From an article in Christianity Today on Howard Dean’s faith outreach:
Dean declared that though the Democrats have tried to follow maybe 25 of the 27 main values of the New Testament, they have been poor at communicating this story. Invoking God, Dean declared, "Lord, family values—how could we possibly lose! We are the party of family values!"
Hey I only broke 8 of 10 commandments so give me a break!
Earlier in the week, congressional Democrats hosted a study session with University of California-Berkeley linguist George Lakoff on how to communicate the Democratic commitment to moral and religious values. The congressional Democrats also asked evangelical Jim Wallis, a veteran of many left-leaning causes, to teach Democratic press secretaries on how to reach evangelical audiences. Wallis told CT that he foresees a rising presence of evangelicals among Democratic leaders. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives designated Congressman James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the son of a minister, as their leader of a "faith working group.
Wow what an intelligent way to reach out to religious voters. Sure anybody know that if you want to speak to groups like Evangelicals that you immediately go to Berkeley for advice and also hire a very liberal Evangelical who doesn’t see anything wrong with the parties current "values." Jim Walls whose cites his conversion verse as "As you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me." de-emphasizes abortion and elevates other values such as helping the poor. Why can’t we do both and why is it one or the other when it comes to liberals? I guess they really are pro-choice and you have to choose between murdering babies and helping the poor. If they really wanted to reach out to groups like Catholics or Evangelicals they would talk to people the those groups would actually identify as a representative for those groups.
5 comments
Dean was a great decision for Republicans. He doesn’t pull any punches, often says silly things, and sticks up for his rather extremist views.
It doesn’t get any better than that!
there’s this guy. his name is god. he lives in the sky. he had a son named hey seuss. by a virgin named mary.
hey seuss died for YOUR sins. and he didn’t even know you. what a guy. of course, what else would you expect from god’s son.
oy vey.
Who can’t forget The Yell?
From the little I’ve heard about Jim Wallis’s political ideas, they amount to the Democratic Party platform with the pro-abortion plank removed. Not replaced with a pro-life plank, though; abortion becomes an issue on which reasonable politicians can disagree.
Among certain groups of politically progressive Christians, this amounts to a radical new Third Way. I’m not convinced it will attract many new voters to the Democratic Party, though.
obviously the best way to help the poor is to reduce their numbers.