It appears John McCain and Barack Obama will attend a forum at Saddleback Church hosted by pastor Rick Warren on August 16. Warren invited the two men and they accepted. All questions will be asked by Warren, and the candidates will appear one after the other, with Obama going first:

The Rev. Rick Warren has persuaded the candidates to attend a forum at his Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, Calif., on Aug. 16. In an interview, Mr. Warren said over the weekend that the presidential candidates would appear together for a moment but that he would interview them in succession at his megachurch. . . .

The forum still falls short of the kind of face-to-face, town-hall-style debates that Mr. McCain, of Arizona, has called for this summer before formal debates scheduled for this fall.

Mr. Warren, the author of the best-selling book “The Purpose-Driven Life,” said he had called each man personally to invite him to his event, which will focus on how they make decisions and on some of Mr. Warren’s main areas of focus, like AIDS, poverty and the environment.

“I just got to thinking, you know what? These guys have never been together on the same stage, it would be a neat way to cap the primary season before they both go to the conventions and things go dark for a couple of weeks,” he said. “I’ve known both the guys for a long time, they’re both friends of mine, and I knew them before they ran for office, so I just called them up.”

He said that both had readily agreed, perhaps reflecting how each candidate is courting the evangelical audience to whom Mr. Warren ministers.

Mr. Warren’s event will have as a co-sponsor Faith in Public Life, the multidenominational religious group that held the Compassion Forum at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., in April, featuring Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Pennsylvania during their primary fight. Mr. Warren said he would devise his questions with input from the Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders associated with the group.

“Since I’m their friend, I’m not going to give them any gotcha questions,” Mr. Warren said, adding that a typical query would be, “What’s the most difficult decision you’ve had to make, and how did you make it?”

Mr. Warren said he would have Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama, of Illinois, appear on stage together momentarily at the event, though, he added, he would also “see if they want to get a little personal time behind the scenes.”

This forum will play into Obama's hands, in my view. It is not a true "Town Hall" format, as John McCain has repeatedly asked Obama to accept. The questions are not from the audience. The topics Warren says he will highlight sound like Democratic talking points, and will give Obama ample opportunity to bash Republicans and John McCain.

It has appeared in recent years that Rick Warren is moving farther and farther to the Left. We'll see how he handles this forum. If he does not press the issue of Abortion under his "Human Rights" questions, then he clearly is seeking to protect Obama. Obama is as far-left as possible on the issue of Abortion, and John McCain must make that clear when discussing Human Rights, even if Rick Warren does not specifically ask the question.

My concern here is that Obama wins just by showing up at this forum. Many younger Evangelicals may take the fact Warren invited him as some kind of a stamp of approval, when the reality is that Obama's far-Left positions put him squarely at odds with many Evangelical principles. But at least it gets Obama and McCain at the same event. Perhaps McCain can seize the day and expose Obama for what he is.