Barack Obama answering Rick Warren's question about when life begins at Saddleback Church's forum Saturday |
Asked at the weekend forum at Saddleback Church when a baby "gets human rights," Sen. Barack Obama essentially said he didn't know, but in a Father's Day speech in June he referred to conception as a crucial moment of responsibility for a father.
Obama said in the June 14 speech, "We need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception. That doesn't make you a father. What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – any fool can have a child. That's doesn't make you father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."
Obama's Republican rival for the presidency, Sen. John McCain, was direct when Rick Warren, pastor of the 22,000-member Southern California evangelical church, asked at the televised event Saturday night when a baby "gets human rights."
"At the moment of conception," McCain said without hesitation.
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In contrast, Obama gave a halting answer.
"Well, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade," the Democratic senator said. "But let me just speak more generally about the issue of abortion because this is something obviously the country wrestles with. One thing that I’m absolutely convinced of is there is a moral and ethical content to this issue. …"
Obama and McCain each had an hour to converse with Warren, beginning with Obama, as determined by a coin toss. McCain was kept in a "cone of silence," as Warren quipped, while Obama was on stage. Warren dismissed charges by Obama supporters that McCain may have heard some of the exchange with the Democrat.
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The lines from Obama's Father's Day speech became the center of an ad created in July by the Family Research Council's lobby arm, FRC Action, to press the senator to defend his stand on abortion.
The 30-second television ad begins with a clip of Obama saying, "We need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn’t just end at conception."
The spot then moves to FRC President Tony Perkins, who is holding his son Samuel.
Perkins asks Obama "If, as you say, fatherhood begins at conception, when does life begin?"
Warren was asked about Obama's answer to the abortion question in an interview with Beliefnet. The religious news and opinion site asked the pastor if he thought someone running for president should "have a clear answer to that, or is that kind of ambivalence acceptable?"
"No. I think he needed to be more specific on that. I happen to disagree with Barack on that," Warren said. "Like I said, he's a friend. But to me, I would not want to die and get before God one day and go, 'Oh, sorry, I didn't take the time to figure out' because if I was wrong then it had severe implications to my leadership if I had the ability to do something about it."
Warren said that "to just say 'I don't know' on the most divisive issue in America is not a clear enough answer for me."
The pastor said evangelicals point to Psalm 139 in the Bible, where "God says, 'I formed you in your mother's womb and before you were born I planned every day of your life."
People who believe the Bible is literally true "can't walk away from the belief that at conception God planned that child and to abort it would be to short circuit the purpose," Warren said.
Beliefnet continued: "Then it sounds like it would be unconscionable for an evangelical to vote for a pro-choice candidate like Obama."
Warren replied, "Well, we're going to see what happens. All I can say is, you'll see what happens. This is why there's a difference between simply talking the lingo ... after the 2004 election the Democratic pundits were saying 'The Democrats lost in '04 because they didn't talk the language of faith.' And actually that's kind of, not paternalistic, but it's talking down. It's basically saying, 'If you just get the right words, then they'll think you've got the lingo.' And just because a person can say 'God' and 'Jesus' and 'salvation' and whatever doesn't mean they have a worldview. And people want to know what do they believe, not just their personal faith. It's just like how many different beliefs do Jews and Christians have and still call themselves Christians or Jews? It's all over the spectrum.
The event Saturday was part of Saddleback Church's Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion.
Warren said prior to the event that it came at "a critical time for our nation, and the American people deserve to hear both candidates speak from the heart – without interruption – in a civil and thoughtful format absent the partisan 'gotcha' questions that typically produce heat instead of light."
Warren said the primaries "proved that Americans care deeply about the faith, values, character and leadership convictions of candidates as much as they do about the issues."
As WND reported, Obama's appearance in 2006 at Saddleback's Global Summit on AIDS and the Church stirred controversy when some evangelicals objected to a pro-choice Democrat being given the pulpit of a church that opposes abortion. At last year's AIDS summit, in November, Sen. Hillary Clinton gave a warmly received speech while Obama and McCain were among several candidates who presented taped messages via satellite.
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