Liberal Christians believe that the evangelical/social conservatives, identified in the recent past with leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, have hijacked the Christian name, reduced political issues to a small number of litmus test issues, primarily abortion and gay rights/marriage, creationism, and educational choice, typically accommodated by the Republican Party platform. Many of the liberals argue that the Democratic Party platform is more encompassing of the broader, more authentic social justice goals and essentially accuse their conservative cousins as hypocritical and narrow-minded.
I would argue in response that the smug moral self-superiority and judgmental, presumptuous attitude of liberals displayed towards conservatives violate the principle of Christian integrity.
A couple of years ago, Dr. Arthur C. Brooks of Syracuse, a political independent, published an interesting study that, among other things, noted even though liberal households generally outearned conservative ones by 6%, conservative households gave almost a third more to charitable causes. Many Christian conservatives, such as myself, oppose Democratic domestic initiatives, not in terms of goals but their implementations, which can be counterproductive.
For example, a typical justification for raising the minimum wage deals with comparing the annualized minimum wage to household poverty levels. But if you take into consideration that a large percentage of minimum-wage workers are not heads of households but teenage dependents, raising the minimum wage above the intrinsic economic value of the teenage worker may result in fewer jobs and more unemployed teenagers. On the other hand, if there is a shortage of low-wage workers, employers will have to raise wages. The point is--commodity low-skill labor is a function of supply and demand. A better solution is to get training for better-paying, value-added opportunities. An increase in the minimum wage which results in fewer jobs in an environment with a high teenage unemployment rate isn't so virtuous.
Nevertheless, liberal Christians, inspired by Barack Obama's rhetoric, are more determined to lead young Christian evangelicals to turn the page on the hardened policies of prior generations.
The Obama campaign had high hopes for the non-partisan Saddleback Civic Forum. John McCain has had his share of support issues with leaders of the old school evangelicals, infamously referring to them as "agents of intolerance" during the 2000 primary campaign against Bush; in addition, McCain is an old school conservative like Reagan in that he doesn't feel comfortable verbalizing the impact of faith in his life. Barack Obama had exposure to community outreach programs at Chicago churches. The campaign felt that the evangelicals would respond positively to Barack's post-partisan rhetoric, his articulate description of his faith and his social justice policies; they did realize Barack would likely get hit on his support for abortion and gay rights, but they felt it was to their tactical advantage to participate: if they could show an articulate, nonthreatening Barack, that he is not a closet Muslim (i.e., "Barack Hussein Obama"), then evangelicals had fewer reasons to show up at the polls for McCain.
The format was a series of open-ended questions in a one-on-one format with Pastor Rick Warren (of The Purpose-Driven Life fame), with a coin flip deciding sequence. Obama started off with John McCain in a so-called Cone of Silence (the infamous device deployed during the 1960's series Get Smart!) It later turned out that Pastor Warren was misinformed; in fact, McCain was still in a motorcade to the church and once he got to church, he was escorted to a waiting room.
There are enough interesting points in the Saddleback forum that I'll write a few posts on particular issues. But Barack's performance mirrored problems others have seen in the early Democratic debates and even when a 7-year-old little girl asked him why he wants to be President: he just seemed to be caught off-guard and ill-prepared; for example, when asked by Pastor Warren as to what point an unborn child receives legal protection, Obama stammers to a convoluted, evasive response that the answer to that question is above his pay grade. John McCain, on the other hand, was quick on his feet, displayed a sense of humor and decisive.
The performance differences were so stark that the Obama campaign and liberal national media immediately cried foul, suspecting a conspiracy between Rick Warren and John McCain, whom, they reason, must have cheated:
NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports "And, you know, there was the crisp, immediate, forceful response by John McCain, clearly in a comfort zone because he was with his base.... He seemed so well prepared... "
"And Barack Obama...a much more nuanced approach. The Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well...because...they’re putting out privately...that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama."
To those of you without a Democrat-English dictionary, "nuance" is used to describe a complex response, as exemplified by John Kerry's immortal "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it. "
A different review: Michael Smerconish, a guest host on a post-forum "Radio Factor", had as a guest Rev. Bill Devlin, from the non-partisan group Redeem the Vote, described himself personally as a Democrat and gave John McCain an A+ for being decisive, direct, concise, having a good sense of humor, and able to connect to his audience. Barack Obama, on the other hand, came across more like a dispassionate social worker on a case; Rev. Devlin mentioned he heard Barack say "well" so many times, he would rather have a root canal than hear Barack say "well" again.
The following item is from the Christian Post: Bishop Harry Jackson, who stands out from other evangelical leaders during the teleconference for being an African-American and a registered Democrat, said he believes Sen. McCain “closed the deal” at Saturday’s forum.“I think he made a clear contrast between himself and Barack Obama. Many evangelicals will vote for him."
Why is it so hard for the liberal media to concede the truth? It was clear from the early Democratic Primary season that Barack was much better giving a prepared speech than discussing policy questions on the fly during the so-called debates. McCain is in his element in a townhall format; very early he challenged Obama to a series of 10 townhall debates, with Barack only willing to consider a very few dates--such as a July 4 date, when nobody would be home to watch the debate. Obama finally agreed to the minimum number of 3 Presidential debates.
Why should it surprise anyone that John McCain is quicker on his feet than Obama? John McCain is on the record for supporting a surge of troops in Iraq as early as 2003, far before President Bush, and Obama is still in a state of denial. John McCain was on the record for recognizing the Russian invasion of Georgia for what it was, before both President Bush and Obama eventually migrated to McCain's point of view.
