As the presidential candidates move into the final week before Election Day, representatives of two groups that pollsters like to classify into religious voting blocks will descend on 51黑料.
Annual meetings of the Missouri Baptist Convention (largely white evangelicals) and the Church of God in Christ (largely black Protestants) will take place in downtown 51黑料 in the next two weeks.
While, officially, politics will exist only in the background at both meetings, as worship services and church business matters take precedent, it鈥檚 not a surprise to church leaders that the looming date of Nov. 6 will be the elephant 鈥 and donkey 鈥 in the room at both meetings.
Many political experts expected worries about the economy to drive the debate this election year. And they have.
Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, a non-profit and non-partisan research group, said the election has been 鈥渙verwhelmingly鈥 about the economy and health care, and yet 鈥渞eligion is playing a supporting actor role this year, and not lead role.鈥
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But religion also has reared its head this political season more than many had expected. Supporting actors are important to a film, and several religious issues have tried to steal the show this year:
鈥 In the spring and summer, Catholic bishops staged prayer rallies, marches, worship services and lectures in a campaign for 鈥渞eligious liberty,鈥 hoping to galvanize opposition to a rule announced in January by President Barack Obama鈥檚 administration that said religiously affiliated institutions, such as universities and hospitals, must soon include free birth control coverage in their employee health insurance.
鈥 Early indications from evangelicals that many would resist Gov. Mitt Romney as a candidate because of his Mormon faith faded during the general election. Nevertheless a national conversation about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began, leading to what many have called a 鈥淢ormon Moment.鈥
鈥 report earlier this month from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that Americans claiming no religious affiliation had become the largest voting block within the Democratic party.
鈥 Comments about rape from Christian conservative Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate 鈥 Missouri鈥檚 Todd Akin and Indiana鈥檚 Richard Mourdock 鈥 have roiled their own candidacies and focused a spotlight on the relationship between the Republic Party and American women.
DIFFERING GROUPS
The two religious conventions being held in 51黑料 in many ways represent the bookends of political partisanship and religious affiliation. The Missouri Baptist Convention leans right and the Church of God in Christ leans left.
Indeed, according Pew, white evangelical voters 鈥 at 73 percent, according to the most recent numbers 鈥 are Gov. Mitt Romney鈥檚 largest base of support. At 21 percent, they are the least likely to vote for Obama.
Black Protestant voters are even more unified 鈥 87 percent told Pew they would vote for Obama, while only 5 percent said they intended to vote for Romney.
But at both of the upcoming religious conventions in 51黑料, political discussion will likely remain in the background.
鈥淲e do not have any items on the agenda related specifically to the election,鈥 said Rob Phillips, a spokesman for the Missouri Baptist Convention. However, he said, there鈥檚 鈥渘o doubt, the election will come up in informal discussions and private conversations.鈥
The Missouri Baptist Convention鈥檚 annual meeting will bring more than 1,000 people 鈥 or 鈥渕essengers鈥 鈥 representing the state鈥檚 525,000 Southern Baptists, to the Millennium Hotel Monday through Wednesday.
The organization is a fellowship of nearly 2,000 congregations that cooperate with the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Each messenger is elected by his or her local church and attends the annual meeting to vote on convention business.
Neither the organization鈥檚 president, the Rev. John Marshall, nor executive director, John Yeats, was available for an interview last week, but Yeats recently wrote in the organization鈥檚 newspaper encouraging the state鈥檚 Southern Baptists to vote.
鈥淎s long as God鈥檚 people silently, passively acquiesce to the prevailing winds of public opinion, if good men and women do nothing, then we can expect to be recipients of a culture void of God鈥檚 blessing,鈥 Yeats wrote.
Phillips said that the organization鈥檚 leaders had not endorsed any candidates, but that Yeats had 鈥渟tressed the importance of carefully examining candidates to see which ones uphold biblical values such as the sanctity of life and freedom of religious expression.鈥
Of course, Christians of different stripes uphold different 鈥渂iblical values.鈥
RELIGION AND THE ECONOMY
Obery Hendricks, professor of biblical interpretation at New York Theological Seminary, said the 鈥渞eligious right is not talking about love, or looking out for anyone else.鈥
鈥淛esus talked about poor people more than anything else except God,鈥 Hendricks said. 鈥淭he right is distorting the Gospel message, making it ideological, shaping it to serve their economic interests. But ultimately, those policies do not serve ordinary people鈥檚 interests.鈥
Hendricks will open a forum on faith and politics at St. John鈥檚 United Church of Christ, 4136 North Grand Boulevard, with a keynote speech Thursday evening called 鈥淢artin Luther King and a New Political Economy of Justice.鈥 The four-day event also will include discussion among faith leaders and Mayor Francis Slay and Aldermanic President Lewis Reed.
The day after the St. John鈥檚 forum concludes, 35,000 members of the Church of God in Christ will begin arriving downtown for the church鈥檚 annual conference at the America鈥檚 Center. With 6.5 million members and 12,000 congregations, the denomination is the largest African-American Pentecostal group in the country.
In recent years, the gathering has been one of the largest conventions in the city. Even though 43 percent of the Holy Convocation鈥檚 attendees are local, according to the 51黑料 Convention & Visitors Commission, the event brings in more than $30 million in direct spending each year.
Bishop P. A. Brooks, the church鈥檚 first-assistant presiding bishop, said the group planned several outreach efforts to the 51黑料 community during its nine-day Holy Convocation here.
The meeting, which begins Nov. 5, will overlap with Election Day, and Brooks said the church stressed to its members the importance of absentee voting in the last several months.
鈥淩eligion needs to play a role to mobilize people to cast their ballot,鈥 Brooks said. 鈥淲hat we teach means nothing if people don鈥檛 vote.鈥
He said members of the church would likely have parties on Election Day to watch the vote tallies come in on television.
鈥淲e will certainly all be discussing the election,鈥 Brooks said, citing health reform as a topic many members of the church are particularly concerned about.
John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute at the University of Akron said that鈥檚 likely because 鈥渞eligious people care about the economy too.鈥
鈥淭here鈥檚 been an effort on the part of religious conservatives and religious progressives to link their type of issues to broader economic questions,鈥 Green said.
He said polling data shows that both sides have strong religious constituents and because of close connections to political parties, those constituents 鈥渟ee the world through a partisan lens.鈥
Black Protestants, Green said, 鈥渢end to see the economy through the lens of the Democratic party鈥 and white evangelicals 鈥渟ee the economy through a Republican lens.鈥
