Rick Warren: Obama Probably Can't Win Evangelicals

BeliefNet:

In an interview with God-o-Meter on the day after his Saddleback Civil Forum with John McCain and Barack Obama, Rev. Rick Warren sounded pretty dubious about Barack Obama's and the Democrats' chances of making inroads among evangelicals. The full interview will run Monday on Beliefnet. Here's a preview:

Before last night, McCain had been widely criticized by Christian activists for keeping mum about his faith and about values issues like abortion and marriage Last night seemed to change that. How much headway did McCain make among skeptical evangelicals?

I'm a pastor, I'm not a prophet, so I would not predict how evangelicals are going to vote. I will tell you they're not monolith. That's a big myth. They're going to make up their minds based on the hierarchy of their values. For many evangelicals, of course, if they believe that life begins at conception, that's a deal breaker for a lot of people. If they think that life begins at conception, then that means that there are 40 million Americans who are not here [because they were aborted] that could have voted. They would call that a holocaust and for them it would like if I'm Jewish and a Holocaust denier is running for office. I don't care how right he is on everything else, it's a deal breaker for me. I'm not going to vote for a Holocaust denier...

It all depends on the hierarchy of their worldview of what matters most to them. My gut reaction when it was over was that Obama will pick up probably some younger votes and McCain will probably pick up some older votes and it might come down to which group winds up showing up that the polls.

Read the whole story: BeliefNet

Comments

[Lalita]

The title for this post frosts me: Rick Warren: Obama Probably Can't Win Evangelicals."

This has been a campaign or redefinition. Camp Clinton redefined "women" to mean white women...and we didn't say a peep--not even when said subgroup of white women began to have a collective temper tantrum.

Now, we're letting the MSM instill in us the belief that "evangelical" means white as well.

Today on NPR's Diane Rehm Show, there was such a discussion of whether Senator Obama could win evangelicals. I wrote in to remind these experts that Senator Obama had already won over 90% of BLACK evangelicals and that many muslims would consider theirs an evangelical faith as well.

Thankfully they read in on the air and it shaped a different kind of discussion.

If we're talking about white evangelicals, we should say so. They don't "own" that title.

[meanguy]

the title should frost WARREN...since he didn't say that

[meanguy]

it is what it is...for some voters, 'pro-choice' IS a deal breaker; just as 'pro-life' is a deal breaker for others

[JohnFromCensornati]

Rick is really sticking his neck out there.

[Smirk]

Duh.