Integrity News

I know the Saddleback Church Forum has come and gone, but I’ve been reading some interesting commentary on the event and I thought I would share it with you.

Personally I wasn’t too excited about the forum. I do think it blurred the line between church and state a bit: It may be acceptable in some churches (it wouldn’t have been in the church where I was raised) for a pastor to invite a political candidate to a church to speak to parishioners, but I think Rev. Warren crossed the line by broadcasting it around the country. It seemed a little self-promoting and turned the church into a political entity desiring to influence Americans who are not members of the parish. Watching part of it, it occurred to me that it was an attempt to help Sen. McCain reach the evangelical population, a group that is not particularly fond of him. It also helped to reassure them and draw their support away from candidates who may more accurately represent their views - like Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party or Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party.

Here’s what Kathleen Parker had to say yesterday in the Washington Post:

Pastor Rick’s Test: The Candidate’s Submit, and a Principle Suffers

The winner, of course, was Warren, who has managed to position himself as political arbiter in a nation founded on the separation of church and state.

The loser was America.

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The past few decades of public confession and Oprah-style therapy have prepared us perfectly for a televangelist probing politicians about their moral failings.

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What is the right answer, after all? What happens to the one who gets evil wrong? What’s a proper relationship with Jesus? What’s next? Interrogations by rabbis, priests and imams? What candidate would dare decline on the basis of mere principle?

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Is the American electorate now better prepared to cast votes knowing that Obama believes that “Jesus Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him,” or that McCain feels that he is “saved and forgiven”?

What does that mean, anyway? What does it prove? Nothing except that these men are willing to say whatever they must — and what most Americans personally feel is no one’s business — to win the highest office.

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For the moment, let’s set aside our curiosity about what Jesus might do in a given circumstance and wonder what our Founding Fathers would have done at Saddleback Church. What would have happened to Thomas Jefferson if he had responded as he wrote in 1781:

“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

Would the crowd at Saddleback have applauded and nodded through that one? Doubtful.

By today’s new standard of pulpits in the public square, Jefferson — the great advocate for religious freedom in America — would have lost.