Obama, evangelicals meet on religious concerns
President Obama formally extended his ear to evangelicals ahead of
the 2012 election, meeting with top leaders of the National Association
of Evangelicals in the White House for about 30 minutes in mid-October.
International
religious freedom was a top priority for the group as they thanked
Obama for condemning the charges against Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian
pastor facing execution for his conversion to Christianity. George Wood,
the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, cited other cases
of people who have been persecuted in other parts of the world.
"Someone
commented that all these things relate to issues of religious freedom,"
NAE President Leith Anderson said in an interview after the October 12
meeting. "He [Obama] did a lot of listening."
