The Advanced New Evangelicals: Stronger with Obama

The Advanced “New Evangelicals”: “Stronger with Obama”

Choosing Reverend Rick Warren for the inauguration prayer, the president-elect gives momentum to religious groups that support anti-gay and anti-abortion ideas over the fight for the environment and the fight against poverty and AIDS.

I am a convinced anti-abortionist, and I am opposed to unions between persons of the same sex, just as one would expect from any religious group member. But at the same time I am convinced that in addition to these issues, there are other issues of great importance that a church must reflect on and work for: how to fight in defense of the environment, or against AIDS, and for the reduction of poverty in the world.

In short, the emerging face of the “new Evangelicals” in the American religious landscape, is assuming a leading position, thanks to an ally like Barack Obama.

Since the president-elect has chosen Reverend Rick Warren for the inauguration prayer — among the most popular religious figure in America, and prominent representative of the current “new Evangelicals” — he, and so, the new Evangelists, have been unexpectedly catapulted into the limelight. This can be expected to strengthen the movement, and to promote, at a political level, those ideas that, up to now, have remained on a personal and religious level.

Despite the massive popularity — he is at the head of one of the largest non-denominational movements in the country — Warren has been criticized by several parties, and in particular by the most conservative. The appointment by the president-elect can also give the Reverend, and the entire movement, the opportunity to balance the little favor and credibility it enjoys among the religious right with greater appeal to those liberal and progressive circles that Obama represents.

The possibilities for strengthening and growth, moreover, are reciprocal. It is to the president-elect’s interest to involve the “new Evangelicals”, and so to appear in a new light, particularly positive to a fairly broad range of the electorate. From Election Day to today, the evangelical skeptics who were against Obama moved from 76% to less than 50%, and 66% approve of the way in which he is managing the transition, with a consistent 73% of adults who gave the same positive response, as shown by a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal – NBC News in December.