{"id":189,"date":"2008-08-24T23:51:56","date_gmt":"2008-08-24T23:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/a-faithbased-democratic-conven.html"},"modified":"2008-08-24T23:51:56","modified_gmt":"2008-08-24T23:51:56","slug":"a-faithbased-democratic-conven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/a-faithbased-democratic-conven.html","title":{"rendered":"A Faith-Based Democratic Convention? My Head Is Spinning"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Democrats opened the week with the first ever Interfaith worship service. I didn’t arrive in time but Progressive Revival’s Paul Raushenbush<\/a> reports that the very first speaker, Charles Blake, declared himself to be a pro-life Democrat.
\nA pro-life pastor opening a Democratic Party worship service? Makes the head spin. (One protester, who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo, shouted that it was inappropriate for the Democratic Party to start its convention with a religoius service.)<\/a>.
\nMore signs of, er, change: events are being sponsored this year not only by the Senior Caucus, the Ethnic Caucus, the GLBT Caucs etc — but the Faith Caucus.
\nBut my favorite sign that the Democrats are trying something new came in my goodie bag. Like any good convention, they offered delegates useful items like Lip Protector (courtesy of Blue Cross), a ringtone gift card from att&t and tasty mints from some local real estate company.
\nAnd then there was a copy of Dale Carnegie’s Golden Book, drawn from his classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Somehow I don’t think of the hipsters in the Obama Yes We Can video as being real Dale Carnegie types.
\nSome of it seemed a bit incongruous given the vicious campaign in which we find ourselves (“Don’t criticize, condemn or complain”). But if the Democrats want to combat angst over Obama’s slipping poll numbers they need only consult this passage of the booklet:<\/p>\n

The Perfect Way to Conquer Worry
\nPray<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Democrats opened the week with the first ever Interfaith worship service. I didn’t arrive in time but Progressive Revival’s Paul Raushenbush reports that the very first speaker, Charles Blake, declared himself to be a pro-life Democrat. A pro-life pastor opening a Democratic Party worship service? Makes the head spin. (One protester, who apparently hadn’t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nA Faith-Based Democratic Convention? My Head Is Spinning - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/a-faithbased-democratic-conven.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Faith-Based Democratic Convention? My Head Is Spinning - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Democrats opened the week with the first ever Interfaith worship service. I didn’t arrive in time but Progressive Revival’s Paul Raushenbush reports that the very first speaker, Charles Blake, declared himself to be a pro-life Democrat. A pro-life pastor opening a Democratic Party worship service? Makes the head spin. 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He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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