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No Chris­t­ian should over­look the past weekend’s Sad­dle­back Civil Forum that had Pas­tor Rick War­ren inter­view pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates Barack Obama and John McCain. (Tran­script here)

Prior to the forum and now in its wake, peo­ple ask: how involved should a church get in pol­i­tics? Rick War­ren explains his posi­tion in an inter­view with Jef­frey Gold­berg:

I believe in the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state, but I do not believe in the sep­a­ra­tion of pol­i­tics from reli­gion. Faith is sim­ply a world­view. A per­son who says he puts his faith on the shelf when he’s mak­ing deci­sions is either an idiot or a liar. It’s entirely appro­pri­ate for me to ask what is their frame of reference.

I’m with Rick War­ren on this, though I can under­stand why sec­u­lar­ists pale at politi­cians “sub­mit­ting” them­selves to a pastor’s inter­view. Sec­u­lar­ists argue that pub­lic pol­icy should not be defined by any par­tic­u­lar reli­gious val­ues: “A neu­tral sec­u­lar­ism which nei­ther grants a pref­er­ence nor imposes a bur­den upon any par­tic­u­lar reli­gious sys­tem is prefer­able in a plu­ral­is­tic and free soci­ety” (Austin Cline).

The key to this dis­agree­ment is that sec­u­lar­ists have a nar­row def­i­n­i­tion of reli­gion while Evan­gel­i­cals have a broad def­i­n­i­tion of reli­gion. Sec­u­lar­ists see reli­gion as beliefs that are con­fin­able to pri­vate prac­tice. Evan­gel­i­cals say their beliefs drive every aspect of their lives, both pub­lic and private.

In gen­eral, the more devout a believer (of any faith), the broader their def­i­n­i­tion of reli­gion. Devout believ­ers see that all aspects of their lives are dri­ven by their core beliefs about the world. And since sec­u­lar­ists also have a set of val­ues that drive their decision-making, sec­u­lar­ism is a “reli­gion” (broadly defined) – a world­view, on the same level as any other reli­gion, whether or not they would call it such or not.

In pol­i­tics, then, all vot­ers aim for the com­mon good. What that is and how to get there depends on one’s world­view. Since elec­tions are man­i­fes­ta­tions of a state’s val­ues, nei­ther sec­u­lar­ists nor peo­ple of faith should feel com­pelled to mute their world­view. Chris­tians vot­ing their val­ues are no more an impo­si­tion of their faith on oth­ers as sec­u­lar­ists vot­ing their val­ues. This is what civil dia­logue and the polit­i­cal process is for and I for one am glad to see Rick War­ren take a step in this direction.