Religious Leaders Clash on 'Meet the Press'

I caught most of Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority; the Rev. Al Sharpton, the minister-politician who ran in the Democratic primaries; Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine; and Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Commission on Meet the Press this past Sunday. It was a frustrating interview. Falwell and Sharpton generally seemed immature; more interested in "winning" than in shedding light on the topics of the conversation.

I do not often agree with Land, but he was thoughtful and respectful, while Wallis was far more biblical than any of the others. If Russert just had these two guests, then they could have reacted to each other, answered each other's questions, and presented two different perspectives on the intersection of Christianity and politics. The egos of Falwell and Sharpton prevented such a conversation from occuring.