Saddleback Shines Light on Faith/Foreign Policy Link

By David Buckley and Peter S. Henne - Washington Post, On Faith
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - Web Link
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August 20, 2008

Saturday's Saddleback Civil Forum could go down as the most important pre-convention event of the 2008 general election. Pundits continue to pontificate on the forum's "winner," with host Rick Warren the only consensus answer. Lost in the chatter is any analysis of what the candidates' answers to Pastor Rick might mean for foreign policy in both the campaign and in the next administration.

Senator Obama's compelling conversion to Christianity and authentic religious outreach campaign has narrowed the "God Gap" between Democrats and Republicans. He was at ease discussing his personal faith with Warren. On policy issues, Senator Obama's best moments came when discussing how faith informs his foreign policy priorities. Warren clearly cares deeply about global affairs; he and Obama nearly completed each others' sentences when talking about AIDS in Africa, genocide and international orphans. Getting God could help progressives both in articulating their values and redeeming America's global role.

Such an exchange has precedent in progressive thought. President Truman's post-World War II grand strategy fused principle and pragmatism, and drew on the religious thought of advisers like Reinhold Niebuhr. Reviving such ties could do great service to a progressive U.S. foreign policy. It would also provide a much-needed response to the theologically-laden triumphalism of President Bush's neoconservatism. Senator McCain's brash and utterly meaningless pledge to follow Osama Bin Laden "to the gates of Hell" is yet another sign that the rumors of neoconservativsm's death have been greatly exaggerated.

While the Democrats have been successful in their recent religious outreach, this has been largely isolated from the party's leading foreign policy minds. Democratic foreign policy circles vacillate between focus group-generated policy ideas, but have yet to come up with a worldview behind those ideas as captivating as FDR and Truman's liberal internationalism. This has left the Democratic Party struggling to articulate a grand strategy that both affirms the importance of American leadership in the global arena and emphasizes progressive approaches to international engagement.