On August 16, best-selling author Rick Warren, will host the first open debate between McCain and Obama at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, where he serves as pastor. They are calling it the "Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion."

I saw Pastor Warren this morning on Fox News as he spoke about the event. What he didn't say is what I had to read about. The debate is being co-sponsored by a left-leaning group led by a Unitarian-Universalist minister who once headed her denomination's homosexual advocacy office. Meg Riley is the board president of Faith in Public Life, whose board members include other theological liberals, including a pro-abortion Muslim leader and a Jewish rabbi. The organization's touted goal is to change the perspective of the religious right. They say they "envision a country in which diverse religious voices for justice and the common good consistently impact public policy; and those who use religion as a tool of division and exclusion do not dominate public discourse."

When Pastor Warren was questioned about this alliance, he said he wasn't troubled by the association with a group at odds with his church's conservative evangelical theology. "Really we just are . . . co-hosting [the event]," Warren said, noting Faith in Public Life came up with the idea. "Actually, we're in total control of the format, the program, the questions," he said. "It's at our church; and so it's not their event, it's our event."

While Pastor Warren may not be troubled by this alliance, I believe he should be most prayerful and careful while dealing with it. I applaud him for his involvement in social issues (aids, poverty, and politics), but I would also caution him about the tendency to lose his identity to them. All areas of our culture (education, goverment, finance, media, etc) need Christian influence. The tendency is, however, to cease influencing and become influenced by. I heard Chuck Swindoll say once that when we play in mud wearing white gloves, the gloves always get muddy, the gloves never get "glovey."

If this event has not been bathed in prayer or birthed with the right motive of bringing glory to godly principles, then Warren's efforts are in vain and God won't work through them. If, on the other hand, you and I stop criticizing and join together right now in praying for this August 16 effort, God can be pleased with and honored by the outcomes.

Yes, I believe the religious and the social can successfully intersect. The answer is not to stop being present in the world, but to stop letting the world be present in us. And it's lots of prayer that will make the difference between the two.