{"id":74,"date":"2008-08-18T15:45:15","date_gmt":"2008-08-18T15:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/one-step-forward-two-steps-bac.html"},"modified":"2008-08-18T15:45:15","modified_gmt":"2008-08-18T15:45:15","slug":"one-step-forward-two-steps-bac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/one-step-forward-two-steps-bac.html","title":{"rendered":"One Step Forward, Two Steps Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is cross-posted at On Faith<\/b><\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n

I approached Rick Warren’s Saddleback Civil Forum<\/b><\/a> with much anticipation, but without a clear idea of how he would handle the sensitive issues at the intersection of religion and politics.  I believe Pastor Warren set an example of civility that I hope others will follow, but at the same time some of his questions crossed a line that makes this election seem as if we are electing a pastor-in-chief rather than a commander-in-chief. <\/p>\n

Pastor Warren’s opening statement, if not his questions, reflected precisely the thought of the founders of our nation and explicitly conveyed the spirit of their intent in the religious liberty clauses of the Constitution.  Preventing institutional entanglements between religion and politics or the institutional subservience of one to the other is a necessity that differs dramatically from personal perspectives on politics and politicians influenced by an individual’s faith or lack of faith.  From my point of view, the forum could not have started with a more important statement.
 
However, as the forum continued, primal distinctions between faith and politics became blurred and, in some instances, were erased.  A question about a candidate’s commitment to Jesus seems of little relevance to a religiously pluralistic nation made strong by a secular government that appreciates religion but gives no preference to religion over non-religion.  For the most part, I found Pastor Warren’s questions creative and helpful and his attitude a refreshing encouragement of all that is civil.  However, his inquiry about personal faith and his citations from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures well could have left the wrong impression.  Many people in this nation do not turn to those scriptures for wisdom or to faith for guidance.  Questions essential in a church are not particularly helpful in a conversation a church sponsors to help educate diverse voters in the nation.
 
In response to Pastor Warren’s questions on religion, both John McCain and Barack Obama seemed compelled to offer confessions of faith as a credential for their attractiveness as a candidate for the White House.  But, that should not be the case.  There is no religious test for public office according to our Constitution<\/b><\/a> and we have no business trying to establish what the Constitution forbids.
 
As I said in email I sent to the members of the Interfaith Alliance<\/b><\/a>: “After watching the Saddleback Forum on Saturday evening, I did not see a clear winner but I did see a clear loser – it was people like us. While I appreciate Pastor Rick Warren’s civility, I believe questions like: ‘What does it mean to trust in Christ?’ have no place in a political forum.”
 
The format on Saturday night was good as were many of the questions, especially those related to the Supreme Court, for example, but the strong religious foundation of the forum and the heavy religious slant obvious in its inquiries sent the wrong message about the rule of faith in the crucial decisions that must be made about our national leaders.  But, then, the forum was held in a church, a fact, which, in itself, raises some questions and presents some difficulties when you really think about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is cross-posted at On Faith. I approached Rick Warren’s Saddleback Civil Forum with much anticipation, but without a clear idea of how he would handle the sensitive issues at the intersection of religion and politics.  I believe Pastor Warren set an example of civility that I hope others will follow, but at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-08","category-religion-in-the-public-square","category-u-s-constitution"],"yoast_head":"\nOne Step Forward, Two Steps Back - 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\/08\/one-step-forward-two-steps-bac.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One Step Forward, Two Steps Back - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following is cross-posted at On Faith. 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Dr. Welton Gaddy, leads the national nonpartisan grassroots and educational organizations, The Interfaith Alliance and The Interfaith Alliance Foundation and serves as the Pastor for Preaching and Worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, Louisiana. Rev. Gaddy is the host of State of Belief, a weekly radio show by The Interfaith Alliance that is carried on AirAmerica. State of Belief is based on the proposition that religion has a positive and healing role to play in the life of the nation. Rev Gaddy is one of 20 international religious leaders on the Council of 100 Leaders, a group created by the World Economic Forum to improve dialogue and understanding between the Western and Islamic worlds. In addition to being the author of over 20 books, Welton provides regular commentary to the national media on issues relating to religion and politics. Some of his appearances include CNN Presents: The Fight Over Faith; PBS's NOW with Bill Moyers; PBS Frontline's The Jesus Factor; PBS's The Newshour with Jim Lehrer; NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw; CBS Evening News with Dan Rather; ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings; numerous National Public Radio stations including KQED's Forum in San Francisco and KCRW's The Politics of Culture in Los Angeles; CNBC's Capital Report; CNN's The World Today with Wolf Blitzer; CNN's Inside Politics with Judy Woodruff; PBS's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly; CBS's Freedom to Pray; C-SPAN's Washington Journal; NBC's Dateline. He is the former host of Morally Speaking on NBC affiliate KTVE in Monroe, Louisiana. Founded in 1994, The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) has grown into a national grassroots organization of 150,000+ individuals of faith and goodwill drawn from more than 75 different religious traditions or beliefs with a cyber-network of 10,000 activists and 75 local activist groups. Dedicated to promoting mutual respect, cooperation and civility, TIA strives to promote religion as a positive and healing force in the life of the nation. While ministering to churches with a message of inclusion, Welton emerged as a leader among progressive and moderate Baptists. Among his many leadership roles, he is the immediate past President of the Alliance of Baptists and is a twenty-year member of the Commission of Christian Ethics of the Baptist World Alliance. His past leadership roles include serving as a member of the General Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, President of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Chair of the Pastoral Leadership Commission of the Baptist World Alliance. Prior to the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, Welton served in many leadership roles in the SBC including membership on the convention's Executive Committee from 1980-1984 and Director of Christian Citizenship Development of the Christian Life Commission from 1973-1977. Welton received his undergraduate degree from Union University in Tennessee and his doctoral degree and divinity training from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/wgaddy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","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\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}