I had a fascinating phone conversation this morning. The Director of Evangelical Outreach for Barack Obama’s campaign called me. Not a bad move for a Campaign Director. Very often as Stark County votes, so votes Ohio, so votes the nation. RiverTree represents the influence of perhaps more than 5,000 voters in Stark County.

The conversation was a good one. I point blank asked if Senator Obama is a committed follower of Jesus. He assured me that the Presidential candidate has been a Christian for more than three decades–that his faith directly affects the way he carries himself as a husband, father and political leader.

We discussed the unfortunate series of events involving Barack’s previous Pastor. Once again, he assured me that the views of the Pastor were not embraced by Obama.

The rest of our conversation centered around the issue of abortion. Obama’s current stand on the “pro-life” issue is that a woman should be given freedom of choice to abort the child she is carrying at any time. He also stated that the Presidential hopeful will do everything in his power to reduce the number of abortions being performed in the U.S. each year. How? Through education and economic assistance that would both enable and encourage young mothers to carry their babies full term.

The discussion deepened . . . For me, there is a more foundational philosophical issue at hand. When does life begin? Simply for the sake of argument, imagine a woman who has made the decision to abort her child at seven months development. In most cases, given the right support, that child would survive outside the womb. In my opinion, to abort that child would be nothing short of infanticide. To end an innocent life steps outside the parameters of love as lived out and mandated by Jesus Christ.

I realize that you cannot legislate Christianity. Our government can, however, legislate morality. And taking an innocent life is immoral.

As we continued to talk, the Campaign Director thought that it would be best if Senator Obama could personally explain to me how he has been able to integrate his political stance within his faith context. I told him that I would enjoy the dialogue.

We ended the call with the Director of Evangelical Outreach telling me that he would set up the call with Senator Obama. We shall see. We shall see.