George Barna recently released a survey that estimated that some 41 million born-again Christians are planning to sit this election out. Well, not if Faith and Freedom Coalition Executive Director Tim Head has anything to say about it.
“A primary reason for that diminished interest is the public’s distaste for both major-party candidates,” Barna, the director of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, wrote in a news release last month.
“Other factors include public dissatisfaction with the quality of government and the widespread expectation that the results of the election will be manipulated by illegal, behind-the-scenes activities and voting by illegal immigrants,” Barna continued.
Head hopes his group’s assault on front doors will motivate Christians to reengage.
“We started early August, and either today or tomorrow we expect to surpass 9-million doors that we've knocked on,” Head says.
That's 9 million personal connections Faith and Freedom volunteers made over the last several months. Head says they're reaching out to faith-based voters.
“Those are in 24 different states, but heavily emphasizing eight or nine, what we consider, either swing states or kind of surprise competitive states.
He says the purpose is not to convince voters who to vote for or to debate or argue politics.
“It’s to inform voters and make sure that they know where candidates stand on different issues, and then just to make sure that they know where to vote, when to vote. 'Here's the information. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions? What are the most important issues to you?' They answer those questions and we're out of there.”
Respectful of time at the front door
Head says each encounter lasts about five minutes, but they're getting a trove of valuable information.
“The economy, immigration, crime, and then Israel, Middle East situations are kind of like consistent top four issues,” he said.
More importantly, Head expects the campaign to cut into those millions of faith-based voters Barna says are sitting the election out.
“I would not be surprised if we see over 4 million new faith-based voters come out in this election,” he said.
