Meet Derrick Harkins, the Pastor Behind the Democratic Party’s Faith Outreach

“Faith is an integral part of the Democratic Party,” the Reverend Derrick Harkins proclaimed Wednesday as he kicked off a panel on religion at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. “Don’t put any credence to the lie that somehow faith is not an integral part of who we are as Democrats—somebody ought to say, ‘Amen!’” Applause filled the forum. The event, the second that Harkins helped organize this week in addition to a daily morning prayer series, is the most recent attempt by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to rally the faith vote for President Obama in November. And Harkins is the man behind the mission.

The first time Harkins met the president was six years ago, when then-Senator Obama gave his Call to Renewal speech—perhaps his most openly Christian public address—at Washington’s National City Christian Church. “If we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at, to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own,” Obama said, “then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.” At the time, Harkins was on the board of the progressive evangelical organization Sojourners, which was hosting the conference. From the pews, he listened carefully as the young congressman outlined how his Christian commitments informed his progressive agenda. “Even then, when people were just beginning to buzz about his possibly running for president, I was struck by the depth and authenticity of his own understanding of his personal faith,” Harkins recalls.

Now it is up to Harkins to convey that message to America’s faithful. Last October, the DNC tapped Harkins, a full-time pastor at one of Washington’s oldest historically African American churches, Nineteenth Street Baptist, to lead its rekindled faith outreach effort. He has one goal until election day: to get America’s faithful as fired up—and more—for Democrats and Obama as they were in 2008. The party made great strides four years ago in conveying themselves as values voters. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Obama picked up 26 percent of the white evangelical vote, up from John Kerry’s 21 percent in 2004. He made even stronger gains among religious voters under age 40: he received 33 percent of their vote versus Kerry’s 12 percent.
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