Christianity Today has a side-by-side comparison of the Republican National Convention platform (draft version at this point) and Democratic National Convention platform, specifically on issues like abortion, faith-based programs, family and marriage, religious liberty, etc. 

You can find it here.

The full DNC platform is here.

The full RNC platform (draft, August 25) is here.

In comparing them, there certainly is a difference between the two.

If you didn’t have a chance to watch the two-hour Saddleback Church/Rick Warren questioning of presidential candidates Obama and McCain, you can find the transcript here.

The chattering class had plenty to say about the evening, including the following:

McCain and Obama Face Questions About Faith - Associated Press

McCain Shines at Saddleback Forum - Michael Gerson, Washington Post

The Importance of Saddleback Church - Alan Wolfe, The New Republic

McCain, Obama at Saddleback Church - Carrie Budoff Brown, The Politico

John McCain, Barack Obama Display Abortion Divide at Evangelical Forum : LifeSite News

Are We Now Officially a Christian Nation? - Joan Walsh, Salon

McCain’s Back in the Saddleback - Chuck Todd, NBC News

McCain’s Depth & Experience Stood Out - Byron York, National Review

Obama’s Purpose-Driven Gamble - Mike Madden, Salon

Kristol: Showdown at Saddleback

Sullivan: McCain’s ‘Cross’ Story 

Podhoretz: Obama on Thomas 

Of special note are a couple of claims:

The New York Times reports that McCain was…

There are religion blogs and then there are religion blogs.

The Civil Religion blog is civil, the writing is good and the posts are frequent.

(1) When we were discussing the set-up of this blog, religion reporter Tim Townsend suggested we look at the Washington Post religion blog, On Faith, to see what a religion blog looks like. I found it confusingly laid out and not appealing and said so to Tim. Today I have another reason to stay away. Look at this from the Dallas Morning News blog:

“Sally Quinn, the Washington socialite and journalist, attended Tim Russert’s funeral.

Russert was Catholic. Quinn isn’t. In fact, as far as I can tell, she isn’t demonstrably religious at all, despite being one of the founders of the On Faith blog published by Newsweek and The Washington Post.

She decided to receive Communion at Russert’s funeral Mass.

In some churches, this would be no…

The Ethical Society, and our national federation, the American Ethical Union, has long supported abortion as being an often difficult but spiritual and ethical choice. Our highest value is the worth and dignity of every person, and since pregnant women are clearly people, while pregnancies are not clearly people (witness all the arguments and differences of opinion on when human life begins), our official stance (individual members, of course, have freedom of opinion) is that to force a woman against her will to carry a pregnancy she does not want threatens her physical, psychological, and spiritual health, and therefore it violates rather than affirms her worth and dignity.

The Missouri Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is an organization that brings together representative voices for the millions of clergy and lay people from every major religion and denomination (and many minor ones) who support women’s and men’s sexual health and reproductive rights.…