Posts on Rick Warren

Fresh off of urging his millions of supporters to protect “traditional marriage” by passing Proposition 8 in California, evangelical guru Rick Warren announces a new partnership with Reader’s Digest to spread his personal brand of “Purpose Driven” Christianity across the nation: 

The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., and Dr. Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church and the author of the worldwide best seller, "The Purpose Driven Life," today announced a partnership to produce an inspirational multimedia platform called The Purpose Driven Connection.

Together the organizations will pool their international resources to produce and publish this Purpose Driven platform to help people who are seeking their purpose in life and wish to interact with others on their spiritual journeys. The platform will provide a suite of bundled multimedia tools: "The Purpose Driven Connection," a quarterly magazine; Small Group study materials delivered in DVDs, workbooks and downloadable discussion guides; and a state-of-the-art Christian social networking website.

"We are excited about this new partnership and its unprecedented potential for international impact," said Warren, who will serve as Editor-in-Chief and be heavily involved in the conception of each element. "The Purpose Driven Connection represents more than simply integrated multimedia resources; it will become a platform for a movement of people to change the world."

"We are delighted to be working with Rick Warren and the Saddleback team," said Alyce Alston, President of RDA's Home & Garden and Health & Wellness affinities. "This is one of our company's most important and far-reaching ventures ever. Together we will create a category-busting multimedia suite that will help millions of people in their daily lives, including those who already follow the Purpose Driven principles as well as seekers everywhere looking for greater fulfillment."

Apparently, while Reader’s Digest would presumably never agree to a partnership with someone like James Dobson, they have no problem partnering with Warren, even though he admits that the only difference between himself and Dobson is a question of tone.

Rick Warren is often considered one of the most influential leaders of the so-called "New Evangelical" movement that is working to expand the evangelical agenda beyond its anti-gay, anti-abortion traditions to embrace things like poverty, climate change, and human rights.   As we've pointed out before, Warren's reputation of not being part of the old-school Religious Right tends to make people overlook the fact that he does share a great many of their views ... as he says, the only real difference between himself and someone like James Dobson is their tone.

While the media might be fooled by this distinction without a difference, the Religious Right certainly hasn’t been and earlier this week Jan LaRue, formerly of Concerned Women for America, penned a column in which she complained that churches in California were not being active enough in mobilizing support for Prop 8 and called out Rick Warren specifically:

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, hosted a Presidential Candidates Forum at the church on Aug. 16. He asked John McCain and Barack Obama if the California Supreme Court got it wrong when it overturned the definition of marriage.

Here’s a question for Rick Warren: Do you think the court got it wrong? If you do, where’s your support for Prop 8? There’s no mention of it on Saddleback’s Web site. Your office isn’t returning calls requesting information. You hosted an AIDS summit. Where’s your Prop 8 summit?

It was a good question, considering that back in 2004, Warren declared the question of where presidential candidates stand on the issue of "homosexual marriage" to be one of the "5 issues that are non-negotiable" to Christians. As such, it was odd that he hadn’t taken a public stand at a time when the issue is on the ballot in his home state.

Well, Warren is silent no more:

Pastor Rick Warren is endorsing the effort to protect traditional marriage in California.

The well-known Christian author says people in California need to vote "yes" on Proposition 8 because for "5,000 years, every culture and every religion...not just Christianity...has defined marriage as a contract between men and women."

And Warren says "there is no need to change the universal, historical defintion of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population." As Warren puts it: "This is not a political issue -- it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about."

He urges people to vote "yes" on Proposition 8 on November 4 to preserve the biblical definition of marriage.

UPDATE: Via Sarah Posner, here's the video of Warren's endorsement

Fred Barnes is dismayed that the first two presidential debates have been so boring and uninformative and wishes that, instead of taking about the economy, healthcare, and the war, they would focus more on the social and wedge issues that the Right loves  … kind of like the faith forum hosted by Rick Warren back in August: 

Oddly enough, it wasn’t a journalist who staged the best debate between McCain and Obama. It was an ordained minister, Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California, the author of best-selling The Purpose-Driven Life. In separate sessions, he asked the same questions, first of McCain, then of Obama.

Their answers gave voters a far better idea of what makes the two candidates tick than all the policy-reality questions asked in the two official presidential debates and one vice presidential debate.

What did Warren ask? Questions like, who is the wisest person you know and do you listen to that person? And what is your greatest moral failure and what is America’s.

Here are more Warren questions: What have you changed your mind on? What was your toughest decision? What does your faith and your trust in Jesus Christ mean to you on a daily basis? When does life begin? What’s your definition of marriage? Does evil exist? What is worth sacrificing American lives for? How do you define “rich”? What would you do as president for the millions of orphans in the world?

In an hour with each candidate, Warren managed to draw more out of McCain and Obama than either Brokaw did last night or Jim Lehrer did in the first presidential debate. There’s a lesson in that that the media professionals would be wise to learn.

Apparently it is the purpose of presidential debates is to skew the issues to focus on those that help McCain rally his base.  Heck, why not just have Warren moderate them all? Maybe he could offer to personally pray with McCain, like he’s done with Sarah Palin.  Or better yet, why not just have James Dobson moderate the debates? After all, the only real difference between the two, as Warren admits, is tone.

Via the God-O-Meter, we learn that Rick Warren and Sarah Palin have been playing phone tag:  

Pastor Rick Warren got a call from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) this week seeking help in dealing with the "unfair, unjust attacks" the GOP vice presidential candidate believes she has come under.

On a Los Angeles radio show, co-host Kathryn Milofsky asked Warren what one question he would direct at Palin if he was able to have her sit down for a forum like the one he hosted last month with John McCain and Barack Obama at his Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California.

"Well actually she called me yesterday," Warren said. "The question I asked her was 'how can I pray for you?'"

Warren said that Palin then "asked me to send her some bible verses on how do you deal with the unfair, unjust attacks and the mean-spirited criticism that comes in."

…

UPDATE: Palin's camp calls to say that the Alaska Gov. was returning Warren's call. According a Palin spokeswoman, Warren called her on Saturday September 6 and she returned his call on Monday September 8. The Monday phone call is when the above conversation described by Warren took place.

That would be the same Rick Warren who once contemplated becoming the next Jerry Falwell but then decided he’d have more success pretending to be a moderate with no political agenda; one who just happens to believe that all presidential candidates must believe in God and says that main difference between himself and James Dobson is “a matter of tone.“

So it’s no wonder he’d jump at the chance to reach out to Palin.

We’ve written a few posts recently arguing that the main difference between Rick Warren and the more traditional right-wing figures like James Dobson is primarily tone.  While Warren talks a great deal about expanding the evangelical agenda to cover issues such as the environment and poverty, that agenda is founded on the standard anti-gay, anti-abortion ideology.

As Warren himself regularly points out, “people think because I’m trying to expand the agenda that I’ve left the prior agenda. I have not.”  And that agenda, as he spelled out explicitly in his 2004 pre-election email, comes directly out of the right-wing playbook:

But for those of us who accept the Bible as God's Word and know that God has a unique, sovereign purpose for every life, I believe there are 5 issues that are non-negotiable. To me, they're not even debatable because God's Word is clear on these issues. In order to live a purpose-driven life - to affirm what God has clearly stated about his purpose for every person he creates - we must take a stand by finding out what the candidates believe about these five issues, and then vote accordingly.

Here are five questions to ask when considering who to vote for in this election:

1. What does each candidate believe about abortion and protecting the lives of unborn children?

2. What does each candidate believe about using unborn babies for stem-cell harvesting?

3. What does each candidate believe about homosexual marriage?

4. What does each candidate believe about human cloning?

5. What does each candidate believe about euthanasia - the killing of elderly and invalids?

Around that time, Warren was poised to become the nation’s new Jerry Falwell, but chose a more moderate seeming path in an effort to broaden his reach without, of course, moderating his agenda.  And so he continues to sell his right-wing views while hiding behind a veil of moderation and civility. 

At least that is what he was doing heading into his faith forum last weekend – now that it’s over, it looks like Warren has all but given up the even pretending:   

'Overhyped." That's how the Rev. Rick Warren describes the notion that the evangelical vote is "up for grabs" in this election. But what about the significance of the evangelical left, I asked the pastor of Saddleback Church after his forum with the presidential candidates last weekend. "This big," he says, holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

Sitting on a small stone patio outside the church's "green room," I question him further -- has he heard that the Democratic Party is changing its abortion platform? "Window dressing," he replies. "Too little, too late." But Rev. Jim Wallis, the self-described progressive evangelical, has been saying that the change is a big victory. "Jim Wallis is a spokesman for the Democratic Party," Mr. Warren responds dismissively. "His book reads like the party platform."

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[T]here is a misunderstanding by the media, says Mr. Warren. "A lot of people hear [about a broader agenda] and they think, 'Oh, evangelicals are giving up on believing that life begins at conception,'" he explains. "They're not giving up on that at all. Not at all."

Democrats might want to keep this in mind next week as their convention tries to welcome this "new breed" of religious folks. And as for the notion that younger evangelicals are ready for rebellion against their parents' ideals, Mr. Warren cites polls showing that the younger evangelical generation is even more concerned about abortion than the older one. After the Sunday morning service at Saddleback last weekend, I interviewed 15 random attendees. Only two were Obama supporters, one of whom was a British guy on holiday. Almost all of the remaining congregants mentioned abortion as the most significant issue affecting their vote in November.

So why is most of the press under the impression that Rick Warren, a Southern Baptist, is so different from, say, Focus on the Family president James Dobson? "It's a matter of tone," says an amused Mr. Warren, who seems unable to name any particular theological issues on which he and Mr. Dobson disagree.

While Rick Warren is often portrayed as something of a poster-boy for a new, more moderate evangelical movement, his statements and views are closely aligned with the Religious Right's traditional agenda. And that was on full display when he appeared on Larry King Live on Monday to discuss the faith forum he recently hosted with Barack Obama and John McCain and declared that anyone running for president must believe in God and that while he could vote for someone of a different religion, he couldn't "vote for a person who was an atheist":

KING: Rick Warren is our guest. Rick, let me ask you a couple of Rick Warren questions. OK?

WARREN: OK.

KING: Does a person have to believe in god to be president?

WARREN: I would say so. I couldn't vote for a person who was an atheist, because I would think -- I think the presidency is a job too big for one person. I would think there's a little arrogance that says, I don't need anybody else. I could vote for someone of different religions than mine, but I don't know that I could personally vote for somebody who denies that we need somebody greater than ourselves to help us.

The emerging right-wing narrative coming out of Saturday’s faith forum at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church is John McCain won in a landslide.   That is not particularly surprising – and neither is the fact that Religious Right leaders are now smitten with Rick Warren himself.  As Catholic Online put it, “at the Saddleback Forum, Pastor Rick Warren and Senator John McCain both took the Gold” and that seems to be a view widely shared by others on the right as well, such as FRC’s Tony Perkins:

Warren, who was urged to ask some weighty values questions, did not disappoint and drew some stark contrasts between the candidates on key issues …After the forum, I gave some of my perspective as part of CNN's pre- and post-panel discussion from Washington. As I saw it, there were two winners-Sen. John McCain and Pastor Rick Warren …As for Pastor Warren, who has been called the Billy Graham of this generation, he asked the right questions. Some have implied that Pastor Warren with his non-confrontational style is evidence that Evangelicals are moving to the Left. I would suggest he is evidence that Evangelicals are more involved and more committed than they were 25 or 30 years ago. If he is the new Billy Graham, and he certainly has similar favor with elected leaders of all political persuasions, there is a big contrast. Pastor Warren showed Saturday night that you can have a personal relationship with those in positions of power and still ask the hard questions.

Back during the heyday of Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, the candidate was being hailed as a “new breed” of evangelical, one who cared about issues like poverty and the environment in addition to traditional right-wing opposition to gays and abortion.  As we have noted before, one of the key misperceptions about this so-called new movement is that its purported concern about issues beyond the standard Religious Right agenda does not mean that they are any more moderate on the core anti-gay, anti-abortion agenda that have driven the Right for the last several decades. 

Heading into his faith forum over the weekend, Rick Warren was poised to emerge as the poster boy for this “new evangelical” movement – as Time Magazine put it:

A shift away from "sin issues" — like abortion and gay marriage — is reflected in Warren's approach to his coming sit-downs with the candidates. He says he is more interested in questions that he feels are "uniting," such as "poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights," and still more in civics-class topics like the candidates' understanding of the role of the Constitution. There will be no "Christian religion test," Warren insists. "I want what's good for everybody, not just what's good for me. Who's the best for the nation right now?"

At the beginning of Saturday night’s faith forum at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, Warren announced:

Now what I’ve decided is, to allow for proper comparison, I’m going to ask identical questions to each of these candidates so you can compare apples to apples.  Now, Senators Obama is going to go first.  We flipped a coin.  And we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence.

When McCain arrived on stage for his portion of the program, the two even joked about it, with McCain saying he had been “trying to hear through the wall.”

Obviously, since both candidates were going to be asked the exact same questions, there would be something of an advantage to the candidate going second, provided there was some way they could hear the questions in advance.  Supposedly, that was what the “cone of silence” we meant to prevent.  Of course, a “cone of silence” works best if the second candidate is actually in it:

Senator John McCain was not in a “cone of silence” on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California.

Members of the McCain campaign staff, who flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life.”

When asked about it, Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, responded with incredulity:  

“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.

At the New York Times reports:

The matter is of interest because Mr. McCain, who followed Mr. Obama’s hourlong appearance in the forum, was asked virtually the same questions as Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain’s performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied.

Of course, another explanation of why McCain’s answers might have been so smooth is because they were mostly the standard points he makes while on the campaign trail, such as his bogus claim that he opposed torture when asked to provide examples where he had bucked his own party, his vow to track Osama bin Laden to the “gates of hell,” and even going so far as to cite the need for offshore drilling when asked to identify a position on which his views have evolved. Likewise, his answers on questions regarding abortion, marriage and judges were the same as he’s been delivering throughout his campaign and he even trotted out his standard story about a prison guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand – a story which some are now questioning.   

And predictably, right-wing leaders are praising McCain for “winning” the forum and saying he has finally “closed the deal with evangelicals”:

Bishop Harry Jackson, Sr., Pastor of Hope Christian Church in Washington, D.C. and author of “The Black Contract with America on Moral Values,” added, “I think that Senator McCain closed the deal. I think he made a clear contract between himself and Barack Obama. Many evangelicals will vote for him.”

…

Bishop Jackson also chose McCain as the clear winner, “He got energy, he got obviously many more applauses from the people in the room...But, I say this with a caveat. I think he won – if he can continue with the kind of fervor and integration of issues and faith, I think that he may be on to a new high in his campaign. If he retreats to a place of not wanting to talk anymore about these kinds of things, I think it will not help him. So, tremendous win tonight. I think it's a new chapter. I hope it continues.”

All of which raises the question:  McCain didn’t say anything at the faith forum that he has not said repeatedly on the campaign trail and yet right-wing leaders and activists have been notoriously reluctant to support him, so why was simply repeating them in an event held in a church all that it took for him to finally “close the deal” with the Religious Right?  

Will John McCain and Barack Obama’s joint appearance next month at Saddleback Church be a friendly forum or a firing line? “Purpose Driven” megachurch pastor Rick Warren is a superstar among evangelicals, but he still drew heavy criticism from some Religious Right activists when he invited Obama (along with right-wing stalwart Sen. Sam Brownback) to a global AIDS conference at his church back in 2006.

“Why would Warren marry the moral equivalency of his pulpit - a sacred place of honor in evangelical tradition - to the inhumane, sick, and sinister evil that Obama has worked for as a legislator?” wrote Kevin McCullough, a radio talker now affiliated with the Family Research Council. “Obama's policies represent the antithesis of biblical ethics and morality,” complained Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council. “Having Senator Barack Obama speak on issues of social justice is like having a segregationist speak on civil rights,” said Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, who added that Warren “should realize the terrible signal he is sending by inviting a speaker who tramples on the historic teachings of Christianity and the Bible.”

But Saddleback Church defended that 2006 invitation, saying that the goal of the conference was “to put people together who normally won't even speak to each other” towards the goal of fighting AIDS. Although Warren retains positions against abortion and homosexuality, his emphasis on compassion and comity has been touted by some as a sign of a new evangelical politics.

As for the upcoming presidential forum, Warren seemed to suggest it will follow along the same lines. From the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow:

The author of The Purpose Driven Life says he does not believe the biblical gospel is compromised when he teams up with non-Christians in efforts to promote the "common good."

"Now, I don't happen to agree with Muslims and I don't happen to agree with Jewish people," states Warren, "and I don't even agree with all of the things Catholics believe. But I...can work with them on doing something like stopping AIDS because we all believe sex is for marriage only."

But what about issues where he doesn’t agree? Warren will be asking Obama and McCain questions about domestic policy, too, and the example he cited in OneNewsNow comes straight from right-wing talking points:

Warren says he plans to focus on issues that political reporters often ignore, including how the candidates view the Constitution. He suggests questions on that topic: "Is it a quote 'living document' that can be changed, that can be reinterpreted with each generation as things change? Or is it a truth written in granite that is a standard by which we evaluate everything else, and you don't change it unless we amend it?"

“They are related,” insists Jill Stanek after senator spoke at Rick Warren’s summit.

Peter LaBarbera, others call homosexuality “pink elephant” in AIDS room. Meanwhile: Christian Defense Coalition questions Rick Warren’s “commitment” to fighting abortion after Obama invitation.

Writing in the Washington Times, Gary Andres claims that old-school Right that has been represented by the so-called “Values Voters” crowd is no longer ascendant following the drubbing the GOP took in the last election.

Andres says there is “growing evidence suggests the ‘culture war’ is indeed changing, causing a wake that could jostle many vessels in the harbor of traditional American politics” and suggests that

As conservative Christianity — particularly as practiced among evangelicals — matures, many are beginning to ask other questions with broad political implications. What does it mean to live in a community? Who is my neighbor? These issues posed by [Rick] Warren, [Michael] Gerson and others signal a new direction for conservative Christians — a shift loaded with implications.

“The broadening evangelical agenda,” as Andres refers to it, certainly sounds promising – unfortunately, as we have noted before, the most politically influential right-wing leaders have long been opposed to attempts to broaden the Religious Right agenda and have openly complained that efforts to address issues such as poverty and the environment weakens their hold on “values voters.”  In fact, just this week, the incoming head of the Christian Coalition resigned because the organization refused to expand its agenda beyond opposition to homosexuality and abortion or give up its “partisan, Republican roots.”

Leaders such as Rick Warren might be trying to turn the movement in a “new direction,” but the Right’s old-guard is having none of it and is currently engaged in a campaign demonizing him for daring to invite Sen. Barack Obama to participate in the “Global Summit on AIDS and the Church.”

If anything, the recent electoral loss appears to have convinced right-wing leaders such as Vision America’s Rick Scarborough not of the need to broaden their agenda, but rather to fight even harder to push their current extremist agenda in order to mobilize their activists

We lost because the majority of Christians still stayed home. We lost because a growing number of Christians are practicing a dead faith … Many Christians meet on Sunday mornings and pray for revival, but when they have the chance to vote their stated convictions and effect positive change through the ballot box, they refuse. Their faith is therefore meaningless and void of life. Not until we address this tragic sin will America be restored.

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I believe what America needs today is a massive lobbying effort to get pastors to do what’s right.

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We need a massive Get Out the Pastor effort, where millions of pro-life activists lobby their pastors to do what’s right regarding same-sex marriage, abortion and other key moral issues.

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Now is the time to recognize where the real battle rages…in God’s Church. Now is the time for us to encourage the thousands of pastors who are standing strong and true, and to confront the ones who are not. Now is the time and -- with God’s help and your support -- Vision America will lead the charge.

Perhaps leaders such as Rich Warren will succeed in broadening the “evangelical agenda” to cover issues such as poverty and the environment – if so, it’ll only happen over the militant opposition of right-wing political powerhouses such as Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition, and Vision America.

Nov. 29: Update appended.

When it was recently announced that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) would speak at a global AIDS conference at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, radio talker Kevin McCullough was quick to denounce the partnership between the “evil” young senator and Warren, author of the best-selling “Purpose-Driven Life”:

In doing so he has joined himself with one of the smoothest politicians of our times, and also one whose wickedness in worldview contradicts nearly every tenant of the Christian faith that Warren professes.

So the question is, "why?"

Why would Warren marry the moral equivalency of his pulpit - a sacred place of honor in evangelical tradition - to the inhumane, sick, and sinister evil that Obama has worked for as a legislator?

According to McCullough, what makes Obama “a man who represents the views of Satan at worst or progressive anti-God liberals at best” is his position on abortion and his support of “the radical homosexual activist lobby.”

Obama, who in his keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention famously called for political ecumenism, will appear with far-right Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) to be tested for HIV on stage. But the spirit of bipartisanship in approaching issues, like AIDS, that cross the ideological divide is not enough to tamper the Right’s political efforts. Perhaps hoping to preempt a future presidential bid by Obama, right-wing leaders are coming out unusually strong against the AIDS Day appearance.