Obama Approaches Young Evangelicals

I'm excited to hear that Obama's reaching out to evangelical voters. It's even more interesting to learn he has plans to launch a "Joshua Generation" project for young Catholics and evangelicals. The basic idea is that there are some conservative Christians who are never going to vote for him because they disagree with him on abortion and gay marriage.

But there are others who see other issues as important values questions: poverty, the AIDS epidemic, and the environment, for example, and who might be willing to put those concerns ahead of the traditional "family values" litmus tests. I read a quote from one such person in the Christian Century a few weeks ago. He said (I am paraphrasing), "We like to joke that the people having the fewest abortions are married gay couples."

So, they've come up with a name, "The Joshua Generation Project," which is just about pitch-perfect as far as names go: it could be the sequel to The Prayer of Jabez, or one of the Left Behind series books. The basic idea is that Moses brought the Israelites to the promised land, but Joshua had to lead them into it to settle it.

One personal qualm about that choice of a name - Joshua was responsible for a LOT of killing to clear the land of Canaanites. I guess we'll have to assume the Joshua Generation's battles are not going to be quite so bloody.