think about torture,” said Tyler Wigg Stevenson, a Baptist minister and human-rights activist from Nashville, Tenn., at a press conference announcing the survey’s results. “This bad news for the church is a plus for any special interest who wants to take advantage of us.”

However, he added, “The good news this poll reminds us of is that, as with any issue when Christians remember that our calling is to follow Jesus, he changes everything.”

The study was commissioned by Mercer University and Faith in Public Life. Its results were announced during the “Religious Faith, Torture and our National Soul” conference held on Mercer’s Atlanta campus. The meeting was sponsored by the two organizations that commissioned the poll and a host of other religious groups, including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Evangelicals for Human Rights, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and the Islamic Society of North America.

David Gushee, a Mercer professor and president of Evangelicals for Human Rights (and also a columnist for Associated Baptist Press) said the poll results should tell both of the major-party presidential candidates how to lead when it comes to addressing the subject of torture.

Both GOP nominee John McCain and his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, have expressed opposition to the United States’ use of torture on terrorism suspects.

“My message to [Illinois] Sen. Barack Obama…is that you have an opportunity to make torture a moral and, in fact a religious issue—a values issue,” said Gushee, who teaches Christian ethics. “This is in your interest, because you are trying to communicate to religious Americans—and especially to evangelicals.”

But he warned Obama not to soft-pedal the torture issue in his campaign speeches for fear of alienating middle-of-the-road voters. “I say: Say more about the issue of torture and not less,” Gushee said. “Don’t run away from the issue.”

For McCain, the veteran Arizona senator who endured years of torture while he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, Gushee had different advice. “I say to Sen. McCain: Make the tie between your personal narrative and your policy stance on human rights perfectly clear,” he said.

Gushee, noting that two-thirds of those in the poll who said they were supporting McCain also support torture, added, “Tell your own voters why they are wrong on this issue, and why you are committed to the positions that you have articulated since 2002-2003 on the issue of torture.”

During a question-and-answer session, Gushee said he was disappointed with McCain’s actions on specific legislation earlier this year that seemed to indicate he was backtracking on his previous anti-torture stance. Gushee said one vote in particular was “grievously disappointing to all who follow … this battle for our national soul.”

Nonetheless, the professor said, McCain’s original position on torture is more in line with the candidate’s overall message.

“It fits entirely with [McCain’s] vision of national honor, it fits entirely with his vision of the discipline and grandeur of the U.S. military,” Gushee said. “I think his whole appeal—his whole stated appeal—for his candidacy is a maverick who stands up for what is right. And I want him to be who he says he is.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Jason Ford, 29, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., plans to spend Election Day at home this year.

A self-identified evangelical Christian, Ford cast his vote for President Bush in 2004 but said he and his wife plan to stay away from the polls Nov. 4, rather than vote for Sen. John McCain.

“I’m not going to be able to vote for anyone who doesn’t take a 100-percent stand against abortion,” said Ford. “So right now, I’m in a dilemma.”

Ford is concerned by McCain’s support for embryonic stem cell research.

“If he’s OK with that, then I’m not,” Ford said.

Ford is not alone. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, a leading conservative Christian voice, publicly vowed in February never to support McCain. He softened his stance recently—particularly after McCain announced his choice for a running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Palin, a 44-year-old evangelical Christian, has been held up as a model of pro-life family values for her decision to give birth to her fifth child in April after learning he has Down syndrome.

Dobson called Palin “an outstanding choice that should be extremely reassuring to the conservative base” of the Republican Party.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said Palin resonates with evangelicals: “She’s one of us.”

Still, some conservative evangelicals remain less than enthusiastic about their options this fall. And conscientious abstention raises another ethical question: Do Christians have an obligation to vote?

Of the multitude of Christian denominations in the United States, few have a history of deliberate non-voting. Jehovah’s Witnesses, who demand full separation of church and state, may be the largest and most prominent example, along with some Anabaptist sects, such as the Hutterite Brethren.

Among evangelicals, Catholics and mainline Protestants, where civil participation is encouraged, debate centers on voting itself, a hard-won freedom that some say makes it a rite as well as a right.

Martin Marty, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School, believes the obligation to vote can be traced back to biblical times.

“I think most churches would say there’s a great moral suasion behind it,” Marty said. “In Christianity, for example, as nervous as they might be about any particular civil order, the New Testament does say government was created by God. Most churches would say: ‘Yes, get out Tuesday; get out and vote.’”

Brian McLaren, a progressive evangelical leader, echoed Marty’s assertion, arguing that politics—and life—is a compromise between the lesser of two evils, or as he puts it, “the better of two less-than-perfects.”

Asked about the ethics of voting, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee quoted the Gospel of Matthew: “Render unto God the thing’s that are God’s, and render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

“Part of being a citizen in a society like ours, where we have the privilege of voting, is the responsibility to exercise that privilege,” Huckabee said. “To not do so is to sort of forego that part of what it means to be in a free society, and I think it would be unfortunate.”

Still, dissenters say there are reasons for staying home.

Todd Whitmore, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and a contributor to the new book, Electing Not To Vote, argues that while Christians are obligated to participate in civil society, the electoral system has been reconfigured to the point where voting is not always an appropriate or efficient means of participation.

“If you don’t allow for situations like (abstaining), then you basically make the earthly political order into a kind of God. The earthly political order is a good,” Whitmore said. “But it’s not the ultimate good.”

The motive behind not voting can be as significant as the act itself. A supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton would not be justified in staying home rather than support Obama, according to Whitmore, because that would be “a kind of political blackmail” rather than a moral stand.

Shane Claiborne, a young evangelical leader of the “emergent church” movement, offers a counter-culture antidote to the get-out-the-vote drives that fuel America’s civil religion. Claiborne, along with his friend Chris Haw, embarked on a nationwide “Jesus for President” tour this summer, reminding Christians that their primary allegiance is not to a partisan agenda, but to Jesus and his teachings.

Regardless of the merits of voting or not voting, however, conscientious abstainers make up just a small fraction of the electorate. According to John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, there is no historical precedent for large groups of religious voters deliberately staying home, and little evidence to suggest that will change in the fall.

“I think the bigger problem is not so much that folks abstain out of principle or to punish their party, but they just don’t have the same level of enthusiasm,” Green said. “Lots of people, whether they’re religious or not, need a lot of stimulus to get out and vote.”

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Adventist leader James Standish has been named the new executive director of a federal panel that advocates for global religious liberty.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom announced Aug. 20 that James Standish would lead the independent, non-partisan federal agency.

“The commission warmly welcomes James Standish,” Felice Gaer, chair of the panel and director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, said in a prepared statement. “Mr. Standish’s academic and professional background in human rights and religious freedom advocacy has made him a respected leader, both on Capitol Hill and among the widely varying constituencies whose causes he has represented.”

For his part, Standish said that it was “an honor to join the commission, particularly as we approach the 10th anniversary of the creation of the International Religious Freedom Act.” The 1998 law created the panel, which monitors religious-freedom conditions worldwide and advises Congress, the White House and the State Department on freedom-of-conscience issues.

“The magnitude and severity of violations of the universal right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion worldwide cannot be understated,” Standish continued. “I am honored to join the commission as it addresses some of world’s most pressing human rights crises.”

He was director of legislative affairs for the Seventh-day Adventist Church for seven years prior to accepting the commission’s top staff post. He succeeds Joseph Crapa, who died last year.

Standish earned an undergraduate degree from Newbold College in the United Kingdom, a master of business administration degree from the University of Virginia and a law degree from Georgetown University.

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP)— Presidential candidates presented their positions on moral issues—and presented themselves as individuals of faith—during the recent Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency.

The two-hour forum, sponsored by Southern Baptist mega-congregation Saddleback Church and held on its main campus in Orange County, Calif., allowed presumptive presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain to express moral views on political topics to a largely evangelical audience. Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren served as host.

Rather than using a debate format, Warren questioned each candidate individually in front of an audience that paid $100 per ticket to attend.

Obama was first, with McCain sequestered so that he would not hear the questions. The pastor spent almost an hour with each candidate.

Although McCain appeared to be comfortable in front of an evangelical audience, Obama used biblical language twice, once referring to “the least of my brothers” (Matthew 25) and “acting justly and loving mercy and walking humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).

McCain seemed to generate the most audience response, particularly regarding national security, abortion and tax issues.

Differences 

The candidates differed, sometimes markedly, in their responses to some questions. Regarding abortion, Obama is pro-choice, while McCain takes a pro-life stance.

Anti-abortion groups have repeatedly criticized Obama for his answer to Warren’s question about when he believed a child in the womb gained human rights. The Illinois senator responded, “…answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”

However, he pointed out he is pro-choice because he believes women don’t “make these decisions casually” and that they seek advice within their support systems. Abortion has a “moral and ethical element” that cannot be overlooked, he said.

Obama favors limiting late-term abortions, as long as a provision is included to protect maternal health, and recognized pro-lifers’ viewpoint. “[I]f you believe that life begins at conception … and you are consistent in that belief, then I can’t argue with you on that because that is a core issue of faith for you,” he said.

McCain declared a baby is entitled to human rights “at the moment of conception” and committed to a pro-life presidency, if elected.

War in Iraq 

The Arizona senator also played up his commitment to the ongoing war in Iraq and to the war on terror. He pointed to “radical Islam extremism” and al-Qaeda as evil and pledged to “get [Osama] bin Laden and bring him to justice.”

Asked about his views on war, Obama called his early stand against the Iraq war the most difficult decision he has made — in part because of the political consequences of the at-the-time unpopular stance, and partly because of putting “kids … in harm’s way.”

But both agreed that going to war is acceptable to protect American interests and national security.

Regarding tax issues, Obama advocates a tax cut for workers that earn under $150,000 and a “modest” tax increase for those who make more than $250,000.

McCain will push for a $7,000-per-child tax credit and a $5,000 tax credit for healthcare. He focused on government spending, rather than taxation, as the issue.

McCain and Obama responded similarly on some issues. Although they didn’t use the same wording, they both characterized America’s greatest moral failure as self-centeredness.

“[W]e still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me,” Obama said. “There’s a pervasive sense, I think, that this country, as wealthy and powerful as we are, still [doesn’t] spend enough time thinking about the least of us.”

McCain, in response to that question, noted, “Throughout our existence, perhaps we have not devoted ourselves to causes greater than our self-interest, although we’ve been the best at it of everybody in the world.”

Rather than being encouraged to “go shopping or to take a trip” after the Sept. 11 bombings in the United States, people should have been told to “expand” participation in helping others, to “expand the current missions that you are doing, that you are carrying out here in America and throughout the world,” McCain added.

The meaning of faith 

Both also pointed to their faith in Christ. For Obama, faith means “that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and that I am redeemed through him…. And I know that if I can get myself out of the way, that I can maybe carry out in some small way what he intends. And it means that those sins that I have on a fairly regular basis, hopefully will be washed away.”

McCain said his faith means, “I’m saved and forgiven.”

The candidates shared a similar approach to stem-cell research. Both emphasized the promise of adult stem-cell research, preferring to avoid the moral dilemma that research on embryonic stem cells poses.

Both agreed that marriage should be the union of a man and a woman and that the same-sex marriage issue should be determined at the state level. Obama believes in civil unions, he said, adding that his faith and his marriage are “strong enough that I can afford those civil rights to others.” He would not support an amendment to the federal constitution banning same-sex marriage nationwide.

Also a states-rights advocate on the issue, McCain said he would support an amendment only if the federal courts tried to enforce one state’s decision on other states as well.

McCain and Obama also agreed with Warren that stepping into regional conflict, such as in the Darfur region of Sudan, to stop genocide is acceptable. Obama emphasized seeking international support whenever possible.

Human rights 

Both said the United States should speak out against human-rights abuses and religious persecution. McCain said he would use the president’s “greatest asset” — the bully pulpit — as an advocate, following Ronald Reagan’s example.

While Obama favors speaking out, he said he also advocates joining international forums to work with others to point out abuse and lack of religious freedom and to “lead by example.”

Some religion-and-politics observers, such as Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, applauded Saddleback’s effort. Land believes the forum shows that evangelical influence has not declined in politics, according to a news release in Baptist Press, the SBC’s news outlet.

Others, such as the Interfaith Alliance, questioned whether the forum simply further blurred the lines between religion and politics.

Read more

Transcript of Obama and McCain appearance at Saddleback:

www.rickwarrennews.com/transcript/

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A nonpartisan coalition of more than 90 faith, community, labor and business organizations has launched an ambitious “$10 in 2010” campaign to raise the federal minimum wage within two years.

The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign announced the “$10 in 2010” crusade with support from various denominations, including American Baptist Churches USA, the Episcopal Church, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Christian social justice group Sojourners.

The launch of the new “livable wage” campaign came as the federal minimum wage rose 60 cents to $6.55 on July 24, part of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. The hourly minimum will increase again in 2009 to $7.25 per hour.

“As people of faith, we believe there is no better way to urgently address the poverty that afflicts so many low-wage working people and their families than by raising the minimum wage,” said Paul Sherry, founding national coordinator of Let Justice Roll.

The two-day event, “Living Wage Days,” is set to kick off Jan. 10, 2009, featuring worship services and community events across the country.

Opponents argue an increased minimum wage will lead to more unemployment and layoffs, especially among young and unskilled workers. They also argue businesses will shift excess worker salary costs to consumers.

But Sherry said: “A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. That conviction is at the very heart of the faith we proclaim.”

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (ABP)—Heather Rosema is precisely the kind of Christian voter Sen. Barack Obama covets.

Rosema, 41, chose George W. Bush in 2000, when she put greater emphasis on issues like abortion and gay marriage. This year, she intends to vote Obama.

Rosema, a member of Roosevelt Park Community Christian Reformed Church, sees a true man of faith in the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

“He talks about God very easily,” said Rosema, of Grand Rapids. “I think that I hear that from him. They seem to be a Christian family.”

Mike Langerak, meanwhile, remains unimpressed.

“Obama has got a good line. He presents himself well. But his walk does not follow his talk,” said Langerak, a 50-year-old roofing contractor from suburban Hudsonville who also attends a Christian Reformed church.

Troubling positions 

Langerak is most troubled by Obama’s support of abortion rights, but he doesn’t exactly sing the praises of Sen. John McCain, who has struggled to woo evangelical voters that flocked to Bush in 2004.

But Langerak is pragmatic when it comes to the Nov. 4 election. He wonders about other Christian voters who look askance at McCain’s conservative credentials.

“Some people said they would sit it out. … But if you do not vote for McCain, then you are in effect putting Obama in,” Langerak said.

Evangelical voters like Rosema and Langerak are a crucial constituency in the 2008 elections. In 2004, 78 percent of white evangelicals broke for Bush, and white Protestants overall voted for Bush by a two-to-one margin.

Few predict that kind of fervor for McCain, but it remains to be seen whether Obama can crack open the door to this GOP sanctuary.

Obama is not ceding evangelical votes. He visited Ohio this summer to tout expanded funding for social service programs run by religious groups.

"Do the Lord's work" 

He also has circulated a pamphlet that is striking for its stark religious appeal. Beneath a photo of Obama at a pulpit with a large cross in the background, it reads: “My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work.”

There is political work to do, given a March poll that found 13 percent of Americans mistakenly believe Obama is Muslim. Beyond that, Obama may continue to be haunted by his controversial former pastor in Chicago, Jeremiah Wright, with whom Obama cut ties in May.

McCain has issues of his own with religious voters.

In his 2000 campaign for the GOP nomination, McCain took on the religious right as he faulted the “politics of division and slander” and called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell “agents of intolerance.”

Last year, McCain finished last of nine Republicans in a straw poll at the Values Voter Summit for conservative activists in Washington.

In May, he was forced to dump the endorsement of religious broadcasters John Hagee and Rod Parsley after Hagee suggested the Holocaust was God’s way of moving Jews to Israel, and Parsley called Islam an “antichrist religion” bent on world domination.

Can McCain close the deal? 

Since then, the McCain campaign has stepped up efforts to assure evangelicals he is their candidate. But Calvin College political science professor Doug Koopman said McCain may have trouble closing the deal, especially as younger evangelicals gravitate toward issues like global warming, human trafficking and poverty.

“He has never been their candidate,” he said. “John McCain has never been a religious exhibitionist.”

Koopman noted McCain’s libertarian strain of Arizona politics is not necessarily identified with conservative Christian concerns. What’s more, “he is independent and strong-willed and in some sense unpredictable on issues.”

Koopman also said Obama is tapping a new generation of evangelical leaders while old-guard icons such as Robertson are being wooed by McCain’s campaign. “They are running a 2000 campaign when it comes to 2008,” he said.

Of course, a mosaic of other factors—including turnout by black, young and new voters—will shape November’s outcome. But Koopman believes evangelicals could be pivotal.

Religion “is a way into voters being comfortable with a candidate,” he said.

If Obama can cut McCain’s margin among evangelical voters from 78 percent to 68 percent, the election may be his, Koopman said.

Corwin Smidt, a political scientist who directs the Paul B. Henry Institute at Calvin College, noted that a major survey of religious voters by the institute found a shift toward Democratic candidates.

“One of the things our survey revealed is that the kinds of issues that Obama is stressing would resonate with that particular group,” Smidt said.

Some evangelicals hint at buyer’s remorse after supporting Bush.

“I was fed up with the Clintons and all of the personal drama. I was looking for somebody to stand up for his faith,” said Sharon Smith, 40, whose husband, Reggie, is the pastor at Rosema’s church.

Smith, however, grew disillusioned by some Bush policies, including the decision to invade Iraq. She concluded that Bush “misused his faith” to justify political decisions.

She intends to vote for Obama because of his stand on issues like social justice and health care.

“I have come to a point where faith is a personal thing for each candidate,” Smith said. “I am looking at their stand on policies and how they are going to affect the nation.”

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS)—Making jokes and comments about a person’s religion can create a “humiliating and painful environment” and be a form of on-the-job discrimination, New Jersey’s highest court recently ruled.

The New Jersey Supreme Court said remarks about someone’s faith—even as a form of ribbing—cannot be tolerated in the workplace.

Clarifying anti-discrimination laws, the court declared a person claiming religious-based harassment does not face a higher legal hurdle than people who claim they were discriminated against because of sex or race.

“It is necessary that our courts recognize that the religion-based harassing conduct that took place … in this ‘workplace culture’ is as offensive as other forms of discriminatory, harassing conduct outlawed in this state,” Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote for a unanimous court.

The ruling holds the borough of Haddonfield in Camden County accountable for discrimination claims made by a Jewish police officer whose coworkers made crass comments—claimed to be poor attempts at humor—about his ethnicity and pasted stickers of the flags of Israel and Germany on his locker.

The decision is an important victory for all workers enforcing the principle of equality, said Jon Green, who represented the state chapter of the National Employ-ment Lawyers Association.

“There is no reason to make fun of people’s religion or race or anything,” said Attorney Clifford Van Syoc, who represented the officer.

Etzion Neuer, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of New Jersey, added, “It sends a clear and unequivocal message that anti-Semitism has to be treated with the same degree of severity as racial harassment.”

Others warned the decision would have a chilling effect.

“The court has raised the bar on the hostile work environment. Now you can’t even joke in the workplace,” attorney Mario Iavicoli said.