Last night was the New England stop on the Jesus For President tour, the vehicle for Shane Claiborne and his traveling band of raggamuffin evangelical radicals.  Well - actually, the vehicle for Shane Claiborne and company is a grease-powered, repurposed school bus painted black with gold "Jesus for President" signs.  The event was at an inner-city elementary school, and attended by a strange mix indeed - a handful of country UCCers (that came in my minivan with me), a large helping of young evangelicals, a smattering of little old ladies who walked in by themselves, and contingents from the Salvation Army (in uniform) and the local Catholic Worker House.  It was a blend of people as colorful and strange and hard to define as the movement currently being driven by Claiborne - a rowdy mix of evangelical fervor, passion for peace and social justice, world music, Bible reading, standup comedy and a kind of 21st century liberation theology.

As mentioned below, the Minnesota Independent has a report on the Vice-presidential prospects of Gov. Tim Pawlenty:

Media here, there and everywhere continue to speculate on whom Sen. John McCain will pick to be his running mate, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty's name continues to make just about every list. They say he's young and can win in a blue state, conservative and moderate Republicans love him and he's known McCain for a long time. But the one thing that speculation misses: Pawlenty is an evangelical Christian and a well-connected one at that. Pawlenty has a direct political pipeline to more than 30 million evangelicals. McCain needs the support of Christians if he's going to win in November, but as it stands now, he's far from winning them over.

...

Pawlenty became an evangelical Christian in the mid-1980s when he married Mary Anderson, a member of Wooddale Church, an evangelical megachurch in Eden Prairie. The couple were married by the Rev. Leith Anderson, a senior pastor at Wooddale since 1977. Anderson happens to be the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization representing more than 30 million American evangelicals. In fact, Anderson had been the president of NAE from 1999 to 2003, and became the current president after the Rev. Ted Haggard's troubles involving methamphetamines and gay sex forced him out in 2006.

Despite Anderson's and the NAE's promises to keep politics out of the pulpit this year, and despite Pawlenty's increasingly downplayed evangelism, Pawlenty and Anderson's close relationship both politically and personally will signal to 30 million evangelicals that Pawlenty is one of them. And the groundwork for that vast network has already been laid. Pawlenty's already met and spoke with a large number of evangelical leaders.

Pawlenty's connection to the NAE through his pastor is quite unique for a politician. When Pawlenty goes to church on Sundays, he is also heading to the church that houses a good many of the NAE's headquarters.

They go on to discuss the Pawlentys' evangelicalism, and the ways he's used Evangelical support as Governor.

I'm a bit more skeptical. It's true that Pawlenty is a fresh young face, and his approval ratings are okay. But he's not exactly the kind of fire-breathing demagogue the Religious Right favors, and with a movement encompassing 30 million voters, I'm not sure what one appointment could do. So, sure, he'd help McCain stanch the bleeding among Evangelicals, but could he actually bring them in? Maybe I'm missing something, but according to Survey USA, the answer is "no." Pawlenty doesn't seem to help more than potential Obama Veeps hurt.

Waldman makes a pretty decent point in his latest Wall Street Journal column. There's plenty of evidence to say John McCain has had trouble with the Religious Right leadership. That he's hurting among the rank-and-file of conservative Evangelicals is another question. I think Waldman minimizes McCain's underperformance with what ought to be his base, but what the hell do I know.

In any case, to get to that point, Waldman takes a detour through the Land of Stupid:

For instance, in New Hampshire, among the 21% of the Republican electorate that was evangelical or “born again,” Sen. McCain won 29%, Mr. Romney 28% and Mr. Huckabee 27% — even though Mr. Huckabee is a former evangelical preacher and Mr. Romney had the endorsements of many key Christian leaders.

In Texas, where half the primary voters described themselves as evangelical, Sen. McCain won 44% of them, while Mr. Huckabee got 48%. And in Florida, the decisive state that clinched the nomination for Sen. McCain, he once again played to a tie among evangelicals (Mr. Huckabee 31%, Mr. Romney 31%, Sen. McCain 28%.) Not too shabby for someone supposedly viewed as just one step above Sen. Lucifer.

Where he does have trouble is among Southern evangelicals; in South Carolina, for instance, Mr. Huckabee won 43% and Sen. McCain 27%, though even here he beat Fred Thompson and Mr. Romney, both candidates supposed to do much better than Sen. McCain among evangelicals.

Poppycock. You can't use the results of a contested primary to project votes in a general election like this. McCain will do better among Evangelicals in the general because he doesn't have the competition. Anybody who got the Republican nomination would do better, regardless of who the Religious Right Star Chamber backed in the primaries.

Even if you could map primary to general, there are special circumstances in each case mentioned that undermine Waldman's point. Huckabee never did particularly well outside the South (with Iowa being the exception, and a state that McCain didn't contest). Romney always was a second choice (Daddy Dobson wanted Newt, not Mitt.) And Texas and Florida were embarrassments for an establishment candidate facing the underfunded Huckabee and lackluster Romney.

McCain was never the insurgent candidate in this campaign. He won by default, not by strangely warming the hearts of America's Evangelicals, and it shows in the level of enthusiasm he elicits from them. He should be dominating the demographic, but instead he gets a "yeah, I guess so." That's hardly the stuff of a guy making a surprisingly strong run among Christian conservatives.

The New York Times' Caucus blog is reporting that Mara Vanderslice has formed a political action committee. So far, she's got the support of Rosa DeLauro, the Connecticut US Representative, and Mike McCurry, Bill Clinton's former press secretary.

They say it's a work in progress, but the announced intentions indicate that it's mostly about advancing Vanderslice's work (I say that without meaning to be pejorative):

Our 2008 activities will focus on reaching out to targeted religious communities that are key to electoral success for Senator Obama, including Catholics, moderate evangelicals, Hispanic Catholics and Protestants.
Matthew 25 Network will coordinate grassroots mobilization in these Christian communities, develop credible religious surrogates in the media, respond to negative faith-based attacks, and communicate directly with undecided voters through paid advertising and direct mail.

Everybody's buzzing about this BeliefNet interview in which consummate Religious Right PR flack Mark DeMoss declares that Obama could take nearly half the Evangelical vote this fall.

Steve Benen thinks he can; David Brody thinks he could, especially if McCain continues to do a lousy job of talking about his faith. And so it goes.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, DeMoss is quite right. If Bill "Big Dog" Clinton can draw 33% of the Evangelical vote, Obama could probably top 40. Here's why:

Obama kills in that 18-29 demographic, Evangelical or not. And look who's got the highest percentage of any of the Protestant traditions - blacks. He's going to take 90% of the black vote at least, and that alone could push him over the 40% mark of Evangelicals. In fact, it could be the difference between Obama winning or losing the overall Protestant vote:

On the other hand, this is all a far-from-done deal. He's facing some powerful institutional opposition among Evangelicals, for one thing. And upon closer inspection, those the "new" evangelical kids turn out to look just like the old ones:

Liberal evangelicals say the difference in approach and priorities among younger evangelicals signals a shift in their political allegiances, too. Surveys, so far, give a murkier picture.

A report last year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press indicated that in 2001, 55 percent of white evangelicals ages 18 to 29 identified themselves as Republican, far more than in the broader population. In 2007, 40 percent did. But a more recent Pew poll only of registered voters found that 60 percent of young white evangelicals identified themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, the same as all white evangelicals.

“This is the most pro-life generation I’ve seen,” said John Mark Reynolds, professor of philosophy at the evangelical Biola University in La Mirada, Calif. “I don’t have any evidence that being green is going to trump pro-life issues in the voting booth.”

And of course, the old folks are considerably more difficult terrain for Obama. Bush got 78% of the white Evangelical vote in 2004. Those folks may not like McCain much at all, but that's still a mighty high climb-down.

Even still, if you do the math, holding Bush's margin among white Evangelicals translates to just less than 60% of the total Evangelical vote. So can Obama break 40%? Absolutely, as long as he brings out young blacks, Latinos, and a few sympathetic white Evangelicals. I have every confidence that he'll be able to do that.

The real question, it seems to me, will be how far past 40% he goes. With the right combination of turnout and realignment, he could slide toward 45%. Anything past that would be a blowout of Biblical proportions, if you'll excuse the phrase.

But be very suspicious of the people who will inevitably spin Obama's inroads as the result of a "new Democratic attitude toward faith" or a willingness to fudge on social issues or the "new evangelical agenda." None of those things is true. If Obama makes significant headway among Evangelicals, it'll be a simple matter of demographics. The more diverse this nation becomes, the better it is for Democrats, and the worse it is for the small regional party based in the South.

...At least according to Mark Stricherz, who is not coincidentally a socially conservative Catholic:

The bottom line is clear: The party must woo Casey Democrats in Rust Belt and border states -- Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, Missouri, Kentucky. To win them over, it won't be enough for Democrats to hammer the GOP over the economy and the war in Iraq, as Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, did in 2004, or merely to use inclusive language and support partial-birth abortion, as Obama and Clinton have done. Instead, Democrats must address voters' real concerns about protecting families and human life, as Gov. Casey did. "Catholic voters have emerged more pro-life," pollster Greenberg wrote in a 2005 memo, "but they are very responsive to a broad initiative to reduce unwanted pregnancies and the number of abortions."

Some Republicans agree:

With Democrats flush with advantages, McCain hopes that Brownback's street cred among religious conservatives could help tip a swing state or two his way.

"He has a big following in the conservative wing of the party with right-to-life supporters and those who care about social and cultural issues," said Charlie Black, a McCain senior adviser and a veteran of Republican presidential politics, "and he has been terrific at promoting McCain among those groups."

That Charlie Black, by the way, is the guy who conned US Senators into sponsoring a messianic coronation ceremony for Sun-Myung Moon, who was a lobbyist for the Saudi Government even as he worked on Sen. McCain's 2000 campaign, and who has flacked for dictators from Ferdinand Marcos to Jonas Savimbi to Mobuto Sese Seko. So of course he's an impartial observer whose judgment can be trusted when it comes to religious matters.

I've said it before, but what's never been made clear about this storyline is why exactly Democrats should sacrifice core principles for a tiny swath of voters. The argument is that you need conservative Catholics to win the swing states, but as I've noted before, Catholics tend to vote on the economy, not just hot-button issues. Obama won't attract nearly the same hostility from the Catholic church that Kerry did, and it's entirely possible that he'll put new states into contention.

Pew polling maven John Green says that Obama does appear to have a problem attracting white Catholics:

Could this problem persist in the general election if Obama is the Democratic nominee? It might, and, if so, it would pose a challenge for Obama in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. We should keep in mind, however, that many of the Democratic Catholics who did not vote for Obama in the primaries might well support him in the fall against John McCain. But on the other hand, not all white Catholics are Democrats -- many are independents or Republicans. If nothing else, this means that white Catholics are a key group to watch.

But that hardly sounds like an unequivocal case for flanking the GOP on abortion. It sounds more like a mixed message to me: Obama needs to attract Catholics, but does he need conservative Catholics? So the question remains: why exactly should Democrats propitiate these people? Is it because they're a necessary part of a new Democratic coalition, or because somebody wants to pull the party to the right?

Hey, Ma - I made the front page! Of Religion Dispatches, that is.

Just to tease you without giving anything away, Jacques Berlinblau agrees with me in general, but also in the particulars of seeing certain Episcopal-like tendencies among the authors of the Manifesto:

I encounter many of the types of people who composed the Manifesto at scholarly conferences and assorted college campuses. What are they like? Generally, quite a lot of fun. Many come from thoroughly respectable drinking cultures and welcome into alcoholic fellowship believers and non-believers alike.

In private conversation, they tend to be fiercely critical of the demagogues whose simplifications they view as an embarrassment to, and degradation of, their theological tradition. Far less doctrinaire than prevailing Blue-State stereotypes may suggest, they tend to be very open to discussing alternative viewpoints.

In any case, what I think we are seeing in the Manifesto is a coming-out party of sorts. A more professorial and thoughtful strain of Evangelicalism is finding its public voice (Please note that “professorial” and “thoughtful” are not necessarily synonyms for “liberal”).

Really. Go read the whole thing. Heh.

The attempt to pull in "swing Evangelicals" has never been one of my favorites. Obviously, it seems like a pretty low-percentage shot to me.

But I have always liked the Vanderslice/Common Good Strategies tactic of having Democratic candidates more or less invade hostile territory. Ted Strickland advertised on Evangelical radio stations, and Bob Casey appeared at some conservative Evangelical or Catholic events. In both cases, it worked.

What the tactic does is keep a Democratic candidate's negatives down. The conservative voters won't necessarily vote for him or her, but they'll give some grudging recognition to a liberal brave enough to take them seriously. That can make a significant difference when the Republicans have nothing to run on and have to pin their hopes on tearing down their opponent.

It's not a universally applicable strategy, but it is one that would work well for somebody like Obama, whose charisma forms a major asset, and who's demonstrated some skill in telling audiences things they don't particularly want to hear.

I predict that before the convention, he'll appear at a conservative Catholic function somewhere in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. Progressives will freak out and want to know why their candidate is pandering to the Religious Right, the sky will fall, and then we'll all get over it and get on with the campaign, Obama's "centrist maverick" credentials well established for the fall.

Promoted by PD.

Prayers needed 900 Students Buried, Thousands Feared Dead in China Earthquake

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake buried hundreds in central China on Monday and killed at least 107 people, according to state media. The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing, some 930 miles to the north.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/20...

Sorry this is so late:  Major technical difficulties at this end.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions.

• 2 Peter 2:1*

People are happy and excited now that an end is finally in sight for this godawful primary season. No reason they shouldn't be: it's tough on everybody. But we should resist the temptation to read uncritically every apparent piece of good news for Barack Obama. There's been a fair amount of baloney published already about the presumptive nominee, and more to come.

Unchristian : what a new generation really thinks about Christianity– and why it matters /by David Kinnaman.

I had mixed feelings about this book – on several levels. Despite its flaws this is a powerful and even important book.

The basis of the book is research on what people think about Christians. The results opened the eyes of the author, though they probably would be less surprising to non-Christians. Christians are thought to be unChristian, not only by those who don’t share their faith, but by many Christians under 30.

I wrote last Saturday about the so-called Evangelical Manifesto calling on Evangelical Christians to - among other things - give up on being "useful idiots". You may recall that I wasn't holding out very high hopes for the statement: I thought it wasn't going to break new ground, and seemed mightily convenient as the country moves away from conservatism.

Well, the Manifesto was released today, and it seems I was half right, anyway. It's not very satisfying politically: its most direct statement on politics is a rather mild injunction against partisanship.

Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality. In our scales, spiritual, moral, and social power are as important as political power, what is right outweighs what is popular, just as principle outweighs party, truth matters more than team-playing, and conscience more than power and survival.  
The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness. The saying is wise: ―The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.

The Evangelical soul is not for sale. It has already been bought at an infinite price.