Joel Hunter explains it this way. He had a telephone prayer session with Barack Obama on Tuesday, just a few hours before the presidential election. . Hunter didn't think the 'the Conference Prayer' was intended to be as intimate as it ended up.

"Obama," says Hunter, "just wanted to pray with some folks,"

One of his aides arranged a conference call with

> Joel Hunter,

> Dallas Pentecostal megapastor T.D. Jakes,

> Houston Methodist minister (and George Bush favorite) Kirbyjon Caldwell

> Otis Moss II, the retired pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland.

However, as these things go, "Obama was delayed in getting on the line. T D Jakes had to appear on live TV, and Caldwell had to board a plane," explains Hunter; so the candidate ended up praying with just Moss and Hunter. (

Hunter did not divulge the prayer's content other than to say that Obama "trusts God and the American people and just wanted to commend himself to each."

Hunter delivered the closing benediction at the Democratic Convention in August!

Though he says he has prayed with Obama twice before, Hunter adds, "I find it hard to believe that I'm in the inner prayer circle."

Perhaps not, but as the only white Evangelical in the prospective quartet, Hunter would be a good candidate for the next President's bridge to white Evangelicalism, which he courted on Election Day but had only marginal success in winning over. Hunter is a bona fide mega-pastor in Orlando, Fla., and a longtime mover in the Evangelical world.

"For a long time now, Joel has been directly politically engaged as a Christian leader, in a nuanced and multifaceted way," notes Andy Crouch, editor of the Vision Project at the Evangelical monthly Christianity Today. On a number of key positions, more-over, he has shown his independence of the religious right.

Hunter shares his movement's typical pro-life and anti-gay-marriage social commitments. But he became best known to the mainstream press in 2006 when an arrangement for him to take over as head of the Christian Coalition, the political machine founded by Pat Robertson, imploded as it became clear that Hunter intended to steer it into more moderate waters.

He has since made a name (and Fundamentalist foes) combating global warming, championing comprehensive immigration reform and extolling a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Less ambiguously than any other leader (including Purpose-Driven Life author Rick Warren, who hedges more bets);

Hunter is the leading light of the New Evangelicalism, which is increasingly contesting the priorities of classic religious-right figures like James Dobson.

Given all this, it was not surprising that he was asked to join Tuesday's prayer circle.

Was Obama Serious about PRAYER, or making Evangelical Connections?