Steve Strang knew the ground rules for the recent meeting between Sen. Barack Obama and a flock of evangelical, Catholic and liberal Protestant leaders.<\/p>\n\n
The invitation to the Chicago gathering stated: \u201cThis is an off-the-record (no media) time for questioning and listening, with no expectation of endorsement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
But it\u2019s one thing to keep Obama\u2019s answers off the record. As soon as the two-hour meeting was over, some participants began talking and writing about the questions they had asked.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI was concerned after three or four general questions that we wouldn\u2019t ask the most important questions,\u201d wrote Strang, the founder of Charisma Magazine. \u201cSo I raised my hand. \u2026 I said, \u2018Senator, I want to ask a question I\u2019m sure you are expecting regarding your position on abortion. I represent a segment of the church where nearly everyone considers the issue of supporting life to be the most important issue and where nearly everyone would be opposed to abortion. I want to ask what your stand on abortion is and if you believe what I think you believe, how you justify that with your Christian faith.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Strang said Obama offered a surprisingly \u201ccentrist,\u201d 15-minute answer. Since the evangelical entrepreneur had read the Obama\u2019s \u201cAudacity of Hope\u201d memoir, he recognized that the response came from its \u201cFaith\u201d chapter.<\/p>\n\n
Thus, it\u2019s likely that the presumptive Democratic nominee retold the story of the University of Chicago doctor who gently challenged a statement on a U.S. Senate campaign website pledging that Obama would fight \u201cright-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman\u2019s right to choose.\u201d The doctor\u2019s email said he wasn\u2019t asking Obama to oppose abortion, but to begin addressing \u201cthis issue in fair-minded words.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Obama told his staff to drop the offensive language, in recognition of the fact that many abortion opponents want sincere, sober discussions instead of more shouting. About that time, a member of a polite, pro-life family protesting outside an Obama rally called out: \u201cI will pray for you. I will pray that you have a change of heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Thus, Obama wrote: \u201cNeither my mind nor my heart changed that day, not did they in the days to come. But I did have that family in mind as I wrote back to the doctor and thanked him for his email. \u2026 I said a prayer of my own \u2014 that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
After the Chicago meeting, online reports by Strang and others said the leaders discussed a wide variety of issues, from the Iraq war to same-sex marriage, from genocide in Darfur to religious liberty issues here at home. A spokesman for the Rev. Franklin Graham said that the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association asked if Obama \u201cthought Jesus was the way to God, or merely a way\u201d \u2014 but did not report the response. There were conflicting reports about whether Graham and Obama exchanged a hug or a handshake.<\/p>\n\n
But abortion remains a high hurdle in an era when several U.S. Supreme Court justices are near retirement.<\/p>\n\n
Is change possible? In \u201cThe Audacity of Hope,\u201d Obama noted that many opponents of abortion are willing to \u201cbend principle\u201d in cases of rape and incest. Meanwhile, the willingness of \u201ceven the most ardent\u201d of pro-abortion-rights advocates to \u201caccept some restrictions on late-term abortion marks a recognition that a fetus is more than a body part.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The key, stressed Strang, was that the Chicago meeting even took place, allowing frank discussion of such bitterly divisive issues.<\/p>\n\n