Posted on 08/16/2008 11:59:35 AM PDT by XR7
LAKE FOREST, Calif. — When John McCain and Barack Obama appear on the same stage today, they will vividly demonstrate the reach that has made the Rev. Rick Warren among the most significant evangelists of his generation.
He's a megastar who leads the nation's fourth-largest church and reaches thousands of ministers through the Internet and crusades against poverty and AIDS. That globe-trotting work and his successful book — "The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?" — puts him at the vanguard of a movement that inspires young, socially conscious Christians.
But his willingness to soft-pedal political issues once central to U.S. evangelicals, such as opposition to abortion, has opened him to criticism that he has strayed from his calling to spread the Gospel.
Today's forum also is a sign of religion's importance in the 2008 presidential campaign, and the emergence of a new style of evangelical leadership on the national stage that is not tied to a single party and has broadened its social agenda beyond that of the religious right.
"This is absolutely a changing of the guard, and it suggests that the new guard of the evangelical movement is able to generate the attention and focus of both parties," said D. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University and author of "Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite."
Warren personally invited the two candidates — "friends of mine" — via their cellphones. His event at the Saddleback Church will be broadcast live on CNN and Fox News Channel and streamed on the Web. It has among its aims "helping the church regain credibility and encouraging our society to return to civility," he said.
It's likely that fans and critics will be watching closely...
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Obama really sucks without a teleprompter....
I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas
Nice Obama, you should have said anyone else, now folks are going to be curious about Thomas, because he’s a black man too, and you don’t support him.
O brother...the mass killings in Iraq didn’t seem to matter!!!
Next hour he’ll probably be saying “Strike two”.
If we can prevent mass genocide, we should act... WHAT ABOUT ABORTION???
and we uh , have the uh power to uh we have to do we have to do so uh we might not get uh.. uh.. Bosnia..we will undoubtly save lives uh uh and and and...uhuh
Agreed!!
I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas
He says he wasn’t ‘intellectual enough’. What an *SS!!!
He is “intellectual enough” to understand in a republican democracy actions by the government, including by the judicial branch, should be in a form that is understood by all citizens. From a brilliant interview by Rush around Christmas:
RUSH: You know, many people are unaware of your writings on the Supreme Court because most Americans probably don’t have the time or inclination to read opinions, and that would be both the dissent and the affirmative opinions and so forth. But I read yours, and they’re remarkably simple to understand. You just talked about liking and enjoying very much working with young kids who need help. You have spent a lot of time trying to explain things to kids who are illiterate. Now, that has probably helped you be able, in your life, to take the complex and make it understandable, and you even apply that in your writings on the court.
JUSTICE THOMAS: I think so often, Rush, when we get in these positions, we tend to condescend to the rest of the population and our fellow citizens. I don’t do that. I grew up in circumstances that weren’t the best economically or the best educationally for the people around me. I never went back home and condescended to them. They are my family; they’re my neighbors; they’re human beings. So what I try to do — every day, wherever I am — is to look at that person, no matter what they’re doing, and to see a fellow human being. So, in writing opinions, you are trying to take something, if it’s complicated, you’re trying to explain it in a way that as many people as possible can understand it. You’re making their Constitution and their laws accessible to them. We talk about “accessibility” in terms of people with, say, disabilities in a wheelchair where a curb is like the Great Wall of China if someone is in a wheelchair. Well, you can use language and writing about the court or about the Constitution that sort of puts a Great Wall of China between them and their Constitution. My idea is simply to be able to explain it to all of my fellow citizens.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_100107/content/01125106.guest.html
He was stuttering so much on the question about genocide and “American sacrifice” (what’s worth dying for) I thought he was laughing...
Troop into genocide ???
Judgement call...
we call prevent it
working with the intl community...
Oh yes the Islamics will help us...
Father in heaven please strike them with lightning at least.
Could he explain why he went to visit gran but his wife and kids didn’t? No good folks... at all.
Ooh, NATO... which he hasn’t held ONE full session of his subcommittee on. Remember when NATO begged for troops last year before the Brit/Basra incident... didn’t meet.
With what’s going on, go golfing, don’t meet.
So saving 45 million Iraqi’s?
....Not so much.
Does anyone yet know what he would die for? Go to war for?
What the heck is that lapel pin BHO is wearing?
If his nose gets any higher in the air he is going to drown!
Body language: Arrogance
Now America is responsible for all the orphans in the world?
how do we prevent more uh orphans uh uh uh OH YEAH abortion! uh uh
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