Tonight's presidential candidate forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback church has political pundits and in-the-pews religious voters wondering whether John McCain will finally open up about his personal faith, something his Democratic opponent has been doing for years. But some of the nation's top conservative Christian activists have already seen a glimpse of McCain discussing the influence of his religion in his life in deeply personal terms, in the form of a Christian television interview with McCain that his campaign has been screening for religious audiences.
"This was groundbreaking," says Bishop Harry Jackson, a conservative evangelical pastor and activist who attended a meeting with the McCain aides in Washington, DC earlier this summer at which they screened a video of the interview, first broadcast on Trinity Broadcasting Network in March 2007. "He talked about what it was like as a prisoner of war and what his faith meant to him and how his faith sustained him. It was very clear in the TBN interview that he was saying he was one of us, one of the evangelical fold. And for whatever reason, he's been avoiding that kind of assertion nationally."
McCain was raised in the Episcopal Church, though he's attended a Baptist church in Arizona for more than 15 years and said on the campaign trail last year that he was a Baptist, though he's since referred to himself simply as a Christian.
McCain's "faith interview" originally ran on "First to Know," a program on TBN, which describes itself as "the world's largest religious network and America's most watched faith channel." TBN does not offer a video or DVD versions of its programs for purchase, and the full video is not available online. A McCain aide says it will likely to be posted to a new evangelical section of the campaign's web site that is scheduled to launch in the next week or two.
Watch clips of the video here:
A McCain aide says the campaign began screening the video for Christian audiences in Iowa in advance of this year's caucuses there, and that it had begun showing it to national evangelical leaders in late spring or early summer. "The exciting thing about the piece is that it wasn't generated after Obama started talking about faith--it was a piece that showed he was engaged [on faith issues] before the Iowa caucuses," the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "It will be used more often... we have plans for using it in a larger arena."
The aide said McCain is likely to echo some of the themes from the video in tonight's Saddleback forum. That's exactly what many Christian activists want to hear. "I'm hoping that the Rick Warren interview will have McCain sharing [his faith] with the same sincerity and even charisma of that interview," says Harry Jackson, who is close to the national leadership of the Christian Right. "This guy is not avoiding a discussion about his faith because he doesn't have faith. It's because he doesn't want to merchandize his faith. That's a huge distinction as far as why he's not talking."
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Pastor Warren doesn't even know where McSame was during the time that Senator Obama was being interviewed.
If you're stuck in traffic in your limo, chances are pretty good your staff is listening to the forum via countless available sources.
Doesn't anyone recall the first Faith forum which McSame was invited to when it was down to three candidates; Hillary, Barack, McCain.
Only the Democrats showed up. McCain, who everyone knows does not even attend church unless he notifies the media in advance for PR purposes, refused to attend the Faith Forum conducted by Soledad O'Brien.
Mr. McSame mentioned his first wife - and yet he failed to explain how it failed because he dumped her for a much younger woman. He failed to also mention Vicki Iseman, who he was with during his second marriage.
Yeah, your meter is real accurate. In your DREAMS.
An additional thought, please. If, as McCain says, he believes babies have rights at conception, why is he for abortion exceptions? Why does he think it should remain "legal"* to murder innocent unborn babies in the womb if they are in the womb because of rape or incest? Why didn't Warren ask him this question?
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
JLof@aol.com
* Abortion is never legal because all abortions are murder.
I don't see how family values voters like myself can consider a candidate who cheated on his first wife with multiple women, then left her to marry a beer model flush with cash, and launch his political career. He filed marriage license papers for his new marriage before he even ended his first. Disgusting. How can we trust someone like this?
Add to this that he was one of the Keating Five, his wife misused charity and employee info to steal drugs, he keeps making attack ads that are demonstrable lies, however much I like their political effects. What does he stand for? I have trouble respecting a man like him, and am considering sitting this one out.
Odd Note: I may dislike Obama's policies, but at least he seemed to talk about a personal relationship with Christ. McCain seemed to just go back to his (moving) POW stories to cover up his discomfort.
I think all of you are missing a lot here.
Firstly: We are all sinners in the sight of God.
Secondly: Fiona...A Christian cannot possibly vote against an bill that protects babies who live through an abortion and are outside the womb. No one who has a "personal relationship with Christ" could do that. That is what is really wrong with Obama in my humble opinion.
Read about St. Augustine's Just War tradition. There are some cases where defending oneself or one's country, or helping others in a country run by a violent dictatorship is justified.
See this: 10 concerns about Obama http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzQ4YTY4YjQyMzRjYjA5MGZlNDBiZTkwYmEyODg5NTc=
Senator Fred Thompson has a peculiar idea of what good character is. At the Republican National Convention, after saying proudly that John McCain was a major discipline problem (giving credit to his genetics, i.e. mother and father), and telling a story about his dating a girl who worked in a bar as an exotic dancer under the name of Marie, the Flame of Florida, he tells us that his behavior as a prisoner of war further proves his character. According to an article favorable to John McCain, called Prisoner of war by Dan Nowicki, Bill Muller in The Arizona Republic on Mar. 1, 2007 10:32 AM, McCain says that after being beaten (note he was not water-boarded, just beaten) he signed a confession saying "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors."
I am sure that John McCain like many others, including John Kerry, is a war hero, but details of John war stories seems to change to fit the Republican priorities of the moment.
The stories that seems to never change are that John was fifth from the bottom of his class and a disciplinary problem at the Navel Academy, leading other young men into undisciplined behavior, including undisciplined behavior involving women; and, believe it or not, he and the Republicans seem to be proud of all this. Furthermore, let’s not forget that he committed a string of adulteries against his first wife who had waited for him during his time as a prisoner of war and then divorced her.
I don’t get it. It is the Republican’s who are always talking about setting examples for our youth. This is an example of what they think is a good example?
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