Since President Obama is the world’s most powerful church “seeker” (he still hasn’t found a church home since his split with southside Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ), The New York Times provides an interesting overview of the pastors who now advise the President on pastoral and spiritual matters.

It is an intriguing group. They would all be considered what we would broadly define as evangelicals. But they defy stereotypes. They represent a wide spectrum in political beliefs and could hardly be called politically conservative, even though their theology certainly would be.

They represent what has historically been some of the hallmarks shared between American evangelicalism and the Black church: theologically conservative, politically progressive. By “history,” I mean the same strains of evangelical faith and action that propelled the anti-slavery and women’s enfranchisement movements, not its more recent incarnation in the “religious right.”

As the Times points out, though, they would certainly represent conservative views on…

“I don’t presume to know the answer to that question.” - Barack Obama in Sunday (April 13, 2008) CNN Compassion Forum on Faith and Politics

At first glance it could have seemed to the casual observer that Senator Barack Obama was refusing to answer or parsing answers to a few questions on religious issues at CNN’s Compassion Forum dealing with issues of faith and politics on Sunday. But, when measured against author Derrick Bell’s 2002 work, Ethical Ambition, the presidential aspirant was engaging in what is required of all true ethical agents and (I would add) interfaith dialogue. He was displaying a little humility. This is the same humility he illustrated when responding to the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners question [read challenge] to make a commitment to cutting poverty in half in the next ten years.

Bell, a law professor and former attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, suggests that “humility…is perhaps…