A voice on the inside

Politics | Obama launches faith-based panel but changes to religious hiring could be a deal breaker | Edward Lee Pitts

Associated Press/Photo by Charles Dharapak

Frank Page, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he was just as shocked as anyone to get the invitation to join President Barack Obama's faith-based advisory council. But the senior pastor of Taylors Baptist Church in South Carolina prayed and then decided to accept the one-year term, with caveats.

The newly created 25-member council is supposed to advise Obama's White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a continuation of the office George W. Bush created. The council unsurprisingly tilts left-center, with prominent members such as David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and Sojourners head Jim Wallis. It will formally meet four times a year and have regular conference calls.

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February 28, 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4

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