But very nice! Bart Campolo is the son of Tony Campolo, an Evangelical who has been fairly liberal.  He, along with Jim Wallis, of Sojourners, Brian McLaren, a founder of the Emerging Church Movement, are leaders within an exciting off shoot of young (and some not so young) Evangelicals who place concerns for the environment, social justice, and peace above the typical wedge issues.

I've written about them before and that's why I am unwilling to write off religious voters despite what the mainstream media tells us about their voting patterns.

The Evangelical Christian community is not monolithic and its not all conservative.  

I believe strongly that faith should inform political values without necessarily defining them. (Incidentally, Tom Perriello has being making this very same point in central VA this year.)

To be faithful to your religion is not to obey uncritically. It is always a journey towards perfection. But in politics there is no perfection, there is always compromise and limitations. To limit one's politics to a rigid parroting of one's faith is to waste god's gift of rational thought and community. No one will ever be able to fulfill their religious journey in their politics.

So what does that mean for our politics and our religious values? It means we do the best we can, and promise to fight on where we cannot. It is possible to be pro-choice AND anti-abortion, for example. One can support the freedoms and liberties which lead to legal abortion, while working hard to make abortion unnecessary and rare (i.e., education, birth control, etc.).

I'm rambling, but this is a hard subject to discuss coherently. :)

But you just did :)  That's basically my position on faith and politics and on pro choice but not pro abortion.  I would like to see abortion, safe and rare.  I think we get to that by supporting birth control and accurate sex education.

We also get to it, of course, by parents discussing values with their children, having good after school programs for kids, and positive alternatives for them.  We don't get to it by witholding reliable information and birth control.  That is a recipe for disaster.

We also don't get to it by driving women into back alley abortions.  Another good recipe for disaster.

Having said all that, I am conflicted about abortion.  I'd like every support available for a young woman so she doesn't have to face that decision. But when everything fails, it should be her decision.

I think we are basically on the same page with respect to faith, politics and personal responsibility.  We see and do nuance.  Wish more people did.