c. 2006 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Maligned as hostile to faith and forsaken by swaths of religiously minded voters in recent elections, Democrats have spent the last two years wringing their hands over how to “get religion.”

Party leaders have lamented that Democrats ceded the moral high ground to Republicans because they failed to articulate the values behind their policies.

But now, a new generation of activists, strategists and scribes _ some Democrats, some not _ are helping the party to build relationships in the religious community, talk openly about spiritual journeys, and frame policies and platforms using moral terms.

“We want to change (the party’s) culture, and change the way candidates are thinking and speaking about religious and moral values,” said strategist Mara Vanderslice, one of a dozen people named Tuesday (Oct. 17) by Religion News Service as most effective in shaping the Democrats’ approach to faith and religion.

The list is based on dozens of interviews with people inside and outside the party. RNS chose to focus on Democrats because they are just now starting to compete for religious voters; Republicans’ success at reaching religious voters is well-known and documented.

To be sure, not everyone is impressed with the Democrats’ new emphasis on religion.

Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and an early force behind the rise of the religious right, said Democrats won’t have a prayer with true believers until the party adopts a more conservative platform.

“It’s not like the Republican Party started getting the votes of people of faith because they started nominating evangelicals or teaching them how to quote the Bible,” Reed said. “Republicans got the votes of people of faith when Republicans became a pro-life party.”

Still, there are signs of change on the religious and political landscape, according to pollsters and political thinkers. More Democrats, for example, are voicing public discomfort with abortion, while more Christians are heeding a call for environmental protection under the banner of “Creation care.” Increasing numbers of evangelicals, meanwhile, express frustration about being taken for granted by Republicans.

As the landscape continues to shift, these are the people helping Democrats chart a new course. They may not have parted the sea of red states, they say, but at least they’re not drowning.

The Theologian: Shaun Casey

For a Christian ethicist, Shaun Casey crosses a lot of lines.

Raised in a small Kentucky town, he spent much of his adult life at Harvard University, where he earned degrees in divinity and public administration, as well as a doctorate of theology in religion and society.

A member and former minister of the conservative Churches of Christ, Casey, 49, now teaches Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, a Methodist school in Washington, D.C.

“I bring a perspective where I’ve been knocking around in some interesting and strange corners in this country,” Casey said.

In informal meetings, phone calls and forums, Democrats are increasingly calling on Casey to share that perspective with party leaders and candidates.

Late in Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 campaign for president, Casey was brought in to advise the candidate on religious outreach. “There weren’t that many people concerned about religion” in the campaign, Casey said. “We could sort of work in a phone booth at the time.”

Not everyone in the campaign was convinced religious outreach was worth the time, and the experiment brought mixed results. “He had hoped to have a louder voice,” said Jesse Lava, a former Democratic National Committee aide who recently founded FaithfulDemocrats.com, an online political community. “Now they wish he’d had a louder voice too.”

Casey, who writes frequently for that Web site and serves on its advisory council, insists that he is a theologian at heart, not a political operative.

“No political platform or party embodies my theology of the gospel,” he said. Casey is, however, trying to convince Democrats to talk about their moral convictions.

At a recent meeting on Capitol Hill, Casey urged House Democrats to visit faith communities, talk to religious opinion makers and subvert the stereotype that the party is hostile to religion.

Since the 2004 election, Casey has introduced Kerry to many members of the evangelical community and the two speak often about faith and politics, according to David Wade, the senator’s spokesman.

“It’s not good for anyone if the debate belongs to one side of the aisle,” Kerry said. “… Shaun gets that, deeply.”

The House Trinity: Reps. James Clyburn, Rosa DeLauro, David Price

Though they draw on different faith traditions, Reps. James Clyburn, D-S.C.; Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.; and David Price, D-N.C., possess a common goal: to get fellow Democrats talking about moral values.

Clyburn, 66, is the son of a “fundamentalist minister” and says he was headed for the pulpit himself before he met the legendary civil rights leader and now-Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who inspired Clyburn to enter politics.

With a flicker of Holy Ghost fire in his eyes, Clyburn carries a bit of the preacher about him, which is perhaps why House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tapped the seven-term congressman to lead the House Democratic Faith Working Group.

The 36-member group meets monthly to hash out strategy and confer with opinion makers in the faith community such as Bishop William Skylstad, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and megachurch pastors T.D. Jakes and Rick Warren.

The Faith Working Group “helps our members be comfortable” with religious talk and religious folks, Clyburn said.

Fiery yet friendly DeLauro, 63, is a cradle Catholic and the daughter of Italian immigrants whose slog against poor working conditions animates her inner underdog. Though she carries the banner on the church’s concern for social welfare, the Connecticut lawmaker supports abortion rights, a stance that has drawn considerable criticism from Catholic leaders.

After the 2004 election, during which some Catholic bishops vowed to deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights, DeLauro said she decided that “Democrats could not let our faith be limited to wedge issues.”

“The use of religion as a political weapon got us to focus on how our faith motivates us and to let others know about it,” DeLauro said.

She rallied 55 fellow Catholic House members to adopt a “Catholic Statement on Principles” earlier this year that acknowledges the church’s guidance while asserting “the primacy of conscience.”

If Clyburn and DeLauro provide the fire and the fight, North Carolina’s Price contributes intellectual ballast. A 66-year-old Baptist with a divinity degree in public policy from Yale University, the professorial Price helps coordinate the Faith Working Group and is known as the go-to theologian on Capitol Hill.

Buttressing budget debates and essays with references to the moral arguments of intellectual heavyweights like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr, Price is eager for fellow Democrats to “make an authentic and persuasive case for a more just society.”

“We need to be more active in talking about our commitment to faith and values,” Price said. “It doesn’t necessarily speak for itself.”

The Preacher: Leah Daughtry

Leah Daughtry doesn’t talk party politics on Sundays, when she dons her preachers’ robes at Washington’s The House of the Lord Church.

But Daughtry is taking a holy message to Democrats Monday through Friday.

A fifth-generation Pentecostal minister, the 42-year-old Daughtry is also the chief of staff at the Democratic National Committee. There, she is pushing Party Chairman Howard Dean to restore the party’s credibility with religious Americans.

Though she’s shy and soft-spoken, none of the moral fervor that drove her ancestors to the pulpit is lost on Daughtry, said her friend and former colleague Minyon Moore.

“She comes from a deeply spiritual family … and has an eclectic religiosity in her soul,” said Moore, the White House director of political affairs under Bill Clinton.

Still, Daughtry realizes it’s time to tear up some Democratic traditions, such as visiting African-American churches two weeks before elections.

“As someone who grew up in that community, we knew it like clockwork. Congressman `X’ would show up asking for your vote on Sunday. Quite frankly, it was very annoying,” Daughtry said. “I don’t want to hear you come and quote a Bible verse. Anybody can quote Scripture. I want to hear how you live Scripture.”

Instead, Democrats are laying out a new approach, ranging from meeting with big names like Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen to planting the seeds for grass-roots networks of faith-based advocates.

Some Democrats are begging party leaders to pick up the pace _ the DNC has yet to hire a director of Catholic outreach after a long vacancy. Daughtry said she hears them.

“She’s not someone who goes to the religious community,” said the Rev. Romal Tune, who has advised the DNC on religious outreach. “She’s in the religious community. And she’s able to reach leaders in that community.”

The Role Model: Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine

While the rest of his party was sifting through the ashes of the 2004 elections, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was already gearing up his own faith-infused campaign.

Running for the governor’s mansion in 2005, Kaine spoke early and often about his Catholic faith, meeting with pastors and buying airtime on religious radio stations to talk about his missionary work in Central America.

“I talked about my motivation for being in public life,” said Kaine, 48, “and for me, that motivation is spiritual.”

In a largely Protestant, largely red state, Kaine’s public professions of his Catholic faith convinced voters he shared their values, even if they didn’t agree with his policies.

And when Kaine’s Republican opponent attacked his opposition to capital punishment _ which three out of four Virginians support _ Kaine fought off the dreaded “liberal” label by explaining the religious rational behind his stance.

“If we talked about his faith … and that he was specifically opposed to the death penalty because his faith teaches that life is sacred, most people actually concluded that he was a moderate or a conservative,” said campaign adviser David Eichenbaum.

Kaine urges more Democrats to bare their souls, even before they share policy proposals.

“What I have found is that Democrats will tell you their position on 10 or 15 different policy issues, but they won’t share what led them to take those positions, what motivates them,” Kaine said.

At least one prominent Democrat is listening.

The day after Kaine’s election, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said: “We want to duplicate what we did last night. We want, like Tim Kaine, to be talking about our faith.”

The Insider: Mike McCurry

In 2004, when congressional Democrats discussed how the party could connect with religious Americans, there was one man everyone wanted in the room: Mike McCurry.

Not only was McCurry press secretary for President Bill Clinton _ one of the last Democrats to earn amens from the choir _ he is also a Methodist Sunday school teacher and a board member at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

“Mike lives his faith in such a committed way and believes deeply that public service is a form of Christian vocation,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

McCurry, who turns 52 next week (Oct. 27), is best known for facing down the media during the Clinton impeachment proceedings _ a chore that won him the respect (and sympathy) of his peers. More recently, he advised Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign on religious outreach after the candidate began to take heat from Catholic conservatives.

“When he speaks, people in the party listen,” said Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne.

Now McCurry is a partner at Public Strategies Washington, a communications firm, and occasionally meets with Capitol Hill Democrats about “how we adequately reflect our faith in our policy.”

“You have to be authentic and genuine,” McCurry said. “If you’re out playing golf every Sunday, don’t pretend you’re a church person.”

Democrats must find language comfortable for them, he said. In other words, what worked for Clinton, a Southern Baptist from Arkansas, may not work for an Episcopalian from New England.

“When you’re in an outwardly professing faith tradition like the Baptists, your ability to communicate from a religious perspective comes almost naturally,” McCurry said.

“It’s much harder for buttoned-up mainline Democrats to do that. I think that’s where we’ve gotten into trouble.”

The `Blessed’ One: Sen. Barack Obama

Before the national conventions, the Senate speeches and the Men’s Vogue magazine cover, Barack Obama was a community organizer in Chicago, planning voter drives and after-school programs with preachers and church ladies.

The 45-year-old senator learned some important things in those meetings, said his friend the Rev. James Meeks, who is also an Illinois state senator. Placed on his first platform _ or pulpit _ Obama had to learn quickly how to relate to people in the pews.

“You can’t go in those places if you don’t know the language,” said Meeks.

Often mentioned as Democrats’ next, best hope for the White House, Obama, whose name means “blessed” in Swahili, now commands a much larger audience. His message, however, remains largely unchanged.

In a celebrated speech this past summer in Washington, the senator chided his party for asking “believers to leave their religion at the door.”

“When we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome _ others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends,” Obama said.

“That speech is going to be quoted for a long time,” said progressive evangelical activist and author the Rev. Jim Wallis.

Many assume, Wallis said, that Obama was raised in a black church and just “gets” the cadences and vocabulary of religious rhetoric. In fact, Obama was raised by an agnostic Kenyan father, an Indonesian Muslim stepfather and a white American mother whom he has described as “a lonely witness for secular humanism.” It wasn’t until he was 37 that Obama heard an altar call and became a member of the United Church of Christ.

His multicultural background enables the senator to connect with people from a variety of faith traditions, said his friend the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest from Chicago. They often like what they hear.

“More than anyone else I’ve ever heard,” Pfleger said, “Obama causes one to dream.”

The Prophet: Rabbi David Saperstein

David Saperstein is everywhere.

As a rabbi, he is sought out by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who ask him to explain a biblical text, or to provide a Jewish approach to contentious issues.

As a lawyer, Saperstein teaches seminars on Jewish law and church-state conflicts at Georgetown University Law School.

And as director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism for the past 30 years, the energetic 59-year-old is one of the most effective and persuasive religious advocates in the nation’s capital.

“People listen to him. I’ve seen people change their minds and say, `I hadn’t thought of that,’ because it’s David Saperstein speaking,” said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee.

Saperstein’s shop, commonly referred to as the RAC, is the Washington office of the Union for Reform Judaism _ the largest Jewish group in North America, representing 1.5 million believers.

Twenty years ago, Reva Price, now an aide to House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, spent four years working with Saperstein at the RAC, an experience she calls her “graduate school in faith and politics.”

“He knows the issues, understands politics and has built strong relationships with decision-makers,” Price said. “He brings a compelling message to the table.”

Though Saperstein tends to land on the liberal side of most debates, he remains independent from partisan politics and is quick to point out that officially he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.

That independence allows the rabbi to lend his voice to nearly every moral and ethical debate on Capitol Hill _ including the Iraq war, stem cell research, the use of torture, climate change, immigration and gay marriage.

“If someone wants to know the Jewish perspective on something, we will tell them,” Saperstein said.

And for the past 30 years, people in Washington have listened, according to the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches.

“David’s a rock. Even on controversial issues he’s able to take positions that are a little further on the edge because of people’s respect for him.”

The Matchmaker: Burns Strider

Burns Strider’s business card says he’s the policy director for the Democratic Party Caucus. But that title masks another role he plays for the party: matchmaker between politicians and religious leaders.

Strider, 40, is a former senior aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who chose the amiable adviser to shepherd the House Democratic Faith Working Group. There, Burns, who considers himself both a Methodist and a Southern Baptist, has cultivated a broad and devoted network of clergy and others in the faith community.

“He probably does more than anyone on the staff level to move this thing forward,” said Eric Sapp, a partner at Common Good Strategies, a Democratic consulting firm. “He’s got the ear of a lot of people.”

Strider sets up sessions with Democratic lawmakers, clergy and leaders of faith-based groups _ the type of “it’s-about-time” meetings that Democrats need to do more often, Strider said. The two biggest mistakes either party can make are to ignore and to manipulate faith communities, he claims.

“Both of these result in the same thing,” he said. “Either way you are going to suffer in the long run.”

Plenty of religious groups share similar agendas on the environment, poverty and foreign aid with Democrats, but they had not met until Strider brought them together.

“Too many times, we tend to say people of faith are here, and Democrats are (over) here,” he said, gesturing toward opposite ends of a long table.

The Agitator: Amy Sullivan

When Amy Sullivan arrived in Washington a decade ago, she quickly discovered that you could be a Democrat or a person of faith, but rarely both. Both sides, she decided, were in need of an extreme makeover.

“One of the easiest ways I knew to do that, because I (was raised) a good Baptist girl,” she said, “was to give a little testimony.”

After punching her card on Capitol Hill, in academia and on Washington’s think-tank circuit, Sullivan landed at Washington Monthly magazine, where she used her perch to tell the Democrats they needed to “get religion” if they ever wanted to win elections.

She didn’t mince words.

“The silence of Democratic presidential candidates on religious matters,” she wrote in 2003, “is matched by the cluelessness of the party apparatus.”

She also made her case that “people of faith” _ at least the ones she knew _ were more diverse than “Ralph Reed and James Dobson, abortion-clinic bombers and George W. Bush.” She scolded the secular left for forcing candidates to “keep a lid on religious talk in order to win.”

In the process, Sullivan, 33, has emerged as one of the brightest and most articulate voices calling for a come-to-Jesus moment in the party. Part of her appeal is that, having lived on both sides, she can speak to both sides.

“She doesn’t pull punches,” said the Rev. Jim Wallis, the progressive evangelical founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal. “She’s not just a critic of the right, but has really challenged Democrats to not be so clueless when it comes to faith and politics.”

Sullivan, now a self-described liberal evangelical Episcopalian, has flirted with ordination and insider politics, but feels most at home in journalism. She recently left the magazine to write a book _ tentatively titled “Resurrection” _ about the “untold story” of progressives and faith.

Sullivan is fiercely independent _ so much so that she, like Saperstein, is uncomfortable with the “Democrat” label, preferring the outsider’s role of an independent (but opinionated) journalist.

“You can make your case in memos or in meetings, but if people decide not to go along with what you’ve proposed, you have to shut up and do your job,” she said, recalling advice from an editor at the magazine. “But as a journalist, you can lob a grenade and they have to listen to you because it’s in print. They can’t say they didn’t see it.”

The Strategist: Mara Vanderslice

Act One of Mara Vanderslice’s experience in party politics didn’t work out as planned. While working as an aide to Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, Vanderslice was “exposed” as an “ultra-leftist” by conservative Catholics. Responding to the charges, the Kerry campaign reined her in and cut her access to the media.

“It was extraordinarily painful and unexpected,” said Vanderslice, 31. “I was fairly young and fairly naive and I had no idea something like that could happen.”

But Act Two finds the spunky progressive Christian back on her feet. In 2005, Vanderslice and Eric Sapp opened a consulting firm _ Common Good Strategies _ dedicated solely to helping Democrats “reclaim the debate on faith and values.”

And this fall, Common Good Strategies is in the thick of three high-profile campaigns _ advising Pennsylvania Senate candidate Bob Casey, Ohio gubernatorial hopeful Ted Strickland and North Carolina’s Heath Shuler, who’s running for Congress.

Using her ties in the evangelical community and religious media, as well as her ear for authentic dialogue, Vanderslice helps her clients navigate the complicated landscape of American religious life.

Common Good Strategies has also been tapped by the Democratic state parties in Kansas and Michigan to develop long-range efforts, such as a yearlong “listening tour” with pastors and religious leaders in Michigan.

The young consultant’s efforts have been essential to closing the so-called “God gap” between Democrats and faith communities, said Michigan State Party Chairman Mark Brewer.

In fact, the Michigan meetings were so successful that religious leaders helped craft the state party’s platform.

“It’s very exciting,” said Mike McCurry, a former spokesman for President Clinton. “She’s proving you can go out and make this a permanent part of campaigns.”

KRE/PH END RNS

Editors: Two group shots _ one of Clyburn, DeLauro and Price; the other of Casey, McCurry, Sullivan and Daughtry _ are availble on the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug. Also available are individual headshots, and an original illustration of all 12 Democrats by Monica Seaberry.

For one time only, RNS subscribers can download all photos associated with this story for the price of one photo.

A shorter version of this story, RNS-DEMS-FAITH, is also being transmitted Oct. 17.