As reported in The Christian Post, Pastor Rick Warren has called off his highly publicized civil forum featuring presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, saying the climate of their campaigns won’t allow civil discourse.
“The forums are meant to be a place where people of goodwill can seriously disagree on significant issues without being disagreeable or resorting to personal name-calling,” Warren told The Orange County Register. “But that is not the climate of today’s campaign…it would be hypocritical to pretend civility for one evening only to have the name-calling return the next day.”
But according to the CNN Belief Blog, sources close to the two campaigns said Obama and Romney cancelled their participation due to lack of interest, saying Warren received “tepid” responses from them in the first place.
In place of the presidential forum, Warren will hold one on the topic of religious liberty. Warren explained that government bureaucrats “are daily trying to limit that freedom, impose restriction, and stifle expressions of faith on campuses, in hospitals, and in businesses. There are widespread attempts to redefine the First Amendment to simply mean ‘You are free to believe anything at your place of worship but you are not free to practice your conscience elsewhere.'” Warren did not mention a date for the forum but promised some of America’s high-profile Catholic, Jewish and Muslim leaders would attend.
