If Rick Warren hoped to spark more light than heat at the presidential forum he conducted Saturday evening at his California megachurch, then he succeeded. Americans already had seen “firsts” during the primary season’s flood of debates. The news media chased buzz and ratings by allowing voters to ask candidates questions — some on the mark, some nutty — from the audience, via e-mail or by submitting YouTube videos. To his credit, Warren’s GodTube-friendlier format with Barack Obama and John McCain looked and sounded more like America than the YouTube …
Tomorrow, Rick Warren, author of the 2002 best-seller “The Purpose Driven Life,” will host John McCain and Barack Obama at his 22,000-member Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., where he will question them on matters of concern to evangelical Christians, including poverty, the environment, human rights and AIDS. The standard media line that evangelicals are “divided” along political fault lines misses the point, as Heritage’s Ryan Messmore notes on National Review Online today. A better focus should be not what government can and should do to alleviate social problems but …
