If you want a good summary of the interfaith gathering, Mollie over at GetReligion has raked through the mainstream press with excellent analysis.
She notes that several of the reporters wrote that the interfaith event was an effort to reach out to “values voters.”
“Now if the reporters actually think that the interfaith service would woo evangelicals in the GOP, they are probably high or know nothing about culturally conservative evangelicals,” she writes.
Mollie also wrote a piece for National Review with a nice summary and background. She has been to several interfaith services and said that this one followed suit with a few exceptions.
Looking back, it barely felt like a worship service to me. There were readings (from everything but the New Testament), there was beautiful choir singing, and there were read prayers. But because of the heavy politics in the speeches, it felt a little more like a pep rally than a worship service.
As Mollie writes, “Will the interfaith gathering help more religious voters feel comfortable with the Democratic party? Only time will tell. It’s somewhat difficult to imagine which religious voters would be swayed by a worship service with such liberal political advocacy.”
In an earlier post, columnist Cal Thomas pointed out how many other evangelicals might feel about interfaith services.
“What do Christians have in common with Islam and with any of those other so called faiths that were there? Jesus said, ‘I’m the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.’ Why waste time on other things?”
