Eugene Cho, a founder and lead pastor at Seattle's Quest Church, which caters to a predominantly under-35 crowd, urges young Christians to look beyond the two or three issues that have allowed Christians to be "manipulated by those that know the game or use it as their sole agenda."

"While the issue of abortion — the sanctity of life — must always be a hugely important issue, we must juxtapose that with other issues that are also very important," Cho wrote in his blog on faith and politics.

Polls have shown that young Christians aren't any less concerned about the "family values" issues that have traditionally driven Christians to the Republican camp. (In fact, a study by the Barna Group, an evangelical polling organization, shows young Christians are actually more conservative on abortion than their elders.) It's just that they're also concerned about issues such as social justice and immigration, issues traditionally associated with Democrats.

Judy Naegeli, 25, who works at a Christian philanthropy, says easy access to information about the world via social-networking sites, YouTube and blogs is the reason her generation is more concerned with social justice.

"It's changed our perspective. ... Each generation chooses their cause, and ours is AIDs in Africa, or poverty or social justice," she said.

Continue reading "Young, evangelical ... for social justice?" »

Posted by Alex Carpenter at 08:09 PM | Link | del.icio.us | Digg | Comments (0)

Os Guiness, author and social critic, explains the origin and raison d'etre of the Evangelical Manifesto.

In the next video, the chairman of Christianity Today International, John Huffman, discusses the meanings of "evangelical."

See it and two more videos on the flip

Continue reading "Video | Evangelical Manifesto Leaders Speak" »

Posted by Alex Carpenter at 06:56 PM | Link | del.icio.us | Digg | Comments (0)

I haven't had a chance to read the Evangelical Manifesto yet; in case you haven't either, here it is.

FPL intern-extraordinaire Nick went to the National Press Club unveiling yesterday and will weigh in this afternoon about his impression of the event.

Continue reading "Evangelical Manifesto" »

Posted by Dan at 10:43 AM | Link | del.icio.us | Digg | Comments (1)

At Swampland, Ana Marie Cox reports from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. (Here with Bob Wright, she starts discussing it, before the video runs out.)

Greetings from a dim conference room. Today's diversion from the beach was a presentation from Michael Lindsay in which he presented "eight myths about evangelicals." Lindsay is the author of "Faith in the Halls of Power," and had conducted some of academia's most thorough and sensitive research on evangelicalism. His "myths" are after the jump.

Continue reading "Ana Marie Cox: Cosmo vs. Pop Evangelicals" »

Posted by Alex Carpenter at 08:28 PM | Link | del.icio.us | Digg | Comments (0)

The Family Research Council recently alleged that my speaking at Planned Parenthood's prayer breakfast casts doubt on FPL's work to bridge ideological divides and seek solutions on abortion.

In a Friday blog post, FRC's JP Duffy excerpted my recent remarks at a recent Pew Forum panel discussion, and asked rhetorically:

Butler should explain how working "closely" with Planned Parenthood helps achieve "common ground" to solve the "problem" of abortion.

This question suggests a misunderstanding of Faith In Public Life's track record of bringing together pro-choice and pro-life leaders to work on common ground approaches to abortion. At Planned Parenthood's prayer breakfast I urged pro-choice progressives to sit down with evangelicals and come up with ways to reduce abortions, and I highlighted abortion-reduction policies outlined in Come Let Us Reason Together: A Fresh Look at Shared Cultural Values Between Progressives and Evangelicals, published by the think tank Third Way. This follows our hard work to bring together progressives and pro-life evangelicals to launch Come Let Us Reason Together last year.

I also emphasized this approach to abortion reduction in my Pew Forum interview -- but FRC excluded these remarks from their excerpts of the discussion, altering my message in a misinformative way.

Finding common ground and making real progress on contentious issues such as abortion entails working with parties who disagree with each other, such as Planned Parenthood and conservative pro-life evangelicals, and I'm proud to facilitate that. We've seen where polarization, demonization and an unwillingness to communicate in good faith have gotten us -- nowhere. If the most strident ideologues wish to continue talking only to those who agree with them, they will stay stuck in old debates that solve nothing. Bridges anchored only to one side are not bridges at all -- they are gangplanks that culture warriors walk at their peril.

Below is the entirety of the passage FRC excerpted in their blog post. The parts they omitted are underlined.

Continue reading "Bridges Versus Gangplanks" »

Posted by Dan at 11:15 AM | Link | del.icio.us | Digg | Comments (0)

White protestant/"other Christians" skewed harder toward Clinton than did whites as a whole (67 percent to 61).

Speaking of "other Christians," 30 percent of voters identified themselves as such. We might could do a better job definiging our categories.

Obama continues to rock the Godless vote: he took "nones" 69/29.

He also did much better among Catholics here than he did in Penn (improved from 30 percent to 48). Lends some credence to what I saw as the suspect argument that there is no Catholic vote. Still not sure if that dog hunts, though. Regardless, a remarkable change.

Indiana:

Here too, white protest/"other Christians" (45 percent of the population) went stronger for Clinton than did whites as a whole (62 percent to 60).

Church attendance wasn't much of an indicator: Obama won "more than weekly," "a few times a month," and "never." Clinton won "weekly" and "a few times a year."

Continue reading "Interesting exit notes" »

Posted by Dan at 10:55 AM | Link | del.icio.us | Digg | Comments (1)

Be on the lookout for religion and politics commentary today, but on a more urgent note here's some information on how to contribute to cyclone relief in Myanmar:

USAID's Web site lists resources for those wishing to assist in relief efforts, including tips on selecting a humanitarian organization and on the most effective way to contribute after a disaster.

For more information about humanitarian emergencies and making donations, visit The Center for International Disaster Informationor Reliefweb.

Several organizations are leading aid efforts for Burma, including the following:

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is assessing what kind of aid is most needed and how to distribute it. Click here to make a donation.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is distributing drinking water, plastic tarps to cover roofs and blankets, and other relief supplies. They have launched an emergency appeal for $5.9 million to support their current efforts. Go to www.ifrc.org to make a donation.

World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, is distributing food, clean water, blankets, temporary shelter and cooksets. Contribute via www.worldvision.org.

UNICEF has field offices positioned throughout Burma. Go to unicefusa.org to donate and learn more about UNICEF's emergency response efforts for children in Burma.

Save the Children is distributing emergency relief supplies to children and families. Go to savethechildren.org to contribute to the Children's Emergency Fund.

International Medical Corps is working with local organizations in Indonesia to deploy an emergency response team to Burma. Make a donation through www.imcworldwide.org.

Americares is delivering medical and other humanitarian supplies to victims of the cyclone. Contribute via www.americares.org.

Continue reading "Burma relief" »

Posted by Dan at 10:43 AM | Link | del.icio.us | Digg | Comments (0)

A variety of religious voices have been prominent in the 2008 presidential campaign to date, and to the surprise of many observers, these voices include religious activists with liberal and progressive perspectives. They describe a growing movement focused on justice and the common good. Where did this movement come from, and how might it influence this year's election?

• Laura Olson, Political Science professor, Clemson University
• Jennifer Butler, Executive Director, Faith in Public Life
• Chris Korzen, Executive Director, Catholics United

• John Green, Senior Fellow in Religion and American Politics, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Continue reading "Religion and Progressive Politics in 2008" »

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Bob Allen reported today that Family Research Council veep Kenyn Cureton and Faith2Action found Janet Folger recently spoke on Folger's radio show about ivotevalues.org's efforts to push the limits of pastoral electioneering this year.

"The pastors need to speak more clearly about it," Cureton said. "I'll tell you that we are working with the Alliance Defense Fund on a series of sermons this fall for pastors to preach, so that they educate their people on the issues. We're going to be talking about the value of life, the value of family and the value of freedom--basically talking about abortion and stem-cell research and then also about the gay agenda and then finally about our Christian heritage and how it's being stripped from every corner of our society. And finally we're going to be doing a candidate-comparison message that is going to ask pastors to cross the line."

"Really?" a surprised-sounding Folger replied. "What do you mean cross the line? Are you going to be suggesting who they vote for?"

"Well we're going to go to pastors and say to them that we really believe that they need to challenge some of the thinking that we have going on in our society, which is that separation of church and state doctrine, that we really need to preach the Bible on these issues and apply them to the things that are going on in the culture today," Cureton said.

...

Folger indicated she hopes the ban, which has been in effect for 50 years, will eventually be overturned, but in the meantime she speculated about what might happen if large numbers of pastors would ignore it as a matter of civil disobedience.

"I think we can actually within the legal means explain here's where the candidates stand, here's what the Bible says and people can draw that conclusion," she said. "But we need to make sure that it's clear not only what the Bible says but where those candidates stand."

"It's interesting though," she said. "I wonder what would happen if a bunch of pastors decided they were going to cross the legal line until we get that glitch in the system fixed legally." As an analogy she described a protest in Colorado where 10,000 people lit up marijuana joints in public, while police did nothing to stop them.

That is what we call talking a big game.

Continue reading ""Crossing the line"" »

Posted by Dan at 03:54 PM | Link | del.icio.us | Digg | Comments (0)