Is Obama the “Emerging Church Candidate?”

CNN reports that Obama toured the Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio today and gave an address on how he plans to build a “real” partnership between faith-based organizations and the White House if he becomes president.

He feels confident that he is reaching out to evangelical voters, having private summits with pastors and has an advocate in the Matthew 25 political action committee, a group that takes its name from the passage cited by those who insist that the gospel is very much about justice issues for the poor and needy.

CNN reports,

“Brian McLaren, a former pastor who spent 24 years in the pulpit and is now an informal adviser to the Obama campaign, believes that a significant portion of evangelical voters are ready to break from their traditional home in the Republican Party and take a new leap of faith with Obama.

"I think there's a very, very sizable percentage -- I think between a third and half -- of evangelicals, especially younger [evangelicals], who are very open to somebody with a new vision," McLaren said.

That new vision, he said, isn't focused on traditional social issues like abortion and gay marriage but more on efforts to end global warming and the war in Iraq.

"We've watched the evangelical community be led -- be misled -- by the Republican Party to support things they really shouldn't have supported," McLaren said, including "the blind support for the Iraq war when it was launched on either mistaken or false pretenses."

See the entire report here: Obama works to mobilize 'Christian left'

Hat tip: Matt Robinson