American Presidential Race

I am finding the American Presidential race fascinating. The following are excepts from an email I receive form Relevant Magazine.

Rick Warren’s Southern California mega-church, Saddleback Church, hosted the two presumptive Presidential nominees to answer questions about faith and morality.

Questions centered on moral issues such as poverty and climate change, issues that didn’t seem to create much distance between the candidates. But things changed when Warren pressed them on the “big two”: abortion and same sex marriage.

When asked to define marriage, Obama appeared centrist. “It’s a union between a man and a woman,” he said. “For me as a Christian, it is a sacred union. God is in the mix.” Obama added that he does support civil unions for gay couples because civil rights should be afforded to others even if he doesn’t share their view. McCain played it safe and said that he would leave the decision up to individual States.

When asked when the candidates believed life began, McCain blurted out “conception” without hesitation. Obama seemed to spin things a little bit. While he said he supports Roe vs. Wade and has always been pro-choice, the goal should be to reduce the number of abortions in America.
“What I can do is say, are there ways we can work together to reduce unwanted pregnancies,” he said. Obama never answered the question.

The Saddleback Civil Forum did Obama no favors. Several pundits commented that Obama looked uncomfortable, and more than a few noted that he had trouble offering straight answers to straight questions. The reaction from many people of faith was mixed if not uninspired.
McCain occasionally rushed Warren’s questions to offer tightrope responses. His comments regarding abortion, same sex unions, and court appointees made him look like a traditional, Reaganesque Republican, something of which he is not often accused. Perhaps his true colors surfaced that night or maybe it was the typical, posturing rhetoric employed by politicians running for the land’s highest office.

Jonathan Merritt Jonathan.

Merritt is a faith and culture writer whose political thoughts have appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, TIME Magazine, and The Washington Post. He is a regular contributor to RELEVANT publications and would love to connect with you at jonathanmerritt.com.