It's going to be a long election season

If the reaction I got to my last Strang Report is any indication, this is going to be a long and divisive election season.

It will be long because there will be endless speculation over whether Sen. Barack Obama and the Democrats will make any headway into the typically Republican support of evangelical Christians. So far it’s only Obama who is courting evangelical voters. Sen. John McCain seems to be distancing himself from the religious right. I'll let you know if my request for an interview with Sen. McCain is granted.

The election will be divisive because once again the Christian community will be split. Typically evangelical Christians who are African-American vote Democratic even though the Democratic positions on certain moral issues are repugnant to those of us who believe the Bible tells us that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman and who believe that life begins at conception. This position leaves no room for supporting the radical gay agenda or abortion.

But this year it appears the split will be even more pronounced than usual. Obama is making inroads into more “moderate” Christian circles by focusing on the social justice aspects of the Gospel and playing off the fact that many Christians are unhappy that Republicans don’t seem as concerned about those issues.

It’s sad to me that it must split down racial lines like this. In a way, I wish I could vote for a black candidate. I think it’s about time America had a black president. But black or white, Barack Obama is just a typical very, very liberal Democrat. He supports abortion rights and also civil unions for gay couples—positions I cannot support, no matter what other policies might be attractive.

One of the African-American leaders I have considered a friend for more than a decade called me to complain that I implied in my last report that a person couldn’t vote for Obama and be a Christian. (I didn't say that, but he read that into what I wrote.) My friend said he is against abortion and special rights for gays, but overall he feels the Democratic party supports the black community better. He doesn’t understand why I don’t see that that is just how it is among blacks--even most evangelical blacks.

Another African American friend cancelled an important appointment, supposedly over my last report.

But those were nothing compared to what some of the bloggers said. You can read their comments here and add your own.

One of the aspects of a meeting Obama recently had with Christian leaders that is not generally reported is that one of the leaders, who voiced support of Sen. Obama, gave a little lecture at the end of the meeting on all the things about John McCain that should keep Christians from supporting him--such as the fact that McCain was known to swear publicly and had a rather public divorce (as well as a few other things I won’t repeat here since they weren't nice, and I’ve not had a chance to research if they are true). Obama smiled and said he wasn’t going to get involved in accusing his opponent of those things.

The point seemed to be that there are things for Christians not to like about the Democratic candidate, such as his stand on abortion and gay rights, and there are things not to like about John McCain, such as how he lives his personal life and the importance faith plays in his life. Then it becomes a toss-up for Christians about whom to support.

To me, supporting life from conception and the importance of traditional marriage trump all other issues. And this isn’t a matter of who is the nicest person or who can say all the right things about his personal religious faith.

I found Sen. Obama to be very likable. I was impressed with how easily he talked about a faith that seems very sincere. He even knows the jargon we Christians like to use. But he also made clear that though he believes in Christ, he thinks all roads lead to God. We call that universalism, and it’s wrong.

But we are not electing a theologian-in-chief. We’re electing a man who will sign laws that will make abortion easier and will appoint judges that will keep Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. If Obama is elected, it is nearly certain that civil unions will become the law of the land and that hate crime legislation, which will make it illegal to even speak against homosexuality from a biblical point of view, will be passed.

In our hour-and-a-half meeting no one asked about hate crimes. And I was the only one who asked about abortion.

I said, “Senator, I want to ask a question I'm sure you are expecting regarding your position on abortion. I represent a segment of the church where nearly everyone considers the issue of supporting life to be the most important issue and where nearly everyone would be opposed to abortion. I want to ask what your stand on abortion is and if you believe what I think you believe, how you justify that with your Christian faith and why you think we should vote for you.”

My notes say he answered by saying he thinks this is a difficult moral issue. He said he is not "pro-abortion," but he struggles with whether the government should make the decision for women. He said there are areas of agreement with conservative Christians, such as wanting “responsible sexuality” and ending unwanted pregnancy. He spoke of making adoption a viable option. He specifically said one of the worst raps against him was that he was not in favor of infanticide or opposed to the “born alive” bill.

He said he knows it is a deeply moral issue and he has friends who strongly oppose his stand on abortion. And in a statement that surprised me, he said: “I’ll always admit there’s a possibility I’m wrong.”

In a way I agree that everything should be done to eliminate the need for abortion. Actually, I don't believe many Americans truly want to abort a baby; abortion is usually “birth control of the last resort” to end an unwanted or inconvenient pregnancy. People who support abortion seem to be oblivious to the fact that an unborn fetus is a living, breathing human being whose life is being taken during an abortion.

I also believe that we do need to be concerned about life outside the womb. My impression is that Christians are concerned, and in fact, usually it's the Christians who are most active in trying to help babies get adopted or helping them in other ways. But liberals use well-worn clichés to try to denigrate pro-life people who make a big deal about life in the womb, suggesting that they are not interested in the baby after it's born.

There are many other important issues in this campaign—national security, the economy, illegal immigration, how we fight the AIDS epidemic, environmental issues, energy policies, Middle East policies and how they affect the security of Israel. In other e-newsletters we’ll deal with some of those issues.

But to me it comes down to this—how I vote is based on whether the candidate is for or against life, period.


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