Obama Asks Evangelicals To Assimilate
NASHVILLE, Tennessee, July 5, 2006 - (BP)-- Illinois
Sen. Barack Obama, considered a possible Democratic
nominee for president in 2008, told left-leaning
religious leaders at the Call to Renewal’s “Building
a Covenant for a New America” conference June
28 that in order to sort through some of the “bitter
arguments” about religion in America today,
evangelicals need to water down their views to fit
in better with the rest of society.
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated
translate their concerns into universal, rather than
religion-specific, values,” Obama said at the
event in Washington. “It requires that their
proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to
reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious
reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the
practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings
of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain
why abortion violates some principle that is accessible
to people of all faiths, including those with no
faith at all.
“Now this is going to be difficult for some
who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many
evangelicals do,” he added. “But in a
pluralistic democracy, we have no choice.”
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said Obama
demands the impossible.
“Sen. Obama seems to believe in the myth
of a universal reason and rationality that will be
compelling to all persons of all faiths, including
those of no faith at all,” Mohler wrote on
his weblog June 30. “Such principles do not
exist in any specific form usable for the making
of public policy on, for example, matters of life
and death like abortion and human embryo research.
“This is secularism with a smile -- offered
in the form of an invitation for believers to show
up, but then only to be allowed to make arguments
that are not based in their deepest beliefs,” Mohler
wrote.
# # #
By Erin Roach
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Baptist Press
Web site: www.bpnews.net
NASHVILLE, Tennessee, July 5, 2006 - (BP)-- Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, considered a possible Democratic nominee for president in 2008, told left-leaning religious leaders at the Call to Renewal’s “Building a Covenant for a New America” conference June 28 that in order to sort through some of the “bitter arguments” about religion in America today, evangelicals need to water down their views to fit in better with the rest of society.
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values,” Obama said at the event in Washington. “It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
“Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do,” he added. “But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice.”
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said Obama demands the impossible.
“Sen. Obama seems to believe in the myth of a universal reason and rationality that will be compelling to all persons of all faiths, including those of no faith at all,” Mohler wrote on his weblog June 30. “Such principles do not exist in any specific form usable for the making of public policy on, for example, matters of life and death like abortion and human embryo research.
“This is secularism with a smile -- offered in the form of an invitation for believers to show up, but then only to be allowed to make arguments that are not based in their deepest beliefs,” Mohler wrote.
# # #
By Erin Roach
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Baptist Press
Web site: www.bpnews.net