Almost a century ago, G. K. Chesterton made a comment that could most appropriately be applied to Monday night\u2019s forum at which leading Democratic presidential candidates discussed faith and politics: anything worth doing \u201cis worth doing badly.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
The purpose of the forum, organized by the liberal evangelical journal Sojourners and broadcast on CNN, was to hear what Democratic contenders might say about religion and whether they might convincingly enlarge the list of religious and moral (or \u201cvalues\u201d\u009d) questions to include topics like poverty, war and the environment rather than only those emphasized by the religious right.<\/p>\n
Not a bad idea. Clearly, the nation and first of all the Democrats could use a better, broader, more sophisticated conversation about religion and politics.<\/p>\n
Yet it is hard to imagine anyone serious about either of these subjects watching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards on Monday without cringing at some of the questions or chafing at some of the speechifying and the general absence of intelligent follow-up.<\/p>\n