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Technorati"What really works in this country is not inciting the base, but making partnerships with people with different views to advance your agenda," Hunter said, according to The Associated Press. "Those who don't will marginalize themselves politically. I don't think advancement of a cause primarily by attack is the way of the future."
The politically-engaged megachurch pastor is also against gay marriage, but supports giving gays some form of legal recognition of their relationship.
Fellow evangelical leader Richard Cizik is likewise optimistic about working with the Obama administration.
Cizik, who has angered the Christian right with his advocacy on climate change, believes the incoming president understands that social problems are morally rooted.
He says centrist evangelicals are in a better position than the religious right to work with the new administration.
“The strategy is very different from the past. The religious right practiced this zero sum game where somebody else has to lose for us to win,” commented the Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, during an election analysis teleconference on Wednesday.
“And our [centrist evangelical] strategy is a common good that says we are all in this together,” he said. “That means we learned as evangelicals how to collaborate with whom we disagree.”
While this emerging breed of centrist evangelicals is finding itself in a comfortable position with the new administration, the Christian right movement still needs to decide how it will approach a more liberal post-Bush White House.
“Do they want to be an oppositional force, lambasting the administration at every turn, which can help their organizations raise money?” said Mark Rozell, a political science professor at George Mason University, to AP. “Or do they find ways to intersect with new leadership and either try to minimize damage to their agenda or move forward issues where they can find consensus? It’s an important turning point for the movement.”
Whatever approach the Christian right decides on, Hangelin of Heritage Foundation advises the movement to use more alternative media like Christian conservative TV channels, talk radio and blogs, and to pray to survive and grow its base in the next few years.
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