Saturday’s presidential candidates forum, moderated by Pastor Rick Warren, gave me a number of new reasons to believe John McCain may beat Barack Obama in the 2008 race for the White House, a race Obama’s party has every reason to win.

But first, congratulations are in order for Pastor Rick Warren, whom I am honored to call a friend. His questions were fair, concise (what a relief!), and important. He managed to get the candidates to reveal their differences on important issues in a way that has not been done before.

And Pastor Warren’s function as “Values-Inquisitor-in-Chief” reminded all of us that while a certain separation of church and state is very good for our republic, it is dangerous and un-American to advocate for the divorce of religiously motivated moral values from politics. The candidates proved this in their own words by explaining how their religious and moral values shape their policy proposals.

Before Saturday’s event, most analysts agreed the forum at Saddleback Church was the perfect venue for Obama to break into McCain’s considerable advantage among evangelical voters. He would be on their turf and could talk their language—beautifully, of course—and that would be enough.

How wrong they were.

They were wrong because most political pundits still don’t “get” regular church-going evangelicals. Or more precisely, because they don’t get the faith dynamics of fervent Christians of any denomination (weekly church attendees is a more consistent voting block than any denomination as a whole). They assume getting their votes is mostly about connecting with them through a common faith language. They assume because Obama talks the lingo of conversion and salvation (even from the pulpit at times), and because McCain has seemed uncomfortable sharing his faith experience, then Obama is very much like this voting block and should be able to get some of their votes.

The logical flaw here is the assumption that active Christians judge a candidate primarily by his religious talk. The recent American religious experience is full of scandal. The regular churchgoer is now rather unimpressed by words alone and is particularly attentive to behavior inconsistent with Biblical standards. Action, or in the case of politics, policy, is their best indication a politician can be trusted to govern wisely.

In this light, there were two moments in Saturday’s forum that, in my opinion, were the beginning of an unraveling of Obama’s campaign.

The first and most important of these was Obama’s response to Pastor Warren’s excellent question, “When do babies get human rights?” The senator from Illinois responded:

“I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade”

Now we do know. What I find disturbing is that while Senator Obama says he doesn’t know when babies get rights, he has always felt comfortable voting to refuse the right to life to all pre-born babies, even ones who are aborted outside of the womb, through partial birth abortion or, shockingly, even after a botched abortion.

Senator Obama doesn’t know if these babies have human rights, and still he is willing to vote in favor of letting them die?

You don’t have to be a theologian or a scientist to know that kind of moral thinking is deeply flawed. Ask a hunter. When a deer hunter sees something moving in the bushes, and he isn’t absolutely sure it is a deer, and not a fellow hunter, he cannot shoot. He must clear up his doubt before acting. Anyone, of any pay grade, knows when it comes to defending human life it is only just to err on the side of caution.

Senator Obama’s convoluted response to a simple question did not end there. He stated his support for Roe vs. Wade but predicated it with this phrase: “but the issue has moral content.” If the issue has “moral content,” will he continue to support Roe vs. Wade unconditionally? NARAL gives him a 100% approval rating, isn’t that proof enough that he is willing to overlook the issue’s “moral content?”

John McCain’s answer stood out for its clarity and simplicity: “at the moment of conception.”

And to think both these men have the same pay grade as U.S. senators.

The second telling moment of the debate was in response to Pastor Warren’s question regarding which of the eight sitting Supreme Court Justices the candidates wouldn’t have appointed.

Senator Obama named Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. But strangely, he considered it necessary to twice demean along the way the intelligence of Justice Thomas, the second and currently only black Supreme Court Justice of the United States of America. Obama said Justice Thomas isn’t a “strong enough jurist or legal thinker” and then backhanded Thomas’ intellect once again by saying that while he disagrees with Justice Scalia’s constitutional interpretations, he doesn’t doubt his (in comparison to Thomas’) “intellectual brilliance.”

Senator Obama’s response here was curious for another reason. He chose not to list at first the two newest members of the court, Justices Roberts and Alito, even though he voted against their confirmation in the Senate.

Senator McCain answered this second question by immediately listing all four liberal judges on the bench, with no explanations needed. His audience understood everything. Above all, they came to know him as one of them.

The lesson from Saturday’s forum is that when a politician’s political policy doesn’t match voters’ core religious teachings, the prettier the language the more stinky it is.

God bless,

Father Jonathan

Father Jonathan Morris is author of the new book, “The Promise: God’s Purpose and Plan for when Life Hurts”. For information go to www.fatherjonathan.com