Saddleback and the Presidency

Last evening (late on rerun since I was at my granddaughter's third BD party) I watched the question / answer by each presidential candidate by Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in California. I was intrigued.

I truly wanted to hear what each candidate has to say. One of the reasons is that I am truly on the fence for this presidential election. (Some Christians are promoting not voting as a way out. To which I say, if you do not vote, shut up. I do not care what you think.) I am not overly excited by either candidate. To be totally honest, I have not been excited by a candidate since 1984, but that is another story for another time. Another reason I was intrigued was to hear what questions Warren would ask and how he would handle himself. I share a lot of his passions (such as passion for Jesus, for the poor and for the HIV/AIDS pandemic.) It was as I expected and not as I expected.

There were some very good questions asked. There were also some softballs tossed in there. By and large, I thought Rick Warren handled himself and presented the Christian side with intelligence, humor, taste, toughness, kindness and grace. Considering who he was interviewing it was handled very well. At times he could not contain he pleasure or displeasure with an answer, but how is that different than any other interviewer at any other time? For the most part I was pleased with Warren. I was actually very impressed that HE was the first one, out of all the news making heavy hitters to get both candidates on the same stage at the same time. My favorite question: "Which supreme court justice would you not have nominated?" Brilliant.

There were some very good and thoughtful answers given by both candidates. There was also so posturing, some dodging and some twisting by both. These are politicians I had to remind myself. At times I felt both candidates were dodging and trying to avoid answering directly.Obama on the Faith Based items and McCain on the "rich" question as two examples. I felt both at times played to the audience, McCain a little more so, but both did. McCain at times wanted it to be a rally it appeared. Obama also seemed to do so with his, "God is in the mix," comment.

Both candidates took the same side on some issues for the most part. I liked Obama's answer on a constitutional amendment for gay marriage. I agree with a man and a woman making up a marriage. Also, as he stated, marriage has always been a state issue, and I am a big states rights person. I liked McCain's pushing it further by saying if the courts try to make one state abide by another state's law on the matter, he would favor an amendment. That is sort of where I have been myself. I am not in favor of national law if it can be averted. I was pleased (mostly) with both men talking about protecting the civil rights of homosexual persons. What many miss is that if you remove the rights of one person, it is a short step to removing yours.

Many questions were thoughtful as were many answers. They ranged from stem cell research, to faith based organizations receiving federal dollars to abortion. I will probably share some more over the upcoming days, but for now I would encourage you to read the transcript here.

As both men said, this is an important election. We need to do our homework. Thank goodness there is some time left.