what you mean, we?

    Brian Unger had a satirical piece on NPR today about Rick Warren's question to the presidential candidates at Saddleback Church: "Does evil exist? Should we ignore it? Contain it? Defeat it?"

    Unger asks if Warren thinks he's interviewing superheroes instead of political candidates. He then asks if he shouldn't be asking about the existence of jobs, or affordable health care.

   I didn't hear what the candidates' answers to this question were, but here's what I would say: "What you mean, we, Reverend?"

  It's fine for a pastor to ask a theological question -- especially when it echoes a current President's justification for war --  but it gets dicey for a candidate to answer the question, because a personal philosophy of resisting evil and a political philosophy may not be the same thing.

  And, the most theologically appropriate answer, a Jimmy Carter-esque acknowledgment that there is evil lurking at the doorstep of every one of our hearts--that evil is not just something "out there" that we can name and fight -- that hasn't proven to be the most politically savvy answer over the years.