E.J. Dionne, TruthDig.com

Anyone who still doubts that the evangelical Christian world is going through a political revolution was not watching Pastor Rick Warren’s presidential forum over the weekend (August 16-17). The era of reducing Christianity to a narrow set of ideological commitments is over.

Just a few years back, who would have imagined that Barack Obama and John McCain would hold a discussion of this sort in a church? Who would have thought that the session would be moderated by an evangelical pastor who was emphatic in counting both the Democrat and the Republican as his “friends”? Who would have predicted that in such a setting, the issues of abortion and gay marriage would not dominate the pastor’s queries?

Oh, yes, and who would have anticipated that the passions of the pastor in question would be engaged not in the divisions created by the culture wars but in the imperative of civility in politics and the plight of the world’s 148 million orphans? Here’s betting that the next president will help those orphans find homes.

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