David Brody is covering the presidential campaign for CBN, giving particular attention to the role of religion. His interview with Rick Warren is interesting, to say the least. Warren’s 22,000-member Saddleback Church will be the site tomorrow night of the two presidential candidates’ first joint appearance. It’s a two-hour event and will be televised by CNN. Each candidate will be asked questions for one hour, and the questions will be posed by a single person—Warren himself. Until now it appeared that Warren would probe issues that rather conspicuously have concerned him in recent years, such as AIDS, poverty, human rights, and the environment. But in his interview with Brody, Warren adds another topic or, rather, person—Jesus. "I'm certainly going to ask a question about Jesus Christ in this forum. No doubt about it."

You can see how Warren might want to ask a question about Jesus, especially since he’ll be in the familiar territory of his own church building. On the other hand, the so-called “civil forum” he has convened is not exactly a church service. In fact, I’m waiting for some theologian to ask whether Warren isn’t profaning the church by sponsoring a political event. Maybe that would be a good question for one of the candidates to ask Warren!