Additional Details on Warren Interviews with McCain and Obama

A press release from Rick Warren's shop provides some additional details regarding the McCain -Obama interviews Warren will conduct on Saturday, August 16. 

[Warren said:] "The primaries proved that Americans care deeply about the faith, values, character and leadership convictions of candidates as much as they do about the issues. While I know both men as friends and they recognize I will be frank, but fair, they also know I will be raising questions in these four areas beyond what political reporters typically ask.  This includes pressing issues that are bridging divides in our nation, such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate and human rights."

Warren confirmed that, at the candidates' request, this two-hour event from 5-7 p.m. (PDT) will be held in a non-debate format and open to all media. Both candidates also requested that questions be posed exclusively by Warren, instead of a panel or members of the audience. Each will converse separately with Warren for approximately one-hour, beginning with Sen. Obama as determined by a coin toss. This historic forum will be the only joint campaign event prior to each party's national convention.

"While debates typically focus primarily on the candidates' positions and only secondarily on how they'd lead and make decisions, this Saddleback Civil Forum will reverse that ratio," Warren continued. "Since the oath of the President is a commitment to protect the Constitution, it's critical to know how each candidate interprets the nature of its principles. Leadership involves far more than promoting programs and making speeches, and since no one can predict what crises will happen over the next four years, it is vital to know the decision capacity and process of each man."

The press release also notes that, "[o]n Sunday, Aug. 17, Warren will deliver a special sermon entitled, 'Making Up Your Mind: Questions to Consider before the Election,' which will be streamed live on the church Web site, www.saddleback.com, and made available for use in small group discussions within churches across the country."   In terms of plotting the change in some evangelicals' attitudes toward civic engagement, it will be useful to compare this sermon with the "five non-negotiable issues" e-mail Warren circulated in 2004, an e-mail he now says he regrets sending. 

Comments

[Carlos]

It will be interesting to see how much Warren lets show his preference for Obama or McCain. Of course he will not endorse, but he was very obviously for Bush in 2004 even when he was not officially endorsing. I suspect he will be more subtle this time around but still sending out more hints towards Obama's direction. I wonder if there will be other conservative to moderate evangelical leaders who will show us who they like for president. We already have Brian McLaren basically endorsing Obama, but he is not exactly a conservative evangelical.

[Melissa Rogers]

The fact that Warren will deliver this message from the pulpit pretty much guarantees that it will be exceedingly even-handed. In other words, because the IRS attributes comments made from the pulpit during a church service to the church (a tax-exempt 501c3 organization), Warren will need to ensure that his sermon does not send even an implicit message of endorsement for or against either candidate -- that is, if Warren cares about the church's tax-exempt status, and I would think that he does. (By the way, while we may be able to guess where Warren comes out with this sermon, I still think it will be interesting to see exactly how he gets there.) Thus, I would expect Warren's 2008 message to be very different from the heavy-handed one he delivered in his individual capacity by e-mail in 2004. I also think that there are reasons beyond the tax rules that will explain the difference between the two.

[Rev. Donald G. Marxhausen]

Given the worship of GREED by the right, the outstanding violation of the Eighth Commandment (False Witness ) by Republicans, the ignoring of the bible's constant call for justice, the hypocritcal hyper=interest in sex by the Right,an immoral war, immoral ethics, incredibly poor management, etc, etc, it seems that somethng needs to be repented of by Rick Warren and the fundmentalist right.