c. 2008 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ When Sen. Barack Obama held a recent closed-door meeting with an A-list assortment of Christian leaders, the majority of the time was spent discussing abortion, homosexuality and the Democrat’s faith.
That focus didn’t please some participants who had flown to Chicago hoping to also talk about domestic and foreign policy matters.
“They focused on abortion, gay marriage, and then Franklin Graham tried to get Sen. Obama saved,” said the Rev. Eugene Rivers of Boston.
Rivers, who was representing the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ, Charles E. Blake, at the June 10 meeting, said Graham asked about the senator’s Christian conversion and his father’s connections to Islam. Rivers, who personally supports Obama, said the senator said of his father: “the least of the things he was was Islamic.”
When asked about whether he believed Jesus is the only way to salvation, “Obama said, brilliantly, `Jesus is the only way for me. I’m not in a position to judge other people,”’ Rivers recalled.
Graham spokesman Mark DeMoss confirmed that the evangelist asked “if (Obama) believed that Jesus Christ was the way to God or merely a way.” DeMoss declined to divulge Obama’s response.
The Rev. Romal Tune, a Washington pastor with ties to the Democratic National Committee, said Graham’s line of questioning was inappropriate for a politician running to represent a religiously pluralistic country.
“The elephant in the room with that question is the condemnation of people of other faiths and of no faith. What is that question saying about the rest of society and God’s judgment on them?” said Tune, who did not attend the meeting.
DeMoss responded: “I believe religious leaders are certainly entitled to ask such questions, particularly of candidates who talk openly about their faith.”
The Rev. T. DeWitt Smith, president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, said he was glad some evangelical leaders “were able to hear (Obama) for themselves” but he would have preferred a broader discussion.
“I had hoped he would be able to say something about his foreign policy as well as domestic policy, but we didn’t get to that because so much was taken up by some of the others at the table,” said Smith, who is an Obama supporter.
The back and forth resembled a lively college seminar in some ways, said the Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Obama’s answers to pointed questions were clear and yet nuanced, Hanson said.
“He was not defensive, he clearly had respect for the questioner and yet confidence in his own conviction.”
The Rev. Richard Cizik, a vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said the discussion on moral issues and Obama’s faith was lengthy because the senator answered those questions so thoroughly.
“His genuine faith seemed obvious,” Cizik said.
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