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Confession: I did not watch the Saddleback Forum on Faith on Saturday. I was watching some freaking amazing sports stuff on TV. So sue me.

Even if I had watched it, I’m not sure I would have cared quite enough to live blog it. But obviously other people felt the urge.  However, thanks to the miracle of the interwebs, I can watch it now (and so can you). Would you rather read it? That’s fine.

In case you weren’t aware, Rick Warren, one of those new religious leaders you keep hearing about, invited John McCain and Barak Obama to sit down and have a conversation about faith and politics. In front of 5,000 people. Who are evangelicals. In one of the most conservative counties in the US.

Let me be on record as saying that this forum made me supremely uncomfortable.

Now we believe in the separation of church and state, but we do not believe in the separation of faith and politics because faith is just a world view and everybody has some kind of world view and it’s important to know what [it is].

Ugh.

And while there might not have been anything offensive to secular values in the conversation, there was plenty that as a non-secular person, I found offensive.

Let me count the ways.

• First, that this forum had to happen at all.  It’s just one more step down the slippery slope of civil religion.
• The simplicity of the questions. Quick, define marriage. How about when life beings. Now let’s move on to stem cells. Did we get everything that a conservative, religious audience might care about? No? How about how to define rich.  And then quickly to evil, personal moral failings and who was a bad Supreme Court pick.
• The non-acknowledgment that people of faith all over come to the hot-button issues like abortion and stem cells and gay marriage and end up all over the place.  There was definitely the sense that, for this pastor and for this audience (mostly), there was only one right answer on these questions.
• Since when does Rick Warren speak for all church-going people?  If he really wanted to make it a discussion about faith and politics and world views, maybe he should have had some other faith representations  included.  Like a Catholic.  Or a Lutheran.  Or a Jew.  Or Jim Wallis. But not a Muslim.  Because that would have confused people.

So the first blush takeaways:

• Obama is so very comfortable with the god-talk well, dropping in the Bible verses, that language of faith and redemption and justice. McCain is very, very bad at the god-talk. Very bad.
• McCain was so very good at giving this audience exactly what they wanted to hear; Obama was so very good at trying to give them what they wanted to hear but knowing that he couldn’t fully.
• There were some Obama supporters in the audience.  There were many more McCain supporters.
• Obama saw it as a conversation; McCain saw it as a campaign stop
• Obama’s cringe moment: Saying that scientifically and theologically deciding when life begins is above his pay grade.  I understand what you were trying to say but boy, that’s was a sucky way to say it.
• McCain’s cringe moment: That cross in the sand story?  That’s the epitome of pandering.  Sadly, the crowd loved it.   Which is why he used it. And even if it turns out to not be completely true, it still worked.
• Obama’s most honest moment: Talking about what it meant to him to be a Christian (which is weird because I’m normally super twitchy during those kinds of confessions).
• McCain’s most honest moment: Admitting that he screwed his first marriage up.
• Most cringe-inducing question: When does life begin?  There is no way that someone who has a nuanced, moderated, well-thought out stance on any number of issues including abortion, stem cells, euthanasia, state rights, personal rights, women’s rights can come out ahead on this question  … especially in front of an audience like this.

Overall results

Bronze: Obama

Look, the guy gets some credit just for showing up. This is literally Daniel getting thrown into the lion’s den. He was clearly uncomfortable with many of the questions but he at least answered them thoughtfully and completely. And generally, he managed to give answers that didn’t scare off any evangelicals who currently support him, might convince those who still think he’s a Muslim and didn’t totally turn off his liberal base. I mean, I’m not thrilled at some of his answers but I understand that sometimes you gotta go along to get along.

Silver: McCain

It’s amazing how forgiving people will be if you are telling them what they want to hear.  He went out there, he gave the answers he was supposed to (way to shock us with the Supreme Court Justices response), told some eye-rolling stories about faith, squirmed his way through the god talk, told us that middle class now encompasses millionaires, gave evil a face and didn’t rock the boat in any way, shape or form. Sigh.  Can the Democrats just give up now on appealing to this group of people?  Please?

Gold: Warren

He’s obviously not a journalist. He clearly has an agenda. His own. And with this forum, he puts himself out there as the new leader of the new evangelical political reality.   If selling a gazillion copies of The Purpose-Driven Life (and its assorted ancillary products) isn’t enough, he’s now seen as some sort of go-to guy on faith and politics.  He’s going to be the Jim Wallis of the Religious Right (I like Jim Wallis but I’m not sure he’s going to win this battle). And now he’s basically said that the entire forum didn’t matter because evangelicals are one-issue voters.  Which means that, in the end, this forum was just all about Rick Warren.

Oh, and in other news, Obama has been cleared. He is not the anti-Christ. Just in case you were worried by the John McCain ad. Sadly, the anti-Christ appears not be Dick Cheney either. Damn.

Related posts:

1. 5 observations from a pretty damn good day for America
2. Obama’s very good, faith-filled, come-to-Jesus week
3. Is that an evangelical knocking on my door?