A few more thoughts on Warren's questions

I just have a very few minutes to blog this morning, but I wanted to offer several more comments on Rick Warren's questions last night at the Saddleback Civil Forum.   At the outset, let me say that I haven't had the chance to read the full transcript yet,  so these observations are based mostly on my memory of the event.  If I find that my memory is faulty when I read the full transcript, I will revise this post accordingly.

As I said last night, I thought Warren's questions were generally much better than the ones journalists asked at previous candidate forums that were sponsored by religious groups.  But I also think there were problems with some of Warren's questions, or lack of questions.  Let me mention a few.

First and foremost, I don't remember Warren asking about torture.  I remember Barack Obama bringing it up, but I don't remember Warren raising it.  If that is indeed the case, that was a mistake.  Torture is a profound moral issue of huge national and international importance that will confront the next president.  It definitely should have been on Warren's list of questions.

Second, more attention should have been given to the government's role in overcoming poverty, beyond the role of working with nongovernmental organizations, including religious organizations, to serve those in need.  Like torture, abortion, stem-cell research, and other issues, this is an issue where our values matter.  It is also an area where there is a serious need for enlightened discussion in religious circles.  I wish that Warren had helped to advance that debate.

Third, while I give credit to Warren for asking a specific question about the faith-based initiative (earlier forums had mostly neglected this issue or asked vague questions about it), I thought Warren's question on this issue left something to be desired, to put it mildly.  Here's the question Warren asked:

80 percent of Americans believe faith based organizations do a better job at community services than the government helping addictions, you know, prisoner reentry, all the different homelessness, poverty, things like that.  The Civil Rights Act of '64 says that faith-based organizations have the right to hire people that believe like they do.  Would you insist that faith based organizations forfeit that right to access federal funds?

The real issue here isn't whether a religious group would have to give up its Title VII religious exemption in order to participate in the delivery of government-funded social services.   No candidate has proposed that.  Put simply, the issue is whether organizations should be able to make employment decisions on the basis of religion with regard to government-funded jobs.   Stated differently, the question is:  Should people of all faiths and none be equally eligible for government-funded jobs, if they agree with the mission of the government-funded program (e.g., serving those in need)?  Assume one answers "yes" to that last question.  That would not mean that, in order to receive government social service funds, a religious group would have to promise not to hire or fire on the basis of religion with regard, for example, to a chaplain's position that works outside the government-funded program and is subsidized with the religious group's own funds.   Again, no candidate is suggesting that.  Instead, the essential debate is about whether a group may control access to government-funded jobs based on a person's religious identity or convictions about theological matters or whether there should be equal employment opportunity in government-funded jobs for people of all faiths and none. 

Another thing on Warren's faith-based initiative question.  Because he cited polling on one aspect of his question, I think he should have citing polling on the employment question as well.  Here's a question the Pew Forum and the Pew Research Center asked on this subject (disclosure: we did this survey while I served as executive director of the Pew Forum): "If religious organizations do use government funds to provide social services, do you think these organizations should be allowed to only hire people who share their religious beliefs, or should they not be allowed to do this?"  78% of those surveyed said that religious organizations should not be allowed to do this.  Further, the survey found that "[r]oughly seven-in-ten Republicans say religious organizations that use government funds should not be able to hire only those who share their religious beliefs; 65% of white evangelical Protestants agree."

My fourth and final (at least for now) critique of Warren's questions has to do with another "sin of omission," if you will.  If memory serves, Warren did not mention the issue of ensuring that our children will have a sustainable and healthy environment in which to live.  Given the huge national and international importance of that issue, and its importance to many religious people, I think it also deserved to be in the mix.  I know Warren had a limited amount of time, and I want to acknowledge that Monday-morning quarter-backing is so much easier than doing the real thing, but I wish he had at least thrown in a reference to this matter.  (UPDATE: I just quickly scanned the questions as they are reflected in the transcript.   The only mention of the environment that I found was the following reference in a question Warren asked McCain: "I believe that leadership is stewardship, not ownership, and for a few years, you are asking us to place our stewardship, our freedom, and our security and economy, and environment, everything, in your hands, so here I have about five hundred questions in this category.  The first one is on the courts: which existing Supreme Court justices would you not have nominated?"  So, assuming I did not miss something in the transcript, Warren did mention the environment, but only in passing and not in any way that would have directed attention and invited a response to this important issue.)

None of this is intended to take back my earlier praise for Warren's questions.  It is simply intended to qualify it.

Comments

[Michael Westmoreland-White]

I thought Warren's questions were designed to restart the culture wars now that the race has narrowed. "What age does a baby get human rights?" "What is worth Americans dying for?" (Never bringing up Jesus' command to be peacemakers or the limits of military power, etc.) In general, I thought the night was designed to boost McCain and probably did its work. As you mentioned, there was no question about torture, no question about funding faith-based evangelistic missions, none about human rights more broadly, none about the government's role in fighting poverty or creating a social safety net, none about global warming, etc. These topics were brought up by Obama on his own, to the extent they were aired at all.

If the polls next week show McCain with a lead for the first time, I will not be surprised. Warren did it.

[Melissa Rogers]

Michael, thanks for pointing to the lack of any discussion of peacemaking. Another one to add to the list. While Warren asked a variety of questions in other segments, his former "five non-negotiables" (or, at least four of them, plus judges) seemed to play a starring role in the domestic issues segment.

Your comment about restarting the culture wars is interesting. On the one hand, Warren tamps down the culture wars by doing things like calling both men patriots, by recognizing the validity of their faith commitments, by treating both as legitimate contenders for the presidency, by forming broad policy partnerships on issues like AIDS, and by chastising those who demonize and act as if there is nothing beyond the "five non-negotiables." On the other hand, it is a problem of integrity when a heavy thumb is placed on the scale in terms of issue selection/description. That fans the flames of the culture wars.

Also, for the sake of understanding politics, I think we need to remember that Warren's commitment to practice civility and to broaden the evangelical policy agenda does not make him a political liberal or even a political moderate. It seems to me that Warren's overall "worldview" (including the way he talks about certain issues and his emphasis on some issues more than others) continues to be fairly described as politically conservative, not that there's anything wrong with that from a religious perspective. (In other words, I believe good Christians can be found among the ranks of political liberals, conservatives, and moderates.) But, in our discussions about policy and politics, I think we need to distinguish between a commitment to civility and to broadening the policy agenda and a commitment to change the basic way one votes on candidates in elections.

By the way, if readers need more information about Warren's former "five non-negotiables,"click here: http://melissarogers.typepad.com/melissa_rogers/2006/11/obama_and_brown.html

* Note: I rewrote part of this comment for clarity.

[Michael Westmoreland-White]

There's nothing wrong with Warren's personal views being conservative--although his 5 nonnegotiables show, as do his books, a remarkably thin and watery grasp of the gospel. But to host a forum like this fairly (to the extent hosting something like this is fair at all), requires more than civility. It requires NOT rigging the wording of questions and the priority of questions in such a way as to give the appearance of being a neutral forum while actually working to strengthen one campaign.

The Pew Center's research had shown Obama winning the Christian vote in all segments but with white evangelicals--where he wasn't far behind. Warren's agenda, it seems to me, was only slightly to increase civility in moral discourse. The main agenda was to shore up McCain's standing among white evangelicals and Catholics--and thus promote his candidacy.

In my view, this was only a slightly less heavy handed version of his campaign for Bush's reelection in '04.

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