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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.
Since I am out here on the road, at times far from wireless and my usual news-media fixes, I am still playing catch-up on the actual results of the Saddleback forum (transcripts here and here) the other night.
Yesterday I noted the importance of the abortion issue to evangelicals at the Saddleback Forum. It’s also important to Catholics and other religious advocates of pro-life policies — not that you have to be religious to be pro-life, of course.
You know that your social life has taken a dramatic downturn when you are sitting at home on a Saturday night watching the Saddleback Church Civil Forum. But I’ve been interested in whether the long-heralded, loudly trumpeted transition of “evangelicals” away from the “religious right” is, in fact, true.
I do not know where I will be when the actual Saddleback shindig takes place tonight (I am on the road), but here’s a few of the latest details about what is supposed to unfold — via the Los Angeles Times (naturally). Click here for a Times blog item with lots of other gossip and stuff, in the hours before the forum.
As the countdown continues until Saturday’s Saddleback Church “Civil Forum on the Presidency,” journalists continue to probe the ministry of Rick “Purpose Driven Pastor” Warren. To no one’s surprise, the big news kid on the preacher’s block has weighed in on his new, improved, nuanced, broader take on the Gospel.
In case you missed the cover story of this week’s Time, reporter David Van Biema wrote a profile of evangelical mega-church pastor Rick Warren. He presents Warren as a kind of evangelical King David on a global scale.
Let me jump in here with a quick follow-up on my recent post about press coverage of the Democratic Party platform’s new language on issues linked to abortion and the sanctity of life.
You may have heard that the son of a major Hamas leader announced that he is Christian. But if your curiosity was piqued as to why he converted, read Haaretz reporter Avi Issacharoff’s story about Masab Yousuf.
