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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.
With the real estate on airwaves and newsprint getting harder to come by, most religion stories that get published or broadcast deal with politics or major social drama. But some of my favorite stories are the slice-of-life depictions of congregational life. Unlike the impression you may get from the media, it isn’t all about fighting over doctrinal issues . . . there are other fights, too!
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.
An article’s headline sometimes gives away the strength or weakness of a story. This example, from an article in the Quad City Times (Iowa) on the impact religion has on organized sports, gave me little hope that it would have much substance.
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.
Earlier this month, former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani, penned a fascinating, newsbreaking op-ed for the paper:
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.
