SOUL FOOD:

Is Sen. Barack Obama the anti-Christ? This is the question Jerry B. Jenkins, co-author of the “Left Behind” apocalyptic tales, said many have been asking him. Thankfully, that wasn’t one of the 20-some questions pastor Rick Warren posed to either Obama or Sen. John McCain during the Civil Forum on the Presidency Saturday night at his Lake Forest Saddleback Church.

Civil truly being an operative word.

In the run up to the forum, criticism and hand-wringing were rife on blogs and op-ed pages. Some charged it was a violation of separation of church and state to hold a political forum in a church.

Others got their hackles up about Warren asking the presumptive presidential candidates questions about their faith.

One group of conservative Christians was so suspicious of his motives it huddled for a call-in news conference immediately after the event.

I didn’t find the objections or the nerves here in Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley. And it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Regardless of their faith or their political leanings, those I talked to praised Warren and the forum. They thought it went a long way toward the pastor’s stated goal.

At the top of the two-hour forum, Warren put it like this: “In America, we’ve gotta learn to disagree without demonizing each other. We need to restore civility in our civil discourse.”

To those opposed to him asking Obama and McCain about their faith, Warren said, “Faith is just a worldview” and everybody has one. It’s important, he added, to know what that worldview is.

Those I spoke to agreed. And they saw the forum as unique in giving them that opportunity.

Jamie and Andi Douglass, outspoken supporters of Obama, are members of St. Wilfrid of York Episcopal Church in Huntington Beach. The couple drove to Saddleback Church before the event, joining others wearing political buttons and carrying posters to show their support.

They later watched the forum on television. Jamie thought Warren lived up to his promise to be even-handed, noting that all three men even wore similar suits with open-collar shirts and no ties.

When they briefly greeted each other on stage, Jamie thought pains were taken to make them appear roughly the same height. He felt Warren asked both Obama and McCain the same questions in the same format.

One difference annoyed Andi. “He was really on Obama about not giving his stump speech and did not once say that to McCain,” she said.

Nevertheless, it was McCain’s answers that struck her as rigid and simplistic.

Peggy Price thought McCain too often jumped to answer questions before Warren finished them.

Price is a past president of the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith Council and the former minister of the Huntington Beach Church of Religious Science. While living here in Surf City, she is now the minister for the Seal Beach Center for Spiritual Living.

Acknowledging that McCain might have already done his thinking on the issues he rushed to address, she still wanted more insight into how he formed his positions.

There where times, she granted, she wanted to tell the more reflective Obama, “come on, come on, get there, get there.” But in the end, she said, “I understood how he got there and why.”

Jamie also preferred Obama’s style. “He gave thoughtful, nuanced answers. Whereas McCain’s answers were very short and definitive.”

On the other hand, Guy Grimes, senior pastor of Shoreline Baptist Church in Fountain Valley, thought the forum’s format favored McCain. The charisma Obama exudes as speaker didn’t emanate as he spoke to Warren.

“He even stammered a little,” Grimes observed. “McCain just blurted out an answer. He was definitely more assertive in that regard.”

Grimes sees some irony in this style appealing to many voters. “We want ’em to be decisive,” he said. “We also want ’em to be right all the time.

“I don’t know that those things go together all the time. Our country’s kinda fickle in that regard.”

The Douglasses and Price were disappointed that too little time — or no time at all — was given to issues like poverty, homelessness, the environment and heath care. When addressing the crisis of 148 million orphans in the world, Price wished Warren had mentioned that 5 million were now in Iraq.

Price particularly wanted more discussion on religious persecution. “We are still every day in the press demonizing certain religious groups out of ignorance. Our leaders must set the tone,” she said.

I’m less sure about our leaders setting the tone. I think that might have to start with us and trickle up.

I think it might work more like Andi sees Obama’s grassroots campaign, which she says emphasizes, “[He’s] not going to do this for you; He’s there to facilitate what you can make happen.”

The forum wasn’t mind-changing for any one of these people of faith yet they still saw great value in it. Though Andi’s hope for more focus on common-ground social issues among Christians was dashed by what she felt was a disproportionate amount of time and value devoted to abortion and definition of marriage.

Everyone would like to see Warren’s format emulated and repeated. They enjoyed the absence of contentiousness too often the heart of debates and campaign ads.

“I’ve got to give [Warren] kudos,” Grimes said.

“I think [he] was brilliant,” Price said. “He opened a window that has never been opened before.”

Despite the questions that went unasked, they found Warren’s questions revealing. For Price, the first people Obama and McCain named in answer to the question, “Who are the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?” spoke volumes.

“Michelle, my wife,” Obama said. “Gen. David Petraeus,” McCain said. To Price that said building family versus making war.

Grimes hopes the forum helped to remove the taboo he believe says “people of faith can’t have a conversation with politicians … that somehow we’re excluded.”

All in all, he said, summing up the consensus, the forum was positive and well done.

MICHÈLE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].