I haven’t read much Rick Warren myself, but I do think that it is good if Christians can make a name for themselves as those who genuinely care for justice and for the poor. This should not be at the expense of our stand on other moral issues. Perhaps then both “right” and “left” leaning parties will realise they cannot take the vote of certain sections of Christendom for granted, which could enable the church to make a real difference to the priorities and directions of these parties.

At the same time I am concerned that the church does not get into the attitude of saying to polititians – “here’s the problems we care about, you promise to fix them and we’ll vote for you”. There is a real opportunity for us to take the lead in laying down our lives in service for others, which the government will take notice of when they see the resulting transformation of society and often respond by funding similar projects. I think there is already evidence of this sort of thing going on (e.g. Soul Survivor’s Eden Project in Manchester).

Rick Warren [who probably wouldn't be described as emergent by many] has recently colored outside the lines of traditional views of church and politics. He seems to be able to fuse social awareness, with moral clarity and change the conversation from Christians just voting based on a candidates views on abortion and homosexuality. I wonder if he is a pastoral version of Bono! The media and other church leaders are struggling how to label him – I like it!

I was hoping that no Americans would read this, as I’m sure I grotesquely over-simplified things! You make a good distinction between what moral values we hold and what policies we think will promote those values. I guess we find it hard to believe that those who favour different policies could actually be “one the same side” as us when it comes to moral values. And vice versa, we could find ourselves voting with those with whom we do not share values simply because we both feel that the same policies would further our own differing adendas.

Concern for the environment doesn’t mean favoring every policy that requires placing the environment over every other issue, e.g. requiring businesses to do things that would increase the price of retail products, lead to layoffs of low-income workers, and so on. Many Republicans believe Democratic-favored environmental policies would be very bad for the average worker because of what companies facing stricter regulations would end up doing.

Many Republicans believe Democratic policies do not favor the poor but simply make them dependent on a system that keeps them merely subsistent. They believe increasing the minimum wage will also increase unemployment, and most workers earning minimum wage are either entry-level employees who will get a raise after a short period of employment or high school and college students working part-time for extra money while working toward a degree that will prepare them for a better job. Thus it isn’t the huge social justice issue it’s made out to be.

There are similar debates about affirmative action. Those who favor it consider it to be morally required in order to counterbalance discrimination and serve a public interests, but many who oppose it do so because they think it harms the people it’s intended to help, including sending them to colleges whose standards are higher than they are prepared for, which leads to lower grades and not as good job prospects, when going to a lower tier school might have led to better results because of much better grades.

I think another big issue for many evangelicals who are Republicans is national security. On the Iraq issue in particular, many see the push to withdraw as an unwillingness to take responsibility for a situation we’ve helped create, whether it should have happened or not. Some see it as a fight still worth fighting. For those who aren’t genuine pacifists, whether it counts as a just war depends in part on whether it is a just cause, and I don’t think very many think it fails on that count. The disagreement is over whether it is worth the number of people who have died, and some think it’s just national cowardice to think that it’s not worth fighting for what’s right.

Basically, my point is that it isn’t so simple as the Democrats have the moral upper hand on some issues and the Republicans on others. Many evangelicals who are Republicans think the Democrats make themselves out to be in the right on those issues by presuming their policies will serve purposes that people in both parties agree with, when the Republican party simply has a different view on what will serve those purposes, and many evangelicals agree with them rather than the Democrats.