{"id":186,"date":"2008-10-08T00:03:04","date_gmt":"2008-10-08T00:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html"},"modified":"2008-10-08T00:03:04","modified_gmt":"2008-10-08T00:03:04","slug":"saddleback-vs-the-debates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html","title":{"rendered":"Saddleback vs the debates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Third debate with God a no-show. <\/p>\n<p>After&nbsp;sitting through the last three debates, I feel nostalgic for the thrill of watching&nbsp;McCain and Obama talk from the heart about their faith&nbsp;and values at Saddleback.&nbsp;&nbsp;That night we recived insights into both candidates which seemed more <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/-fortunately-the-language-spok.html\">authentic, if frightening.&nbsp;<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Through the discussion of&nbsp;values issues including&nbsp;abortion, the environment, gay marriage, AIDS, and poverty we got a vivid sense of where Senators Obama and McCain were coming from.&nbsp;While imperfect, the event at Saddleback Church allowed the candidates to present the personal ethical frame upon which they would be hanging their policies.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Tonight we saw none of that.&nbsp;&nbsp;The number one&nbsp;issue before the American people&nbsp;is the economy. Economic&nbsp;policies and approaches&nbsp;are&nbsp;values based as PR blogger&nbsp;Eric Sapp noted in his post: <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/where-your-treasure-is-the-eco.html\">Where your Treasure Is: The Economy and Values.<\/a>&nbsp;The religious traditions of the world have much to say about how to treat our neighbor in times of crisis&nbsp;but no mention was made.&nbsp; That is a missed opportunity.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>It may be that religion is simply to hot to bring into a debate and it can turn people off.&nbsp; However, from listening to the comments by voters in post debate&nbsp;focus groups, my impression is that people are bored.&nbsp; The candidates&nbsp;both are using&nbsp;watered down versions of their stump speeches, they need to be turned on.&nbsp;Having seen the&nbsp;spiritual, moral, religious, and decent&nbsp;Obama and McCain at Saddleback, I miss them now.&nbsp;&nbsp;It would be nice to hear the candidates be able to connect more clearly the ethical\/moral\/spiritual commitments they hold with the policies they are advocating.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>One more debate to go, and one more chance for God to show. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Third debate with God a no-show. After&nbsp;sitting through the last three debates, I feel nostalgic for the thrill of watching&nbsp;McCain and Obama talk from the heart about their faith&nbsp;and values at Saddleback.&nbsp;&nbsp;That night we recived insights into both candidates which seemed more authentic, if frightening.&nbsp; Through the discussion of&nbsp;values issues including&nbsp;abortion, the environment, gay marriage,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-08"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Saddleback vs the debates - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Saddleback vs the debates - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Third debate with God a no-show. After&nbsp;sitting through the last three debates, I feel nostalgic for the thrill of watching&nbsp;McCain and Obama talk from the heart about their faith&nbsp;and values at Saddleback.&nbsp;&nbsp;That night we recived insights into both candidates which seemed more authentic, if frightening.&nbsp; Through the discussion of&nbsp;values issues including&nbsp;abortion, the environment, gay marriage,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-08T00:03:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Raushenbush\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Saddleback vs the debates - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Saddleback vs the debates - Progressive Revival","og_description":"Third debate with God a no-show. After&nbsp;sitting through the last three debates, I feel nostalgic for the thrill of watching&nbsp;McCain and Obama talk from the heart about their faith&nbsp;and values at Saddleback.&nbsp;&nbsp;That night we recived insights into both candidates which seemed more authentic, if frightening.&nbsp; Through the discussion of&nbsp;values issues including&nbsp;abortion, the environment, gay marriage,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2008-10-08T00:03:04+00:00","author":"Paul Raushenbush","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html","name":"Saddleback vs the debates - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-10-08T00:03:04+00:00","dateModified":"2008-10-08T00:03:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/saddleback-vs-the-debates.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Saddleback vs the debates"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805","name":"Paul Raushenbush","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","caption":"Paul Raushenbush"},"description":"Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}