John McCain told reporters simply: “’I am a Christian.’”
McCain, 71, is Southern Baptist, attending a 7000-member Phoenix Church with his family. He dialogues meaningfully with his 69-year-old senior pastor. The clergy staff testify that McCain is a genuine believer.
McCain knows what evangelicals believe in for he saw it in his face during the Mike Huckabee campaign. McCain, being an Arizona Baptist, knows full well the divisions even within the Southern Baptist Convention for those divisions came out boldly for and against Huckabee. McCain therefore knows the complexities of his own denomination let alone those of evangelical Protestantism, not to mention Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christians.
McCain is wise to keep his personal faith low-key.
He expresses his faith ethic primarily in being pro-life and anti-sodomy. That should tell evangelicals something quite vital about his biblical moral base.
Further, he is not pro-Muslim, that in itself a major plus. He knows the threat of Islam with his stand regarding the US coalition in Iraq.
McCain has a hot temper on occasion. So do many born again believers.
McCain has lost control of his tongue with some profanities on occasion. That can be said also of some churchgoers who are not as spiritually refined as others would like them to be.
McCain says he’s a Christian but not a perfect example of sainthood. Welcome to the mortal club of many who still cling to the mercy of Christ.
McCain’s pastoral colleagues tell the press that he’s simple in his theology. In other words, he’s not into doctrinal splicing as some Southern Baptists are given to. That makes McCain, as far as I can see, to be a basic believer who leaves the fine lines to those more astute in theological studies. The Lord knows that Christendom would be bereft if it did not count on a host of basic believers.
With the Jeremiah Wright devilment, McCain is wise to keep religion low-key.
With the Huckabee evangelical applause, again McCain is wise to keep religion low-key.
With Hillary Clinton’s hypocrisy, professing Methodist Christianity while supporting abortion, sodomy, euthanasia, human stem cell research and all religions being equal, McCain is smart in keeping his personal faith expression low-key.
Evangelicals, I believe, will conclude they simply cannot vote for outright liars such as Clinton and Obama. That would be anathema. That would be voting for the devil himself.
Further, evangelicals recall George W. Bush coming out strongly in their corner over and over again in his personal faith interviews. Then, with that, President Bush placed the Koran in the White House library with great fanfare at a Muslim-attended Ramadan dinner in the White House. Bush also told a Muslim world leader that all religions lead to the same God.
Therefore, with that extreme hurt to evangelicals, it is all the more wise for McCain to live out his biblical faith and leave the talking about it to a later date.
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