Part 1: Obama’s Conservative Meeting Guests–Non-Pastors (UPDATED 1x)

In my June 11 post entitled “So, What’s Obama Going to Give Away to Conservative Religious Leaders and Constitutional Law Profs Who Work with Ken Starr??” I focused on mega-pastor T. D. Jakes and Doug Kmiec, a conservative Catholic constitutional lawyer who serve in the Justice Department under Reagan and Bush I and who is now a faculty member at the Pepperdine University School of Law, whose dean is none other than Ken Starr.

But there are others who attended Obama’s “reach-out” to conservative Christian leaders earlier this month who should be introduced. Although the guest list was not announced, the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody seemed to get a hold of a few names, in addition to the exclusive on the June 6 announcement of Obama’s “Joshua Generation Project.”

Part 2 will focus on the pastors who were at the meeting. Today, Part 1 gives some brief information on some of the “non-pastor” attendees whose names were leaked:

Rich Cizik

Cizik is the Vice President for Governmental Affairs for the National Associaton of Evangelicals. His bio states:

Richard Cizik is Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals. His primary responsibilities include editing publications such as NAE Washington Insight, directing NAE’s Washington Insight Briefing and Christian Student Leadership Conferences, setting its policy direction on issues before Congress, the White House, and Supreme Court, as well as serving as a national spokesman on issues of concern to evangelicals.

Paul Corts

Corts is the fifth president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) and prior to holding this post, Corts served as Assistant Attorney General for Administration for the U.S. Department of Justice under Bush from 2002-2006. Prior to his stint at Justice he was president of Palm Beach Atlantic University, a Christian school in Florida, for more than 11 years.

Cameron Strang

Strang is a “well-disguised evangelist” according to a 2004 story in USA Today.

Three silver hoops in his ears. Stubble-haze beard. Casually hip duds that the Fab Five from Queer Eye wouldn’t change.

No plans to preach. No pulpit.

Yet he’s hot-wired to a generation of young adult Christians he says are “on fire with faith” — a generation that eludes many churches, retailers and publishers.

(SNIP)

“Sight, sound, experience — that’s what my generation is about,” says Strang, founder and CEO of Relevant Media Group. He has created an edgy magazine, Relevant: God. Life. Progressive Culture, to reach believers in ways their elders can’t — or won’t. (Link to Relevant Media Group.)

(SNIP)

Relevant‘s target reader, Strang says, is a 27-year-old who is “grounded in the world of work and adult relationships,” who’s unwilling to sit still, even in church.

Strang is particularly interesting to me because of his focus on the “younger” voters whom Obama is going after via the Joshua Generation Project. It will be interesting to find out if Obama and Strang are co-ordinating their efforts beyond this June 11 meeting.

MORE…

While Obama is making friends with these guests, he apparently is purging the names of people on his website…Check out Rezko Watch…”About Obama’s Klonsky Purge” which discusses Obama’s pattern of ditiching people and then goes on to delve into the meaning of the word “sociopath” and how it applies…

UPDATE July 9, 2008

Also attending this meeting–Steve Strang, the father of Cameron Strang.  See his latest report where he discusses the meeting with Obama.  Steve Strang was the only one to attend both Obama’s meeting and the one in Denver which was held by 100 conservative leaders.  That group decided to back McCain.  Strang says his son got a phone interview with Obama, but senior is still trying to get one.