When Evangelicals Draft Our Platform

If you’re looking for Democratic
religious outreach success stories, one of the first places you should start is

Michigan.  Like many Democrats after the 2004 elections,
the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) realized that Democrats needed to change
the way we were speaking and relating to the faith community.  And they decided to make a priority of doing
just that.  Over a year ago, the state
party chair and other leading Michigan Democrats began holding small off-the-record
listening meetings with pastors, priests, and lay leaders around the
state.

During the past year, Michigan Democrats
met with around 500 local Christian leaders and began to form relationships in
communities where they previously had no connections.  They made the meetings a scheduling priority,
took notes, followed-up on questions and concerns, and made a serious effort to
actually listen and learn from the experiences.
One immediate result of the meetings was that they helped energize and
mobilize members of the faith community who had traditionally voted Democrat
but who had become disillusioned with a Party they felt was often hostile to
religion and unable to articulate a clear vision.

But of equal, if not greater
importance, the Party also began to form relationships with evangelical and
moderate Catholic/Protestant leaders who are not our normal base.  These were the folks Democrats have been
writing off for nearly a decade as solidly within the Republican camp.  Yet time and again, one of the first things Democrats
would hear when they arrived for the meetings is, “Where have you been all
these years?  We’re glad you’re finally
here.”  As the MDP met with more and more
evangelicals, prejudices and preconceptions were broken down and both sides
came to understand how much they had in common.

In fact, the meetings went so well (and
the MDP was so intent on continuing to engage) that the MDP decided to offer
the participants in their meetings an opportunity to help draft the 2006 Party Platform.  The result is that the preamble to the Party
platform and new “Faith and Our Party” section are based on language written primarily
by conservative evangelicals from parts of the state where the Party had virtually
no contacts a year ago.  Based on the
success of the platform, the MDP has now created a faith brochure that they
are using for further outreach to people of faith.

Democrats and the faith community
have both been enriched by this new relationship.  The MDP was very intentional throughout this
process of ensuring that what they said in meetings and especially what was in
the platform was an authentic representation of what they believed.  This was not pandering.  It was authentic and respectful engagement
that bore incredible fruit.  One thing
that people of faith can bring to our Party (if we let them) is assistance in
articulating a vision and communicating what we believe to the American
people.  For thousands of years, our
faith communities have thrived because of their ability to inspire their flock,
to convince people of the importance of believing in something greater than
themselves, and to deliver a message of hope.
I’ll close with a few excerpts from the new MDP platform that
demonstrate what I’m talking about.
Enjoy.

From the
Preamble

America has always been at its best when Americans ask not “what’s in it for
me,” but “what can I do to give back?”
The Michigan
Democratic Party understands this basic principle. That is why Democrats in
this state are seeking the Common Good – the best life for each person of this
state. The orphan. The family. The sick. The healthy. The wealthy. The poor.
The citizen. The stranger. The first. The last…By holding ourselves to this
vision of the Common Good, Democrats have the integrity to deal with the
challenges that face Michigan
today. We address Michigan’s
economic situation while holding the “least of these” – our most impoverished,
our least advantaged – at the forefront of our minds. We address security
concerns while holding the “stranger” – immigrants and our brothers and sisters
who live abroad – in the highest respect. We address our health care needs
remembering the ill, the elderly, and the unemployed. In short, we do what is
difficult, and we do what is right. 

From the
“Faith and Our Party” section

Throughout our country’s history,
people of faith have played a major role in many of the great reforms of
American society, such as the abolition of slavery and the Civil Rights
movement.  Leaders of those reform movements-people like Abraham Lincoln
and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.-were inspired by faith and used
religious terminology in advocating their causes, allowing them to appeal to
the best aspects of our nature and to call our Nation to the better futures
they envisioned…At times, Democrats have struggled to strike the difficult
balance between abiding by the Constitutional mandate to protect individuals’
freedom of religion while also preventing the establishment of state-supported
religion.  However, the central role faith plays in the lives of millions
of Americans, and millions of Democrats, cannot be ignored.