Pastor Rick Warren has done a good thing.

I’m sure some of you out there have been following the presidential election in the States. It’s really quite amazing, particularly from a Canadian point of view. For one thing, it’s so-o-o-o-o-o-o lo-o-o-o-o-ong. Up here we choose our leaders by flipping a loonie, but down there they seem to have to flip a whole roll of loonies. Perhaps they just have more loonies than we do, but somehow I doubt it.

One of the interesting differences in the US, however, is the influence of Evangelical Christians, or what they call the Christian Right. Though I often disagree with the positions of my right-wing brethren and sistren – generally more right than Christian, and more wrong than right – I do think people of faith should have influence. It’s just that I think Evangelicals are much too quick to give knee-jerk answers – perhaps if we spent a little more time on them they wouldn’t jerk so much – when we really should be contributing thoughtful, i.e., prayerful questions.

For this reason I was particularly impressed with what Saddleback Church did a few weeks ago. They hosted a forum where each candidate was asked to respond to questions that had been submitted from the huge Saddleback internet constituency. Though there were a few “faith” questions, for the most part, they were the sorts of things anyone might ask. But they gave each candidate about an hour, in a very civil atmosphere, to respond to as many questions as the time allowed.

I think this was a much more useful forum than the debates we often see. Debates may be good theatre, but is it relevant that our Prime Minister or President can or can’t win a verbal joust? We need to learn who they are, what they want to do, and why they want to do it. And this event, where they didn’t address one another at all, but spoke to the people, worked for me.

Anyway, click on the link “Saddleback Forum” and tell me what you think. It would take you a couple of hours to hear the whole thing, but even some of it helps to push past the melanin/estrogen/Geritol circus they’ve been having down there. I think perhaps they actually got to a few things that really matter, and I wish we could do this here in Canada.