Like many Americans I watched the "Saddleback Civil Forum" with great interest. What an ingenious format. The idea of having the two presidential candidates answer the same questions, without hearing their opponent's answers, produced a lot more light than heat. What a pleasant relief that was to the mind and to the ear.
I believe voters learned more about Senator Obama and Senator McCain and where they are in substantive disagreement on substantive issues during the Saddleback forum than they will learn from watching all the presidential debates. I pray this format will catch on and multitudes of candidates for thousands of offices across the land will agree to participate in future forums modeled after this one.
For example, the differences could not have been more stark when the two presumptive nominees answered the question on which current Supreme Court justices they would not have nominated. McCain predictably replied, Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter and Stevens. Obama replied with equal predictability, Justices Thomas, Roberts, and Scalia (with a gratuitous swipe at Justice Thomas where it appeared that Senator Obama was about to say that Justice Thomas didn't have enough "experience," and then decided that was probably not the direction a freshman Senator running for President should go.)
There were other important, even moving, moments. For me personally, Senator McCain's answer to the question, "What's the most gut-wrenching decision you've ever had to make?" moved me deeply. McCain explained that because his father was a high-ranking admiral the North Vietnamese were willing to let him go home from Hanoi immediately, and that he refused because the POWs' code of conduct was "you only leave in order of capture" and others had been captured before him.
Senator McCain's last statement was that his decision to stay in captivity and be tortured rather than come home early was "not only the toughest decision I ever made" but that he was satisfied with that decision more "than any decision I ever made in my life."
Two final observations. First, I totally agree with Rick Warren's statement at the beginning of the Forum, "We believe in the separation of church and state, but we do not believe in the separation of faith and politics."
Second, I am by nature genetically programmed to be an optimist. I must confess, however, in my wildest dreams I never would have imagined that the only joint appearance of the two major party presidential candidates prior to their presidential debates would be at a Southern Baptist church with a fourth-generation Southern Baptist preacher asking all the questions for two hours. So much for the decline of Evangelical influence in American society.
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Diana Butler Bass is a religion scholar and author of Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith. She blogs at 
Tony Campolo is Professor Emeritus at Eastern University and author of The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice, with Mary Darling. He blogs at 
Rod Dreher is a columnist for The Dallas Morning News and author of Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture and Its Return to Roots. He blogs at 
Bruce Feiler is the author of seven books, including Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses. He blogs at 
Dan Gilgoff is Politics Editor at Beliefnet and author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War. He blogs at 
David Kuo served as a special assistant to President George W. Bush and is the author of Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. He blogs at 
Dr. Richard Land is president of The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and author of The Divided States of America? What Liberals AND Conservatives are missing in the God-and-country shouting match!
Michele McGinty is a mom and a student at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. She blogs at 
Brian McLaren is a pastor, musician, and author of Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. He blogs at 
Steven Waldman is co-founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of Beliefnet. His book Founding Faith will be published in March, and he can be reached through 
Jim Wallis is executive director of Sojourners/Call to Renewal and author of God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. He blogs at
I'm not an evangelical and had a prior obligation during the Saddleback forum; however, i have since watched the clips at msnbc.com and also at cnn.com because i am interested in observing the election and its coverage.
I'm heartened to see this format, and i think that the news media would be smart to recreate it if at all possible.
My dream is that Bill Moyers would be allowed to host such a conversation.
I saw Sen McCain's responses differently from the way that you did, but that's to be expected. I have a different perspective and I'm far more interested in how he would fix our broken government -- particularly given the fact that most of his top campaign staff seem to be lobbyists affiliated with some truly reprehensible and oppressive regimes. Again, that lends all the more importance to finding FORMATS that allow for more thoughtful, nuanced, complex conversation.
I've thought many times that no responsible business would hire candidates based on rapid 2-minute 'debate carnivals'. Yet that's how the US media has offered up the Big Choice to American voters now for more than 30 years. It's not working. It's a terribly poor way to evaluate anyone's skills to appoint, oversee, or hold accountable a vast system of bureaucracies.
Although I am not an evangelical, I have a lot of gratitude to Rick Warren for showing us Americans that we need to be more civil, more creative, and far more thoughtful in approaching candidates and decisions that have such important consequences for us.
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