TIME on faith and the Democrats

Leveling the Praying Field - TIME: "In this campaign season, if Clinton and Barack Obama and John Edwards are any measure, there will be nothing unusual in Democrats' talking about the God who guides them and the beliefs that sustain them. Clinton has hired Burns Strider, a congressional staffer (and evangelical Baptist from Mississippi) who is assembling a faith steering group from major denominations and sends out a weekly wrap-up, Faith, Family and Values. Edwards has been organizing conference calls with progressive religious leaders and is about to embark on a 12-city poverty tour. In the past month alone, Obama's campaign has run six faith forums in New Hampshire, where local clergy and laypeople discuss religious engagement in politics. 'We talk about ways people of faith have gone wrong in the past, what they have done right and where they see it going in the future,' says his faith-outreach adviser, Joshua DuBois. Speeches on everything from the budget to immigration to stem-cell research are carefully marinated in Scripture. 'Science is a gift of God to all of us,' said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a debate on increased embryo-research funding, 'and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure.'"