Barack Obama's participation at the Saddleback-hosted AIDS conference sparked a lot of debate among Christians. Our take on it can be found on the December 3 radio show and a December 4 blog entry. An interesting bit of information that didn't make the headlines is that Republican Senator Sam Brownback was also an invited speaker. I know some people were concerned with the apparent tacit endorsement of Obama that his invitation might represent, but it seems to me that Brownback's presence undercuts that.
Update: LTI Blog has a thoughtful interaction on this topic.
Unfortunately, in the media Sen. Brownback was barely mentioned, and probably only because he was holding the other hand of Rick Warren during prayer. But then, the liberal media does not like to let out secrets such as conservative, pro-life people actually caring or doing something about things like AIDS.
Posted by: Karen A. | December 13, 2006 at 09:35 PM
Indeed,that's interesting that this is the first time I heard about a republican in that meeting as well...
Posted by: Jimmy Li | December 13, 2006 at 10:42 PM
I wish we could stop tilting at windmills which make us look foolish. Taking a stand on important issues is vital, squabbling over whether a democrat can be included in a conference on AIDS is just silly. It was so blown out of proportion that when I first heard it, it sounded like Obama was going to be the interim Pastor at Saddleback or something
Posted by: Chad Winters | December 14, 2006 at 08:20 AM
Chad, can you document one instance where someone said that Obama should not appear because he's a democrat?
I can see this both ways, but this kind of strawman reply is intellectually lazy.
Those who oppose Obama's appearance at Saddleback do so because he actively promotes irresponsible sexuality through things like partial birth abortion and same sex marriage. His party affiliation is irrelevant.
Posted by: JJ | December 14, 2006 at 11:26 AM
Since those are standard democratic party platforms, it is hardly irrelevant in a democratic congressman. Not allowing anyone who regretfully believes those things would effectively prevent the vast majority of democratic politicians from attending the AIDS conference.
Posted by: Chad Winters | December 15, 2006 at 01:48 PM
One must never, ever forget that in North America HIV/AIDS is overwhelmingly a behaviorally-induced disease. The chances of relatively monogomous, strictly heterosexual people contracting it are about as close to zero as one can get.
You ask, "Why is this relevant?" Well, it's relevant to the extent that this same crowd which mercilessly ridicules and socially ostracizes smokers for their personally destructive habits, telling them to just QUIT, never apply this same reasoning when it comes to homosexuals and their horrendously destructive personal choices.
This hypocrisy is further exacerbated whan one considers that as a group active homosexual men die far younger than do smokers. What's going on here is these folks "approve" of one type of personally destructive behavior and disapprove of another, period.
Posted by: Jack | December 17, 2006 at 10:36 AM