Associated Baptist Press - 10/31/2008

Associated Baptist Press
October 31, 2008 · (08-105)

David Wilkinson, Executive Director
Robert Marus, Acting Managing Editor/Washington Bureau Chief
Bob Allen, Senior Writer

In this issue
Michelle Obama speech to Baptists spurs request for IRS investigation (410 words)
Baptist pastor's trial begins; Azerbaijanis claim intimidation (417 words)
Survey: Protestant pastors favor McCain, but many still undecided (232 words)
Opinion: Religion, values, and the 2008 election (720 words)

Michelle Obama speech to Baptists spurs request for IRS investigation
By Bob Allen (410 words)

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether Oct. 29 remarks by Michelle Obama to an African-American Baptist gathering violated federal tax law.

According to media reports, the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate told about 1,000 delegates to the General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, meeting in Fayetteville, that her husband understands the struggles of working families and offers the leadership America needs.

"Don't we deserve a president with that perspective, someone who knows first-hand the heartbreak caused by a broken health care system and is determined to fix it?" she asked, according to the Fayetteville Observer. "Don't we deserve a leader who gets it? Well, Barack Obama gets it."

"I come here today as a Christian, a person of faith who believes we've all been called to serve our fellow men and woman and honor all of God's creation," she said, according to the Associated Press. "I also come here as a wife who loves my husband, and I believe my husband will be an extraordinary president."

Barry Lynn, president of the Washington-based Americans United, said the speech was inappropriate for a tax-exempt religious group.

"This was an Obama campaign rally taking place during the meeting of a religious group," Lynn said. "Federal tax law simply does not allow religious organizations to sponsor events like this."

Federal tax law permits 501(c) (3) tax-exempt charities to invite political speakers for non-political purposes, but bans churches and other religious groups from endorsing candidates. In an Oct. 30 letter to the IRS, Lynn said the appearance by the candidate's wife "appeared very similar" to the sort of campaign appearance upon which the tax code frowns.

"In short, I believe this appearance by Ms. Obama before this religious group raises a host of issues, and I urge the IRS to investigate the matter," Lynn wrote.

In February the IRS launched an investigation into Sen. Barack Obama's 2007 address to the General Synod of the United Church of Christ. In May the agency ruled that Obama's speech -- agreed to before he had announced his presidential candidacy and addressed to members of his own denomination -- did not qualify as a political speech.

About the same time the IRS ruled that former Southern Baptist Convention vice president Wiley Drake's use of his California church's resources to endorse Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee also was not "prohibited political campaign intervention."

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Baptist pastor's trial begins; Azerbaijanis claim intimidation
By Bob Allen (417 words)

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) -- A Baptist pastor in Azerbaijan, arrested in June on what his defenders say was a trumped-up charge, was scheduled to stand trial beginning Oct. 31.

Hamid Shabanov, 52, was arrested after police in the remote northern village of Aliabad, near the Georgian border, searched his house and claimed to find an illegal firearm and ammunition. Family members say Shabanov does not own a gun and allege that police planted the evidence as part of government efforts to intimidate and harass religious minorities.

Shabanov's arrest came three months after another Baptist pastor in the same town was released from prison. He had been jailed on charges of resisting arrest -- allegations his supporters also claimed were trumped up. Pastor Zauer Balaev was set free in March after a worldwide campaign calling for his release, which included a plea from former President Jimmy Carter.

Leaders of the European Baptist Federation and Baptist World Alliance protested both arrests.

Supporters of Shabanov questioned procedures related to his trial. They say his detention is illegal, because a court order holding him expired Oct. 21. In August, officials held a hearing in the case without notifying Shabanov or his lawyer.
His trial was scheduled to begin Oct. 28, but police did not deliver him to the courtroom on time.

Elnur Jabiyev, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Azerbaijan, told the Baptist World Alliance that investigators have not released any documents about tests on fingerprints taken from the weapon. "Our efforts and the efforts of our advocate bring no fruits," he said.

Shabanov's attorney, Mirman Aliev, told the Christian news service Forum 18 the delays were on purpose. "They are deliberately drawing this out, as they don't want Shabanov to go to court," Aliev said. "They want to hold him for as long as they can."

Shabanov's brother told Forum 18 that officials want to imprison the church's leader in hopes the Baptist community will "fall apart."

Shabanov's village, Aliabad, has about 10,000 residents. It is made up almost entirely made up of members of the Ingilo minority, ethnic Georgians who were converted to Islam from Orthodox Christianity several centuries ago. Local officials there distrust the Baptists because they view them as unpatriotic, Christian sources say.

While Azerbaijan's constitution provides that persons of all faiths may choose and practice their religion without restriction, the United States State Department's latest report on international religious freedom found "sporadic violations of religious freedom by some officials" in the former Soviet republic.

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Survey: Protestant pastors favor McCain, but many still undecided
By ABP staff (232 words)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) -- A majority of Protestant pastors say they plan to vote for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, but just days before the Nov. 4 election nearly one in four is undecided, according to the latest LifeWay Research poll.

McCain outpolled Democrat Barack Obama 55 percent to 20 percent among Protestant pastors, according to the survey by the Southern Baptist Convention's publishing-and-research arm. The margin is even wider among those who identify themselves as evangelicals -- 66 percent plan to vote for McCain compared to 13 percent for Obama.

But Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research, noted "a surprising number of undecideds" for so late in the race.

While as a group Protestant pastors tilt toward McCain, the proportion varies by denomination. Thirty-seven percent of mainline Protestant pastors plan to vote for Obama, 36 percent for McCain and 24 percent are undecided.

More than half (53 percent) of Protestant pastors surveyed said they have "personally endorsed candidates for public office this year," but outside of their church roles. Less than 3 percent reported publicly endorsing candidates for public office during a church service. Official church endorsements of candidates or parties violate federal tax law.

An earlier survey by LifeWay Research found church members overwhelmingly believe churches should not campaign or endorse candidates, but 54 percent said it is OK for a pastor to endorse candidates outside of their church role.

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Opinion: Religion, values, and the 2008 election
By David Gushee (720 words)

(ABP) -- It's all over but the shouting. Millions have already voted, and the retrospectives on the 2008 presidential election are already beginning. Some of these will involve reflection on the way that faith played out in this election cycle.
Here is what I have seen.

There was little thoughtful discussion in this election season of the complex issues related to how a candidate's personal faith informs their moral values and, in turn, their policy choices. The high-water mark of such discussion during this campaign occurred at the "Compassion Forum" hosted by Messiah College and Faith in Public Life in April. Rick Warren's August event at Saddleback Church was also quite thoughtful.

But religion more often served as a game of guilt-by-association. Obama was guilty because of his association with Jeremiah Wright. Palin was guilty because of her association with Pentecostalism in Wasilla. Romney was guilty because he was a Mormon. McCain was guilty when he accepted the endorsement of John Hagee. This dimension of the campaign was not a high-water mark in our public discussion of faith and politics.

Religion was also used as a marker of identity, as a reason to vote for a candidate. This was most notable in the case of Sarah Palin, who was selected by John McCain, in part, as a point of identification for conservative evangelicals. They responded as desired.

It could be argued that Joe Biden was selected, in part, to appeal to Catholic voters.

Obama's long association with the black-church tradition helped to eventually solidify his appeal to the African-American Christian community and its leaders. He did not always have their support.

As an exception that proves the rule, John McCain's understated religious involvement hurt his appeal among religious conservatives.

Of course, there are real questions to be asked about whether religious affiliation per se should function as a reason to vote for a candidate. Certainly it is easier for candidates to claim religious affiliation than to live out its implications in any especially constructive or informed way.

Christians have often been deceived by mere claims or appearances of religious identity. The right question is not whether someone shares my particular brand of religious faith, but how their faith informs their worldview, leadership and policies.

Beyond the candidate level, there is the more interesting question that has to do with the churches. How did the churches and their leaders bear public witness during this campaign?

This is a harder question, partly because religious life in this vast land is so decentralized. We will know more after the election about the extent to which pastors, churches and parachurch organizations became involved in efforts to affect the election.

My sense is that the Christian Right has undertaken its customary efforts to define the moral choices in the election so that a vote for the Republican ticket is more or less the obvious choice.

A stronger organizing effort on the Christian Left has been visible this year to define the moral choices in the election in such a way that a vote for the Democratic ticket seems the better choice.

And some voices have sought not so much to urge a vote for one side, but to blunt the approach of partisans on either side.

Priests, bishops, and other leaders in the Catholic Church have struggled with a question that also troubles evangelical voters -- whether abortion is the ultimate issue determining one's vote. A secondary question is whether overturning Roe v. Wade is the ultimate policy response to this problem.

For those who answer "yes" to both questions, a vote against Obama and for McCain has been treated as a moral obligation. Other evangelicals and Catholics are not so sure. This divide will undoubtedly continue after the election, and seems to be a major demarcation point between the Catholic and evangelical right and those to their left.

I published my book on faith and politics in January. There I suggested that there is an evangelical right, center and left and that the fractures between the evangelical approaches to politics were becoming deeper. I offered some hope that evangelical centrists could serve as a point of unity and a bridge between the more polarized right and left.

We'll see how the landscape looks after the election, but right now that hope seems faint indeed.

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-- David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University.