Between the lines of the coverage of Rick Warren’s forum with the two major presidential candidates was a rather significant development: A pastor, not a member of the media, was asking the questions and controlling the agenda of the first major presidential contest in 2008.
Plenty has been said in the media about Warren and how he arrived at this rather significant moment in his life. What hasn’t been said as much is that the church in a sense replaced the media Saturday night.
The general sense I get from the coverage of the event is that Warren was somehow able to ask questions that mainstream media types would be less comfortable asking. I guess someone somewhere decided that the public desired these types of questions as opposed to the questions asked by Wolf Blitzer. But is it the public that has changed or is it the media? Or is it the church? Or is it just Warren?
No clear answer emerges from the coverage I’ve surveyed, but there are some clues.
Here is the San Diego Union-Tribune’s relatively brief analysis of Warren, which relies heavily on John Green, a senior fellow in religion and American politics at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life:
LAKE FOREST — That Pastor Rick Warren was able to put together the first joint appearance of the presumptive 2008 presidential nominees cements his status as one of the rising stars of the evangelical movement.
“It’s very significant,” said John Green, a senior fellow in religion and American politics at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “One of the hallmarks of the 2008 presidential campaign up to this point has been the increased level of discussion of faith and values.”
Voicing similar themes, The Los Angeles Times writes that the event demonstrates that Warren is “among the most significant evangelists of his generation.” We can quibble with the use of the term “evangelists” in the lead, but on a more significant note, when was the last time a pastor of a church (yes, a very big church) was able to command the presence on a single night of the Democratic and Republican candidates for leader of the free world?
Warren’s local newspaper The Orange County Register writes that Warren hoped to use the forum to redefine politics. Whether or not Warren is successful or not at redefining politics, he certainly has taken a major step in helping redefine politics and its relationship with the media.
Whether or not we should give Warren all the credit (or blame) for this is certainly not a matter that can be decided today. But I am hoping that there is some media coverage out there that will discuss how we got to this point and whether the media’s ability (or inability) to understand the vitally important subject of religion has anything to do with it.
Photo of Pastor Rick Warren at Saddleback Church used under a Wikimedia Commons license.
 | Posted at 9:00 am |  Print
| Permalink | Trackback |
Comments (11) |
August 19, 2008, at 9:42 am
I was impressed with the candor of the questions. Warren didnt throw softballs, but he wasnt antagonistic. I appreciate the fact that on Hannity and Colmes last night, Warren said that you cannot divorce faith from public life, because your faith defines your world view.
David
Red Letter Believers Blog
August 19, 2008, at 10:11 am
I absolutely enjoyed the questions. For whatever reason the media generally do not ask these questions. This morning I saw the video of the H&C interview with Rick Warren. I also agree that you cannot divorce faith from public life. Faith should mean something and influence your life.
I hope that the response to this will let the media know that these are the things that people want to hear. Whether they will be less contentious or not remains to be seen. At least it would be nice if they would ask the type of questions that were asked at the forum.
August 19, 2008, at 10:28 am
Daniel, do you expect people who don’t get religion to recognize that fact, admit it, analyze it, and report on it in a meaningful and unbiased fashion, and do the same re: someone outside the media playing an active role in steering the conversation on the intersection of faith and politics?
August 19, 2008, at 10:40 am
We got to this point the same way we get to any point. I’m surprised that in all the recent ‘who is Rick Warren’ stories, there’s no obvious comparisons to the last ‘most important Christian leader in America’: Billy Graham. The parallels are something if you think about it. Graham rode the wave of a (then) new approach to evangelism (had been around less than a century when he started). Warren took the seeker sensitive and the Church growth philosophies born in the previous half-century and perfected them. Graham combined strategic and marketing tactics and all manner of show to increase his appeal (his early crusades featured sporting events, and other similar gags). Warren made no apologies about saying things like liturgy and doctrine can take a back seat to marketing and promotional strategies if you want a purpose driven church. Graham appealed to a media mogul who, because he combined his ministry with values that media mogul shared, the media mogul in turn lifted Graham into the stratosphere. After all, is there any difference between Hearst puffing Graham since he saw in Graham a fervent conservative opponent of Communism (which Graham used in his early preaching time and again), and the media today, focusing overwhelmingly on things like AIDS in Africa and global warming, promoting a successful ‘author and preacher’ who also focuses on AIDS in Africa and global warming (and you know that is a huge part of Warren’s appeal to the media)? Graham quickly became intertwined with the political arena, getting unheard of access to presidents and world leaders. And Warren? Need I say more. And like Graham before him, Warren’s success and fame has inspired an entire swath of Christianity to shift gears and reevaluate the big and little of their ministries and even the core of their faith. That’s what I would like to see in a story, some good old history repeating itself tales that explain why Warren is where he is. For in the end, Graham redefined the politics he came to be associated with far less than the faith of which he was part. I wonder which it will be with Warren?
August 19, 2008, at 11:57 am
I suspect Warren’s questions may have surprised Obama and Co. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain why a candidate who does so poorly speaking impromptu would agree to come. I’d been skeptical that Warren’s questions would be too soft, but they turned out to be precisely the sorts of questions the typical Evangelical (and many ordinary Americans) wanted asked. They revealed more about the candidates than an appearance on a typical TV talk show would.
The post that mentions that Warren’s church stresses how “liturgy and doctrine can take a back seat to marketing and promotional strategies” is perhaps half right. Only a few Evangelical churches stress doctrine and almost none pay much attention to “liturgy.” Most stress a highly personalized view of the Christian life that alternates between what you get out of it, the so-called prosperity gospel, and what you put into, demands for discipleship that focus on church and family.
Megachurch marketing means adding entertainment value to a church’s appeal, that and all the helpful services a megachurch can provide, counseling, children’s activities etc. The church becomes something remarkably similar to a popular shopping mall. One megachurch I know about even calls its main hallway “the mall.”
Unfortunately, as some of these churches are discovering, a church that stresses the believer as a consumer of goods doesn’t build spiritual depth. I was intrigued that one thought it was taking a radical break from its past to stress creating a new and maturer sort of believer who’d be a “self-feeder,” meaning a customer who doesn’t need sales assistance. They can’t seem to shake the sheep/consumer metaphor.
What ever became of the concept of believer as shepherd, engaged in fighting the wolves of this world, an attitudes that led Evangelicals to follow the Quakers into fighting slavery? The spiritual life is not a visit to a shopping mall. It’s best described as a journey through dangerous lands, a battle, or an athletic contest.
One final note. The Democrats and their media allies seem taken with the belief that the Evangelical vote is up for grabs. If Warren can attract a large following with just the right marketing message, maybe they can too. I’d like to believe that such a seduction won’t work. So far, Evangelicals haven’t been seduced by Obama’s attempts to convince them of his religiosity, perhaps thanks to the exposures about Rev. Wright
But it does seem to be true that neither party—nor the founders of megachurches for that matter—seem that impressed with the intellect of Evangelicals, otherwise you wouldn’t see all this stress on marketing. The basic principle of marketing is, after all, that people can be manipulated.
The real danger is that Evangelicals besetting sin, a most unChrist-like obsession with being liked as nice people, will lead them to devote their energies to soft, uncontroversial projects such as AIDS orphans in Africa and ignore those for which they draw flack. Wilberforce fell for no such seduction. He didn’t let his stress on reforming England take him away from the initially unpopular cause of ending slavery. He kept hammering away at the latter, year after exhausting year. I wonder if today’s Evangelical leaders, Warren included, have that sort of staying power.
And we can all wonder if the “church as a shopping center” metaphor will create believers with that much staying power. Will they simply begin to flit from one brightly lit store window to another, like little children at Christmas, hopping from cause to cause, never sustaining interest in anything long enough to accomplish much? And will their minds ever become engaged, so they can’t be seduced by clever marketing appeals of any sort?
August 19, 2008, at 1:55 pm
I appreciate what Dave G. and Mike Perry have said. While I’m grateful that Rick Warren used his position of influence to ask questions of the candidates that many Christians would like to have asked, I too am concerned with where it goes from here. If the role that Warren plays is, as Daniel describes it, to be a surrogate for the media to explore matters relating to politics and faith, then that might be helpful for everyone. If he follows in Billy Graham’s footsteps, attempting to serve as Pastor To The Powerful, and implicitly legitimizing whomever is in power, then the Christian faith will once again be co-opted for someone else’s purposes.
So far, so good. I pray that Warren sees his path clearly. It is not an easy one to follow.
August 19, 2008, at 10:56 pm
[…] Collar from the Priestmanship BlogThe pastor also conveys information with his choice of attire. A thing as simple as a pastor’s collar conveys to everyone his office. At church, a pastor wears a white alb over a black cassock, to show that even though he is a sinner, he is clothed in Christ. At the Methodist church where my in-laws go, the minister wears a low-key suit. I respect that more than floral shirts. The attention should always be on Christ. […]
August 21, 2008, at 5:13 pm
The big gap in Warren’s line of questions is about morality, not the narrow issues of the so-called moral partisans, but the broader issues of morality most American reflect on.
Warren should have asked about torture being done in our name. Bush is trying to define torture as acceptable and McCain is going along with Bush, though you would expect McCain would be a champion against the US government using torture.
The question of integrity in the public arena has been put to shame by current President’s disregard for the truth and the resulting White House ‘Liar’s Club’. People who supported McCain 8 years ago are disgusted by his dropping any pretense of integrity as he became the nominee.
August 22, 2008, at 9:33 am
I was fascinated by how the format seemed to deny each candidate easy opportunity to play off of, focus on his opponent … it seemed like it put the candidates in a vacuum where they had to answer more directly than they would have if they had been on stage together with the moderator. I’ve never seen a format like that before.
I would have liked to have seen Warren ask a more probing question to each candidate about his faith foundation … a friend remarked he was disturbed by Warren describing each man as a Christian, lending to each an air of credibility that may or may not be accurate … of course, Christians and nonChristians alike could argue all day about what does the term “Christian” mean?
For a good book on definition of Christian, read the book “UnChristian” by the president of the Barna Group, David Kinnaman, published this year by Baker Books.
Alan D. Blanchard
Assoc. Prof. Journalism
Cornerstone University
http://www.cornerstoneonjournalism.com
August 22, 2008, at 9:51 am
[…] Did Rick Warren assume role of journalist interviewing Obama, McCain Aug. 16? See blog by Daniel Pulliam (http://www.getreligion.org/?p=3821) on recent forum featuring Rick Warren with both presidential candidates. […]
August 22, 2008, at 9:59 am
[…] See blog by Daniel Pulliam (http://www.getreligion.org/?p=3821) on recent forum featuring Rick Warren with both presidential candidates. IÂ was fascinated by how the format seemed to deny each candidate easy opportunity to play off of, focus on his opponent … it seemed like it put the candidates in a vacuum where they had to answer more directly than they would have if they had been on stage together with the moderator. I’ve never seen a format like that before. Â I would have liked to have seen Warren ask a more probing question to each candidate about his faith foundation … a friend remarked he was disturbed by Warren describing each man as a Christian, lending to each an air of credibility that may or may not be accurate … of course, Christians and nonChristians alike could argue all day about what does the term “Christian” mean? For a good book on definition of Christian, read […] No Comments| Posted by : Read More […]