A Bitter Pill?

Joel Hunter was an unlikely ally of Barack Obama’s in the 2008 election. The Christian evangelical, who leads a mega-church in central Florida, had backed fellow pastor Mike Huckabee in the Republican primary that year. At Obama’s inauguration, Hunter found himself sitting next to Muhammad Ali in the 12th row.

Obama’s outreach to the faithful during the 2008 campaign—unprecedented for a Democratic candidate—paid off. He did 8 percentage points better than 2004 nominee John Kerry had among voters who worship weekly or more, although he lost regular worshippers overall to Republican John McCain. With strong support from minorities, Obama beat McCain by 9 percentage points among Catholics (who favored George W. Bush over Kerry by 5 points in 2004) and made smaller inroads among evangelicals such as Hunter.

Those gains are now in jeopardy, according to Hunter and other religious leaders fuming over the Obama administration’s requirement that church-affiliated institutions such as hospitals, schools, and charities cover birth control in their employee health insurance plans.

“The boundaries of religious freedom and identity are being trespassed,” said Hunter, who still writes weekly devotions for Obama and visited the Oval Office last week; he said he keeps his spiritual guidance separate from any policy recommendations he funnels to the president. “I do think this will have political repercussions in the religious community,” Hunter added. “This has the potential to be a breaking point.”

Obama’s Republican challengers certainly hope so. Newt Gingrich has accused Obama of waging a “war against religion.” Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic who has put issues such as abortion and marriage at the center of his campaign, used his victory speech after the Missouri primary to accuse Obama of steamrolling the First Amendment.

Campaigning earlier this week in Colorado, front-runner Mitt Romney, said sharply, “We must have a president who is willing to protect America’s first right, a right to worship God.”

The issue is potentially advantageous for Romney, a Mormon who once held moderate positions on abortion and gay marriage, because it allows him to align himself with the social conservatives who have resisted his candidacy. (Both Gingrich and Democrats, however, have called Romney a hypocrite on the birth-control issue. As governor of Massachusetts, he enforced a rule requiring Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, after the Legislature overrode his veto of the measure.)

On Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner put the dispute at the center of his party’s agenda, taking to the House floor to condemn “an unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country.” He vowed to overturn the provision stemming from Obama’s sweeping health care reform plan. The fight over that legislation has already sorely tested the president’s relationship with religious leaders, who feared that it would allow taxpayer dollars to cover abortion.

To the extent that Republicans succeed in framing the current debate as one over religious liberty, the controversy over the so-called conscience clause could damage Obama at the polls. A perceived threat to religious freedom could pull more-casual churchgoers, who typically lean Democratic, closer to regular churchgoers, who tend to vote Republican, said John Green, a University of Akron political-science professor who specializes in the intersection of religion and politics.

In 2008, exit polls showed that the more frequently white Catholic voters went to church, the less likely they were to favor Obama. He got the votes of only 41 percent of white Catholics who attended church weekly or more; 47 percent of those who attended a few times a month; and 54 percent of those who attended a few times a year or never.

The relationship of religion and politics could influence the outcome of the 2012 election in battleground states with large Catholic communities, including Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Green added. “The real problem for the Obama administration would be if the [birth-control] issue moved some of those less religious Catholics,” Green said. “The issue might also move the regular Mass-attending Catholics to vote even more Republican.”

But if Democrats win the message war and frame the issue as a matter of public policy that involves women’s health and access to contraception, Republicans may find themselves on the losing side of the argument. In a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, 52 percent of Catholic voters agreed that employee health plans should cover birth control. The Obama administration is also touting a Guttmacher Institute study that found 98 percent of Catholic women have used birth control.

“Obviously, this is not a war against the Catholic Church. I’m Catholic, and I don’t find that there’s a war against me at all,” said Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former Maryland lieutenant governor and a member of one of the nation’s most prominent Catholic families. “This is about women’s health and protecting the rights of all citizens. If Republicans want to fight about contraception being available for women, I think they will be on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of women’s health.”

A Wall Street Journal column this week by three Democratic senators—Jeanne Sheehan of New Hampshire, Barbara Boxer of California, and Patty Murray of Washington—tied critics of Obama’s policy on contraceptive coverage to the decision by the Susan G. Komen Foundation to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. A massive public outcry forced the breast-cancer charity to reverse itself. “Once again,” the senators wrote, “they are trying to force their politics on women’s personal health care decisions.”

Young voters, women, and independents helped to elect Obama in 2008. If Republicans overreach on contraception, those voters will help offset any support the president loses from religiously devout voters, who lean Republican anyway. But if the GOP succeeds in wrapping the issue in the mantle of religious liberty, Obama will struggle to rebuild the diverse coalition that put him in the White House.

Children That Are Hurting

“Children that are hurting” is a phrase the Seminole county public school district’s board chair Dede Schaffner speaks to describe more than 1,700 homeless students served by the district. Joined by Brenda Carey, chairman of the board of Seminole county government, and Dr. Joel C. Hunter, they have formed a collaboration of faith-based organizations in the county to work side-by-side with the district to confront student homelessness, decrease it and, perhaps, if successful, apply that strategy in the future to address other categories of homeless people in Seminole county. This is the story of their first steps.

Produced, reported and edited by Stephen McKenney Steck at http://cmfmedia.org/2011/11/children-that-are-hurting/

Commission to Explore Whether Churches Should Be More Accountable to Government

In an effort to more clearly define and look into possible changes in legislation regarding tax breaks and compensations for churches and nonprofit groups, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) has appointed a trio of panels.

The ECFA announced last week that representatives from religious groups, the broader nonprofit sector and the legal community have been appointed to the panels that will work with the Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations.

The commission was formed following a report issued by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in January that focused on the financial practices of six high-profile Christian ministries, ECFA said. Allegations included perceptions of excessive spending on high-end travel, accommodations, and property, according to a commission member.

After Grassley released the findings of his three-year inquiry, rather than seek legal action, the senator asked ECFA to lead an independent national review that includes making recommendations on accountability and policy issues affecting religious and other nonprofit organizations.

Florida pastor and one of President Obama’s spiritual advisers, Dr. Joel Hunter, who is a member of the ECFA commission, told The Christian Post that he would like to see the panels discover that new legislation is not necessary.

“We have been given the opportunity to gather this kind of information so that we could not just automatically go toward legislative resolutions, but rather we could do some self-examination and try to clarify what was reasonable and what was intended for religious exemptions by the IRS and by the customs we now have in the U.S.,” Hunter said.

“Part of this idea [of tax breaks and compensations] is that the churches and other non-profits contribute so much to the public well-being. They contribute so many services, and so much benefit that they more than make up for any exemptions and taxes that they have.”

The ECFA stated that the issues before the commission include whether:

churches should be more accountable to the federal government; legislation is needed to curb perceived abuses of the clergy housing allowance exclusion; the current prohibition against political campaign intervention by churches and other nonprofits should be repealed or modified; the rules for determining the reasonableness of nonprofit executive compensation should be tightened; penalties should be expanded for nonprofits and their leaders who engage in prohibited activities. Hunter said that the commission and panel studies should also include educating people on the positive aspects of giving faith-based groups and nonprofits certain tax breaks.

“Our responsibility is to continue to tell the story of just exactly how much churches, and mosques, and synagogues, and temples are providing in the way of goods and services to those in need in our communities,” he said. “The good things that they are providing would otherwise fall upon the government to provide. We would like people to clearly see that this is a wonderful investment.”

Hunter said he recognizes the potential for abuses, but believes much of allegations are about perceptions.

“There were some perceived violations, some perceived expenditures that people looked upon,” he said. “The lavish houses and jets and all of that kind of stuff that people reasonably look at and say, ‘Wait a minute, are we as taxpayers contributing to that kind of excess and is that right? Was that the intent of a reasonable exclusion (tax break)?’”

The ECFA Commission will also be receiving input from the Internal Revenue Service, town hall meetings and other informal channels. Two law firms will be providing independent technical analysis and research for the commission on a pro-bono basis.

According to ECFA President Dan Busby, a total of 66 members have been named to the panels by Commission Chairman Michael Batts. The three panels include one of Religious Sector Representatives, one of Nonprofit Sector Representatives, made up of 18 individuals, and one of Legal Experts.

Ultimately, Hunter said the panels will make “an effort to put in reasonable boundaries and put in some self-correcting measures that will hopefully avoid legislation.”

“In the end, there may be a mix of self-policing and some necessary legislation. We do not know that yet. It would be preferable to avoid legislation, but we are not that far along the process, yet,” he said.

Alex Murashko Christian Post Reporter

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.christianpost.com/news/evangelical-council-church-tax-breaks-compensations-scrutinized-55657/

WH Spiritual Adviser: Mayor's Decision to Forbid Prayer at 9/11 Ceremony Un-American

The decision by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's to exclude any prayers from clergy at Ground Zero in the upcoming 10th anniversary commemoration of the 9/11 attacks is being categorized as un-American by an evangelical leader and spiritual adviser to President Obama.

Florida Pastor Joel C. Hunter, who also serves as an executive board member for both global and national evangelical associations, said Christians should speak out or protest the decision because the importance of faith in the United States is being neglected.

Bloomberg stirred much controversy recently when he stated, "Everybody would like to participate, and the bottom line is everybody cannot participate. There isn't room. There isn't time. And in some cases, it's just not appropriate."

Hunter told The Christian Post, “The problem with this is, because of his singular decision, this ceremony isn’t really going to be representative of America. It’s going to be exclusionary, secularist only, and we are one of the most religious countries in the world. So, the bottom line is, this is not how we were founded. This is not who we are.”

The pastor of Northland church continued, “This is a national time of mourning and healing. I think it is particularly offensive to explicitly exclude any religious expression.”

Hunter said the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an “event that changed the face and the countenance of our nation.” He said he is hoping the 10th-anniversary memorial service will be a time when everyone comes together.

“Our faith is at the heart of our identity,” he said. “I think that Christians should speak out and give some sort of reasonable protest because I do think that, in moments like this, it's especially important to include the perspective of faith, and this is a national day. This is something all of us are involved in and the separation of church and state does not equal expunging all religion from public square activities.That just simply is not what it means.”

Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion & Democracy group, also disagrees with the decision, citing a recent Barna Group study that shows that 61 percent of New York-area residents agree strongly that religious faith is very important to them.

"In a city where the most residents in recent memory now cite religious faith as strongly important, New York is tone-deaf to exclude all religion when remembering the slaughter of over 3000 innocents,” said Tooley in a statement released by IRD Thursday. "To exclude clergy even at a memorial service implies that religion is not welcome in the public square, even in mourning.”

Tooley added, "From presidential inaugurals to opening Congress, to countless civic events routinely in every community across America, clergy and prayers have been a regular part of public life for years. The exclusion of both clergy and prayers is deeply at odds with America's robust religious life and even with the beliefs of most New Yorkers.”

Hunter told CP that he has recently talked with members of the White House faith-based initiative advisory committee, which confirmed that President Obama will be giving a speech from the Washington National Cathedral the evening of the 9/11 commemoration.

Although he said he has not seen the President’s comments planned for the evening, Hunter believes that the “setting alone” shows that Obama will be including a faith perspective.

Alex Murashko Christian Post Reporter

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.christianpost.com/news/wh-spiritual-advisor-mayors-decision-to-forbid-prayer-at-9-11-ceremony-un-american-54946/

Should Religion Be Excluded From 9/11 Ceremonies?

Prayer and religious leaders have been left out of New York City’s official ceremonies observing the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, and John Kieffer, Atheists of Florida, have a respectful discussion on the issue.

Excluding Religion at 9/11 Ceremony: Official Statement From Dr. Joel C. Hunter

“Most people, who call America home, are people of faith. Why would a public event of national remembrance and healing intentionally omit that which would be the greatest consolation to most people? Do you remember our nation’s first response to 9/11? Our nation’s churches were full to overflowing! And entire communities of faith were engaged in responding to the needs that resulted from the tragedy. Are the 9/11 ceremonies a reflection of government officials or of the people they are supposed to represent?”

Faith Leaders Go All In to Help Homeless Student

More than 130 faith leaders in Seminole Co. met at Northland August 10, 2011. Their vision: to make homelessness for Seminole's kids a thing of the past.

http://vva.org/blog/?p=3219

The meeting is the result of a "60 minutes" report that aired earlier this year, which revealed that there are more than 1,750 homeless children attending Seminole Co. schools. This meeting, hosted by Pastor Hunter, was a first step toward solving this problem.

WASHINGTON POST: "NY Marriage Equality Bill Must Exempt Religious Institutions"

A bill legalizing same-sex marriage for couples in New York State is at a standstill over the issue of exemptions for religious organizations and individuals. The reach of these religious protections is wide-ranging -from whether Catholic adoption agencies may reject same-sex couples, to the right of religious caterers to refuse services for gay weddings. In New York State’s Marriage Equality Act, should there be exemptions for religion? What should happen when equal rights for gay citizens and the right to religious free exercise clash?

THE WASHINGTON POST ASKS: A bill legalizing same-sex marriage for couples in New York State is at a standstill over the issue of exemptions for religious organizations and individuals. The reach of these religious protections is wide-ranging -from whether Catholic adoption agencies may reject same-sex couples, to the right of religious caterers to refuse services for gay weddings. In New York State’s Marriage Equality Act, should there be exemptions for religion? What should happen when equal rights for gay citizens and the right to religious free exercise clash? READ DR. HUNTER'S RESPONSE.

Click to read more "On Faith" posts from Dr. Hunter

American Christians Urged to See Jesus In The Poor And Hungry

DALLAS—The church in the United States dare not ignore its mandate to seek justice for the world’s poor and hungry, Henry Williamson Sr., bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Texas, told a world hunger conference.

“We are still the most God-blessed nation I can find. And my Bible tells me, ‘To whom much is given, much is required,’” Williamson told the conference at Dallas Baptist University. “We must have the vision to see the needs of others, the faith to believe we can do something about them and the courage to reach out.”

Unfortunately, the church often fails to fulfill its mandate, he lamented.

“One area in which the church’s credibility gap is most evident is our lack of care for the poor,” he said. “We, the church, are supposed to reflect the priorities of God, and I’m confident God loves the poor.”

When the church fails to serve the poor, it fails to see Jesus in its midst, Williamson stressed.

Speaking to the event called “An Evangelical Advocacy Response to Global Childhood Hunger,” he told a story of Mother Teresa saving the life of a child whose feet and hands had been gnawed off by rats. That evening, she asked a visitor to her center if he had seen Jesus that day. Overcome by the horror, he acknowledged he had not seen Jesus.

“But Mother Teresa saw Jesus all around her every day” when she held the poor and suffering, the ones Jesus called “the least of these,” Williamson said.

In order for the church to respond to childhood poverty and hunger appropriately, Christians must see children as Christ sees them, demanded Paul Msiza, general secretary of the Baptist Convention of South Africa . “Jesus said, ‘If you want to know who is the greatest, look at the children.’ But churches don’t take children seriously.”

Churches must change that mindset and welcome children, looking out for their welfare the world over, he urged.

“We must not allow children to roam the streets naked and hungry and pretend all is well,” he said. “But there are millions … dying today because of hunger. In Africa, 20 children die every minute.”

The church must speak on behalf of children, just as Jesus did, Msiza insisted. He thanked America and aid agencies for providing aid and hunger relief around the world. But he called on the Western world to hold Africa’s leaders accountable for the welfare of their own people.

“We cannot stand here and allow the powers back in Africa not to do their part,” he said. Although America and others provide billions of dollars in relief aid, the African nations should be required to contribute at least a portion—perhaps 25 percent—of that aid, he added.

“We can do this,” he said. “… It is not fair until African governments take care of their children.”

The church in America is stretched by the tension between individual rights and communal responsibility, observed Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed in Orlando, Fla.

On one side, rugged individualism compels Americans to ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Hunter said. “This is the ancient voice, the abdication of responsibility” for other people.

On the other side, Americans root for the underdog and often set up processes to care for hurting people, he added. The overwhelming challenge causes them to band together to defeat hunger because no group can do it alone.

When Christians look to Jesus’ model, they see he had compassion on people and instructed his followers to feed them, he said.

But unfortunately, many Christians today ignore that model, Hunter reported.

“A spiritual alarm goes off when I hear Christians saying, ‘How much of my money can I keep?’” rather than asking how they can help the poor and hungry, whom Jesus loved.

“Hoarding your own stash is the original temptation,” he said, comparing selfish contemporary Christians to Adam and Eve, whose original sin was to supplant their need for God.

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12564&Itemid=53

Unrest in Egypt Stirs Fear and Hope

With attacks on Christians already increasing in the Middle East, the populist uprising in Egypt has triggered fears among some that the region's largest non-Muslim population - Egypt's 7 million Coptic Christians - could be at risk.

Copt leaders in the United States said they are terrified that a new Egyptian government with a strong Islamic fundamentalist bent would persecute Christians. They are quietly lobbying the Obama administration to do more to protect Christians in Muslim countries and are holding prayer vigils and fasts such as one that ends Wednesday evening at Copt churches around the country, including four in the Washington area.

"The current situation for the Copts stinks, but [longtime Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak is the best of the worst for us," said the Rev. Paul Girguis of St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Fairfax County, which has about 3,000 members. "If Muslim extremists take over, the focus will be extreme persecution against Copts. Some people even predict genocide."

Some major U.S. Christian figures, including well-known evangelical leaders and representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, declined to publicly discuss the situation in Egypt, saying they wanted to avoid bringing dangerous attention to the country's Christians by appearing to complain or to advocate for some particular political outcome.

Their trepidation stems from repeated attacks on churches in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled in recent years, and from the New Year's Day bombing of a Coptic church in Egypt that killed almost two dozen worshipers and wounded nearly 100. The Coptic church is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world and is based in Egypt.

"Egypt is the bellwether because its Christian community is so large and is the strongest in the Middle East," said Paul Marshall, a global religious freedom expert and a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. "What happens to Christians in Egypt is very significant. Everyone is watching."

But not all American faith leaders are bracing for the worst. Joel Hunter, an evangelical pastor of a Florida megachurch and a frequent adviser to President Obama, said he's hearing a lot of optimism from Egyptian Christians who believe the uprising will lead to more freedom and religious liberty.

Many younger Christians in the United States also see the protests as something to celebrate, Hunter said, and older, more politically conservative Christians tend to be more skeptical of Islam generally and are worried about how a new Egyptian government will treat Israel.

So far, the protests have focused on jobs, free speech and democratic elections, not religion, so it's unclear what the end of Mubarak's rule would mean for religious minorities. But in recent years, Iraq has lost about half its historical Christian population because of persecution, and Christians have been leaving Iran and Lebanon in lesser numbers.

After last month's bombing of the Coptic church in Alexandria, Pope Benedict XVI publicly urged the Egyptian government and other leaders in the region to protect religious minorities. Egypt's foreign ministry spokesman said the pope's comments were "an unacceptable interference" in the country's internal affairs, and Egypt withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican in response.

Some U.S. Christian leaders said the situation in Egypt might put the issue of religious persecution abroad back on the radar of American Christians. A decade ago the freedom of Christians to worship in places such as Sudan was a top agenda item for American Christians, evangelicals in particular. But experts said this week that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have absorbed people's attention.

At a congressional hearing last month about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Christian leaders urged the administration to lean harder on Egypt's leaders to investigate violence against religious minorities and to lay out a clear strategy in Iraq for their protection.

A 2009 survey by the nonprofit Pew Forum measured governmental and societal restrictions on religion and found that a number of the world's least tolerant countries are Muslim-majority. The list included Iran, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan, as well as India, which is majority Hindu. Concerns include bans on public preaching and conversion and the lack of prosecution for religion-based violence.

Some advocates for religious freedom note that moderate Muslims and non-majority Muslims also suffer attacks and that the problem is extremism, not Islam.