By Daniel Johnson-Kim, Editor in Chief
Dr. Shaun Casey, senior religious adviser for presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, urged ACU students throughout the day Thursday to rethink the Christian’s role in politics – Christians must participate in the political process, he argued.
Casey, an ACU alumnus and associate professor of Christian Ethics at Wesley School of Seminary outside Washington, D.C., came to ACU and spoke to numerous classes, at a luncheon and at a Chapel forum titled, “Rendering to Caesar: Christians in American Public Life.”
Casey began working for Obama in July as part of his faith outreach staff – an effort by the Democratic ticket to take evangelical voters and their influence on the race seriously. He has traveled across the country to talk to evangelical voters about Obama’s policies and how they may appeal to some evangelicals.
He received his bachelor’s degree from ACU in 1979 and has three graduate degrees from Harvard University – a Master of Divinity, Doctorate of Theology and Master of Public Administration.
“If you’re interested in politics, religion and the media, you are living through the most interesting period in my lifetime as well as in your lifetime,” Casey said.
Casey repeated throughout the day that polls show issues evangelicals care about are no longer limited to the “hot button” issues of abortion and same-sex marriage that have defined the evangelicals’ party affiliations in the past decades. Instead some evangelicals, specifically younger believers, are shifting their focus to issues like poverty and global climate change. And Casey argued the Democratic Party offers policies that some view can help affect those issues.
“The old caricature of evangelical voters is they only are about two issues; it’s all about abortion and it’s all about same-sex marriage,” Casey said to a group of journalism and political science students Thursday morning.
“What they’re finding is your basket of moral and political concerns are longer than that,” he said.
Casey fielded questions from students at the various speaking venues, and students asked questions ranging from Obama’s position on abortion and the candidate’s connection with his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright to how Christians should be involved in public service.
Casey said Obama believes abortion can be prevented by providing aid to lower income mothers who may choose to have an abortion because they are unsure if they will be able to provide healthcare or have the income to raise a child.
“As Christians, what we have to do is ask the hard pragmatic question: how can we really reduce abortions in America?” Casey said.
But he argued no party was perfect and each evangelical should examine what issues are important to them and vote accordingly.
“No party platform represents the whole Gospel,” Casey said.
Laura Smith, senior political science major from College Station, attended a luncheon where Casey conversed with students and was at Monday’s Chapel forum featuring former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, Kasey Pipes. She said the political discourse on campus and views from both men who have ties to D.C. were beneficial to the ACU community.
“I think it’s always healthy to see both sides to get opinions from both sides of the spectrum,” Smith said. “We [Christians] need to engage in what’s going on in our world and we cannot be segregated or partitioned from the rest of the world.”
