Land, Wallis, Waldman & Tippett live

Good morning from St. Paul. We're just starting a live conversation about religion, politics and public life. It's being broadcast live on the web from the Univ of Minnesota. I'll liveblog it, but you can watch it live here. On the panel: Bnet's Steve Waldman, Richard Land, Bnet's Jim Wallis, and public radio's Krista Tippett.

UPDATE: Wallis says that the big news this year is not that the Dems are more open to religion, but that religious folks are having a more wide-ranging conversation about faith in public life. Land recalls having been on Meet the Press with Wallis, Al Sharpton and Jerry Falwell. After it was over, said Land, Tim Russert spoke to Wallis and him and said:
"You know, we should have just had you guys on." The idea here is that people of faith on whatever side of any issue struggle to have real dialogue over the bomb-throwers within their own communities. Good point.

UPDATE.2: Land: the identification of the Religious Right with Evangelicals is unfair to traditional (social conservative) Catholics, who vote heavily for Republicans. "The only thing worse [for these Catholics] than a pro-choice politician is a pro-choice Catholic politician. It's like rubbing salt in a wound."

Land points out that for all the talk about the diversification of the Evangelical agenda this year, the polls show that white Evangelicals are going just as hard for the Republican candidate as they have before.

"Younger evangelicals want an expansion of agendas, but they're not going to accept a change of agendas," Land said, meaning an agenda that abandons the pro-life cause.

UPDATE.3: Steve Waldman, countering Jim Wallis's view that the Democratic Party has moved to a more pro-life position: "If you have to look for the change with a microscope, it's not going to have much effect on the public discourse."

UPDATE.4: Wallis said Obama has to make abortion reduction a priority to be taken seriously. Said Waldman: "If Barack Obama wants to be known as the guy who wants to be pro-choice and reduce the number of abortions ... it's not enough to have a line in the platform and in the occasional interview with Christian conservatives."

Waldman criticized the GOP platform committee for striking language calling for the party to reach across the aisle to work with their opponents on reducing abortion. Waldman said that both candidates are hostage to the hardliners in their own parties who will not concede any ground or compromise with the Enemy.

UPDATE.5: Land quoted Rabbi David Saperstein saying recently that "people are tired of pelvic politics." It's very wrong, Land said, to reduce abortion to sex. Abortion is about one of the most fundamental moral and political questions human society can face: When does one become a human being, and what are obligations to human beings? True.

UPDATE.6: Krista Tippett just said to Richard Land that it "doesn't compute" for Sarah Palin to be pro-life and a member of the NRA. Land said:

"Well it may not compute on the East Coast and the chattering classes, but it does among the people I associate with."

Exactly right. I don't see what one necessarily has to do with the other. You could be strong on the Second Amendment and be pro-choice, or pro-life.