This weekend’s main event, outside of the Beijing Olympics, will be the Saturday sit-down between superpastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback megachurch and Barack Obama and John McCain–and event being called “the Saddleback Civil Forum.” Rick will have an hour with each man to talk about faith and how their faith would affect their agendas…

I suppose you’ve got to give the Republicans of the Rove era credit for their inventiveness, if not their chutzpah. In 2004 their nominee, who had essentially been a draft dodger, was pitted against a genuine Vietnam War hero (a species hard to come by). How did they respond? They went directly after John Kerry’s…

I’m less certain than Mara Vanderslice that John McCain’s recent pattern of decrying Barack Obama’s “messianism” is a deliberate effort to label him as the Antichrist.  It’s not that I consider Team McCain incapable of “dog whistle” appeals to the Christian Right; their candidate has certainly mastered those dark arts in a variety of abstract references to his hatred of “judicial…

I am already a bit weary of presidential politics, and it’s not even September. On the one hand, the excitement around Senator Obama’s candidacy that galvanized so many to engage the body politic stands alongside worn political tropes and familiar policy initiatives. (note this NY Times article about corporate interests trumping the concerns of the…

More from Beliefnet and our partners
More from Beliefnet and our partners