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By Lloyd Mackey
 I was wondering, this week, about providing some Canadian comment on
Saturday's Rick Warren interviews with American presumptive presidential
candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.
But - in acting on the advantages of a daily deadline - Nigel Hannaford of
the Calgary Herald a much more numerous readership, beat me to it.
Warren, the pastor of southern California's Saddleback Church, interviewed
the two candidates back-to-back at the megachurch's Lake Forest campus.
Hannaford, along with Lorne Gunter of the Edmonton Journal, are two of
Canada's best examples of political analysts whose conservative-leaning
comments often grow out of a their own personal Christian faith
perspectives.
Hannaford's piece on the interviews, and their potential implications for
Canadian politics, can be found at www.canada.com. As of this morning
(August 19) the column is not subscriber-protected. After getting on the
site, one should click successively on "Calgary Herald" and "Editorial
page", then look for the link headed: If U. S. can ask leaders what they
believe, why not Canada? Politicians will bring their faith to politics - or
their lack of it.
Some of the things Hannaford touched on, that I, too, would have been
interested in exploring, relate to the Canadian setting. Especially, he
opines about whether it might be possible, in the event of a future
election, for Canada's two major federal leaders to talk about their
personal beliefs and how those beliefs might help to shape public policy.
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Readers can draw their own conclusions from reading Hannaford's piece. I
will try, for a moment, to add my own observations.
The first relates to Warren as being the interviewer who could do the job.
He is best known for The Purpose Driven Life which, in its various forms,
has sold 25 million copies. And, more recently, he has turned his attention
to encouraging Christians to become deeply involved in various ways to
tackle the African HIV/AIDS pandemic.
On the American scene he has helped evangelical Christians to bring together
the issues of personal piety and social justice. Right and left fringe
evangelicals both look on him with some scepticism, but he arguably has the
kind of broad appeal that would cause CNN to see him as the right person to
do the interviews.
But the other factor worth noting, in comparing Canadian and American
faith/political interfaces, is the balance of power position that American
evangelicals enjoy.
It is generally conceded that 20 to 35 per cent of America's population is
evangelically oriented. In Canada, 10 to 15 per cent would be the figure.
Who would have what it takes in Canada to do an interview like Warren
tackled with Obama and McCain?
At this point, many faces could emerge, but none, by themselves, would seem
to fill the bill.
Here are just a few of those faces, not necessarily in any particular order:
Preston Manning, Pat Francis, Brian Stiller, Cheol Soon Park, Janet Epp
Buckingham, Charles Price, Glenn Smith and Geoff Tunnicliffe.
* * *
Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery and
author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press,
2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
August 21/2008
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