The Rick Warren Show
Posted: Friday, August 15, 2008 9:18 AM by Mark Murray
USA Today has a good preview piece of tomorrow night's forum hosted by Rick Warren.
In an interview with CBN, Warren implies that he's going to ask McCain and Obama about their past personal live issues each has had to battle. Does this mean he's going to ask about McCain's first marriage? About Obama's teenage drug use?
In addition, expect Warren to bring up gay marriage and abortion.
The Washington Post writes that young evangelicals might not be as loyal to the GOP as their parents have been. “The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that while a majority of young white evangelicals describe themselves as conservative on social issues, slightly more identified this year as either independents or Democrats than as Republicans. In 2001, about the time that Merritt was working as precinct captain for the Republican Party, an overwhelming majority of young evangelicals identified with the GOP.”
Matthew 25, a liberal-leaning PAC headed by the woman who directed John Kerry’s religious outreach in 2004, holds a conference call this morning to discuss a new TV ad it will run pegged to Warren’s conference and to contrast the religious outreach efforts between the Obama and McCain campaigns.
McCain gives an in-depth interview on faith to the Chicago Tribune. The story opens with stories about how McCain relied on his faith during the POW years. "Although polling suggests voters view faith as an essential ingredient in a president, McCain has never been a candidate to invoke God or dwell on religion. ‘In our case, faith is private,’ said his wife, Cindy, adding that once voters get to know him, ‘they will know he is a man of faith.’”
“In Vietnam, McCain's fellow prisoners say their faith was a matter of life and death. ‘We knew we had to have some belief greater than ourselves,’ said Orson Swindle, a Marine captain who spent six years in captivity. The prisoners had developed a tap code system for communicating through the walls. Through that tapping, ‘we decided we needed to be all on the same sheet of music at least one time during the week,’ Swindle said.”
“The prisoners decided that every Sunday, after they had eaten their rice, the highest-ranking officer would cough loudly and say the letter 'c' for church. The prisoners would then say the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm. The psalm was said in plural: ‘Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we will fear no evil.’”
