To build on Michael Sean Winter’s post immediately below, here is David Gibson on what he calls “Obama’s Altar Call for Health Care Reform” on PoliticsDaily.

Obama was clearly ramping up his rhetoric in an effort to counter the strident attacks. He punctuated each claim from opponents — about insuring illegal aliens, a government takeover of health care, taxpayer funding of abortion, and so-called “death panels” — with a firm rejoinder: “Not true.”

The liberal evangelical leader and longtime Obama backer, Jim Wallis, opened the call-in with a vow that over the next 40 days “the nation will hear a steady moral drumbeat from the faith community about God’s desire for the health and healing of our nation” and for “truth-telling” in the debate. Wallis said believers “are in danger of losing the moral core” of the health care debate.

The Rev. James Martin, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, author, editor at large at America and founder of Outreach.