Perhaps you saw the “Saddleback Showdown” tonight on Fox News. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain were both given roughly one hour of roughly the same questions from Pastor Rick Warren. Both candidates in my opinion did very well and most likely scored points with “the evangelical vote.”
To be honest … like many other conservative evangelicals … I was very skeptical of listening to Obama … and McCain for that matter. Yet, tonight, Obama did strike my heart strings on several issues. Obama’s strongest point of connection came … oddly enough … during his answer on an important change in views. He now values work as an invaluable component of welfare “reform.” Work brings dignity, to paraphrase him, and it helps reconnect the person to the community in a productive way. Obama nuanced evil in ways that we do indeed need to be discussing … such as Darfour and poverty at home. For far too long we conservative evangelicals have abdicated our responsibility to influence thought and action in this area … and as a result … the left has dominated this discussion. Obama did define marriage as between one man and one woman.
Though I thought Obama did very well in answering Warren’s question on abortion and life … from the standpoint of being proudly pro-choice … the content of his answer only served to emphasize the need to defeat him in November. While the point at which a person develops into or becomes a soul might be “above (his) pay grade” to answer, he was very clear and out front with his stance on the war in Iraq. What elevates these two issues to two different philosophical “pay grades?” Though Obama defines marriage between one man and one woman, he is for civil unions. He did very well in emphasizing the communal aspect of personal responsibility … until these two issues … abortion and the definition of marriage. While, yes, Obama did emphasize the need to reduce the number of abortions and the number of “unwanted” pregnancies … this only serves to obscure the very real holocaust taking place. Why did he not address bringing emphasis to personal responsibility with regard to one’s sexual appetite? No sex outside marriage equals no pregnancy … wanted or unwanted.
McCain did very well. He was quick and sharp with the “right” answers to the questions. To be honest I was a bit uncomfortable with McCain’s answer to the question: does evil exist and what do we do with it. It felt to me like he was close to defining evil as anyone who opposes America. Now he did not say that. Older Americans will no doubt hear him in the light in which he intended to communicate. To his credit he did emphasize that America does have faults and we need to to talk about them. And to his very good credit he did grieve our response after 911 as to encourage Americans “to go shopping” instead of volunteering to causes greater than themselves. This helps to anchor his rhetoric. Though I am very sympathetic to federalism, there are perhaps some issues which do need to be addressed nationally. Same-sex “marriage” is one of those issues. McCain, though believing in “traditional marriage,” said he would leave this issue up to the states to decide … until it forcibly crossed state lines. I am afraid that at that point it would be too late, which is why something needs to be done now.
I felt McCain was strongest on the need for school choice, national defense, life beginning at conception, and on the tax issue. McCain did a great job of communicating that wealth as a designation is rather arbitrary and that taxing someone on the basis of supposed wealth is akin to theft by the government at worst … and harmful to society as a whole at best.
Despite whether anyone agrees with this format or not, it certainly shows that Evangelical socio-political sophistication is a bit more than a sweaty fat man thumping his Bible on the street corner. Surely no one can argue with Warren’s closing encouragement for dialogue and debate and his plea for civility in the process … and expect to be taken serious. This format tonight demonstrated that while abortion and homosexuality are indeed important issues for the “evangelical vote,” they are by far not the only issues many of us care about.
