WASHINGTON (ABP) — On national television June 4, John Edwards admitted that he sins every day, Barack Obama said there's “a biblical injunction” to give prisoners the tools they need to rehabilitate themselves, and Hillary Clinton said the support of “prayer warriors” had helped her get through the most difficult times of her marriage and life.
It wasn't a church service. It was a first-of-its-kind forum on faith, values and poverty for the top three contenders for the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination. It was also, some observers said, further evidence that the Democratic Party is trying to regain ground it has ceded to the Republicans among voters who are active Christians.
The event — sponsored by the Christian social-justice group Sojourners and broadcast in prime time on CNN — marked some of the most public and intense discussion of presidential candidates' religious beliefs in American history.
“How can we, as people of faith, carve out a space that rejects both the secular left and its ideological twin, the Religious Right — one that recognizes our dual citizenship?” asked Rich Nathan, pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, who spoke prior to the forum to the estimated 1,300 attendees gathered in a George Washington University campus auditorium. “How can we create a society that sees itself as morally accountable to God and his kingdom?”
Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee, drew loud applause from the students and activists in the crowd for his focus on poverty issues, which he said owed to his faith.
“I have respect for my colleagues who are running for the presidency, but I would say … this is not an issue I just talk about when I come to you,” Edwards said. “It is an issue I talk about all over America to all kinds of audiences, because it's a part of who I am.”
Edwards noted he had been raised Southern Baptist and baptized after a profession of faith when he was “very young.” But he also said he “strayed away from the Lord” for a period.
Nonetheless, Edwards continued — echoing a line he has used previously about his Christian journey — “my faith came roaring back during some crises that my own family endured.”
He and his wife, Elizabeth, lost their teenage son, Wade, to a car accident in 1996. Edwards said it was “the Lord that got me through that. It was the same thing when Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer.”
The candidates also discussed how their personal faith affected their views on issues. Edwards has said that, while he personally opposes same-sex marriage, he believes the government ought to protect the rights of gay couples through civil unions. CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien, who moderated the forum, asked him if holding that view was “a dodge” for a Christian.
“No,” Edwards responded. “I think there's a difference between my belief system and what the responsibilities of the president of the United States are. It's the reason we have the separation of church and state.”
In a similar vein, Edwards also said he disagreed with the idea that the United States is “a Christian nation,” nor does he believe that the president should serve as a spiritual figurehead. “I have a deep and abiding love of my Lord, Jesus Christ,” he said. “But that doesn't mean that those who come from the Jewish faith, from the Muslim faith … that they don't have the right to have their faith respected.”
Obama, the Illinois senator, was a familiar face to many in the crowd. He made national headlines last year with his groundbreaking speech on his faith. That speech, which like this year's candidate forum was part of the Sojourners Pentecost conference, was one of the first times in recent years that a potential Democratic nominee has spoken so candidly about the details of his Christian faith.
However, at the June 4 event, he ended up speaking mostly about policy positions grounded in his moral outlook.
Asked by Jim Wallis, Sojourners' founder, how he would bring his faith to bear on addressing poverty in the United States and around the globe, Obama cited a biblical concept.
“I think our starting point has to be … that I am my brother's keeper, that I am my sister's keeper, that we are connected as people,” Obama said. “Those responsibilities have to express themselves not only through our churches and synagogues and our mosques … [but] through our government.”
On the specific issue of finding ways to improve the nation's criminal-justice system, Obama said providing real opportunities for rehabilitation as well as punishment of criminals is a moral imperative.
“There's a biblical injunction that I see to make sure those young men and women have the opportunity to right their lives,” he said, noting that such would “require a government investment” in transitional employment for ex-cons as well as providing educational incentives to inmates.
“The notion that we take away educational programs in the prison to be tough on crime makes absolutely no sense,” Obama contended.
Clinton, a lifelong Methodist who represents New York in the Senate, acknowledged that she sometimes is not as comfortable speaking publicly about her faith as some of her competitors.
“I come from a tradition that is perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faith on their sleeves. So a lot of the talking about and advertising about faith is not something that comes naturally to me,” she said. She noted such faith-talk on the campaign trail reminds her “about the Pharisees and all the Sunday school lessons and readings I had as a child.”
However, Clinton gave what was perhaps the night's most intimate look into a candidate's spiritual life. In response to a question from O'Brien about how her faith helped her through her husband's very public infidelity, the former first lady said her faith — and especially knowing others were praying for her — helped her carry on.
“For me, because I've been tested in ways that are both publicly known and those that are not so well known or not known at all, my faith and the support of my extended faith family — people who I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me … sustained me for a great time,” Clinton said.
She added, “I am very grateful I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought.” The comment drew enthusiastic applause.
Besides O'Brien and Wallis, a panel of Christian leaders questioned the candidates. Joel Hunter, pastor of an Orlando-based evangelical megachurch and the onetime choice to be head of the Christian Coalition, asked Clinton about her views on abortion rights.
Noting that he is pro-life and believes abortion “remains one of the most hurtful and divisive facts of our nation,” Hunter asked Clinton, “Could you see yourself, with millions of voters in the pro-life camp, creating a common ground with the goal ultimately in mind in reducing the decisions for abortion to zero?”
Clinton, quoting a phrase long used by abortion-rights advocates, said she really does want to make abortion “safe, legal and rare.” She emphasized, “I mean 'rare.'”
Clinton said leaders of the pro-life and pro-choice camps have remained too far apart to cooperate on a goal they both support — alleviating the social ills that often contribute to women choosing abortion.
“What concerns me is that here's been a real reluctance for anyone to make a move toward the other side for fear of being labeled as sort of turning one's back to the moral dimensions of the decision from either direction,” she said, echoing comments she has made since a well-publicized 2005 speech.
After the forum, Wallis said he believed the conversation on faith and values in the 2008 election was “off to a good start tonight” and was much better than in the 2004 election cycle. “We've had a very narrow, restrictive conversation [in the past], as if there are only one or two religious issues,” he said.
The event drew attention to the differences between the current campaign and the 2004 presidential election cycle. Then, Democratic nominee John Kerry's campaign sidelined its religious advisor and the candidate appeared very reluctant to talk about his Catholic faith. In the current campaign, both Clinton's and Obama's campaigns have hired experienced Washington political operatives as advisors on religious issues.
But to some ardent advocates of religious freedom, the Democrats' new focus on religion risks cheapening a candidate's personal faith by making it merely another political tool. That's something they believe prominent Republicans have done in recent years.
“I felt it was a great opportunity for a discussion that needs to happen in this nation, but those present didn't take advantage of the opportunity,” said Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister who is president of the Interfaith Alliance. “They talked more about personal piety than they did the issues that have to be of concern to the president of the United States.”
Gaddy said a candidate should have the right not to discuss his or her private religious practices and beliefs, so long as they are open about how their faith affects what policies they embrace and how they govern.
“I think one of the most constructive developments that could have come out of that televised event would have been if one of the candidates would have responded to one of the questioners by saying, 'Frankly, that's none of your business,'” Gaddy said. “Because perhaps that would make the point that a politician, like any person in this nation, has the right to hold his or her own private, religious views, to respect the Constitution's mandate that there be no religious test for someone running for public office and force the discussion to move to the way in which religion impacts public policy and whether or not that's constitutionally done.”
Supporters of the event said that such concerns, while valid, were overblown. Asked by a reporter following the forum if Democrats' new openness to talking about faith in their campaigns risked cheapening it, Hunter responded, “I think there is a great deal of danger — but it's worth the risk.”
Likewise, former Michigan Rep. David Bonior said that while fellow Democrats may be tempted to begin using their faith as just another political ploy, “I think there is less of a risk of that than with the Republicans.” Bonior is Edwards' campaign manager.
Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, described the forum as “a helpful exercise” and said that the public needs “to know what makes candidates tick and how religious convictions will affect their leadership and policy decisions.”
However, he echoed some of Gaddy's caution about Democrats using religion for political ends. Candidates “don't shed their religion when they take office. But candidates should temper their appeal to religion with a dose of humility and understand they represent all Americans, not just those who share their religious beliefs,” he said.
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Read more:
Democratic presidential race features more faith than usual (4/11/07)
Hillary Clinton hires faith consultant for potential presidential campaign (12/16/06)
Don't be afraid of evangelicals, Obama tells other progressives (6/29/06)