On the TV in my living room on Aug. 16, the two leading candidates for president expounded on their views on faith and politics to the Rev. Rick Warren in the cool confines of Saddleback Church in Southern California.
On my laptop in the dining room the same night was a webcast of the closing hours of TheCall DC, a marathon prayer rally on the Mall where thousands of people beseeched God on behalf of the nation. The 12-hour event — I was there in the blazing sun for five hours of it — was one continual blast of Christian rock music with people either standing with arms uplifted or lying prostrate on the ground, repenting for whatever national sin was being announced from the stage.
The last time I saw anything like it was at the Promise Keepers rally almost 11 years ago. Unfortunately for TheCall folks, attendance at the Aug. 16 event fell way short of projections of more than 100,000 young people.
Some 50,000 did show up; not bad, actually, for an August day in the District.
A few days before the rally, I was hanging out at a prayer meeting with some of TheCall leaders when I heard Lou Engle, founder of this movement, talk about a polite disagreement he was having with Mr. Warren.
Mr. Engle was a bit put out by a recent article that pitted him against Rick Warren. Actually, “I’m rejoicing that Rick Warren is a new voice in the church,” he said.
But he was not happy with the megachurch pastor’s choice of “five giants” — issues that are the world’s most pervasive problems. The giants are spiritual emptiness, illiteracy, pandemic diseases, lack of servant leadership and extreme poverty. Mr. Warren has formed a coalition of pastors, churches, universities and business interests to fight them.
“I was agitated that one of the five giants wasn’t abortion,” Mr. Engle said to a room of youthful followers, “when one out of every four human beings is being killed.”
He added, “There are two false justice movements at stake in this election — reproductive rights and homosexual marriage. America always wants freedom, but if freedom is not lined up with the moral plumb line, it doesn’t work.”
Adding that he had had an “interesting” e-mail conversation with Mr. Warren on their divergent opinions, “You want to be a nice guy,” Mr. Engle mused, “but you have to be truthful.”
There is such a divide among Christians at this point over whether to be one-issue voters — whereby abortion trumps everything else — or to view abortion as one of many issues, on par with the environment or social justice.
Officially, Catholics go with the former stance.
“Deliberately killing innocent human life or standing by and allowing it dwarfs all other social issues,” Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput says in his new book, “Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life.”
Evangelicals have started to break ranks on this question, which is one reason TheCall was mobilized — to refocus prayer on life issues.
The discussion at Saddleback was staged for a national audience. TheCall’s event was staged for an audience of one: God.
“You are a most radical people,” Mr. Engle cried out to a rapidly thinning crowd at 9:58 p.m. “Feel His pleasure tonight.”
• Julia Duin’s Stairway to Heaven column runs Thursdays and Sundays. Contact her at jduin@washington times.com.
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