Rick Warren Pandering to Liberals
Rick Warren, in the interview, “Myths of the Modern Mega-Church” (Monday, May 23, 2005), shows that he is ashamed to be a conservative Christian, and that he doesn’t take doctrine seriously. He is more concerned with good works, and with impressing intellectuals. He won’t deny the Bible entirely, but he will retreat into the defence that these are just his personal beliefs, and the most important ones to him are the ones that won’t offend liberals. He won’t attack liberals, but it isn’t out of pure tolerance— he will attack conservatives.
Today there really aren’t that many Fundamentalists left; I don’t know if you know that or not, but they are such a minority; there aren’t that many Fundamentalists left in America….
…all the smart people I know are now working in local churches. They’re moving there and the power is moving back to the local congregations. Regardless of size, they just happen to be there. And as a result, the pastors and the priests and the ministers of these churches are, I think, gaining a larger voice. And that’s why, by the way, the religious right does not represent evangelicalism. I’m not a part of the religious right and I don’t know any of my friends who are part of the religious right. It’s a portion, but it’s like when you take the elephant and you’ve got the nine blind men and one says it looks like a tail and one says it looks like something else — you know, it’s what you’re grabbing onto at the time. And a part of that is because the religious right has tended to limit the number of items on the agenda to three or four social issues and missed a bunch of others. …
And we’ve actually created what we call clinic-in-a-box, business-in-a-box, church-in-a-box, and we are using normal people, volunteers. When Jesus sent the disciples — this will be my last point — when Jesus sent the disciples into a village he said, “Find the man of peace.” And he said, ” When you find the man of peace you start working with that person , and if they respond to you, you work with them. If they don’t, you dust the dust off your shoes; you go to the next village.” Who’s the man of peace in any village — or it might be a woman of peace— who has the most respect, they’re open and they’re influential? They don’t have to be a Christian. In fact, they could be a Muslim, but they’re open and they’re influential and you work with them to attack the five giants. And that’s going to bring the second Reformation.
Well, in the first place, I do not believe it’s healthy for any one party to be co-opted by any one particular thing. I don’t think that’s healthy at all. I am an American; I believe in pluralism, and I don’t think we need a God party. I really don’t believe that at all. In fact, notice in my definition of evangelicals I didn’t say anything about political views — I mentioned what evangelicals believe about Jesus and the Bible, but I could show you evangelicals who believe the exact opposite thing politically in my own church. Now, I’m in Orange County; what do you expect? But I’ll just tell you, I am not interested in any policymaking, but as a pastor I minister to politicians on both sides of the aisle, including this last year both the president and John Kerry. Both of them.
And so, I’m not interested in trying to play policymaker; I’m trying to play pastor, which means asking questions like “How’s your life doing?” In my own church I would imagine almost none of those people — maybe 15 percent– voted for Kerry.
Well, I think Jim Wallis proves the exact point I just made, that there are evangelicals at opposite ends politically. I would say this: if you’re talking about what David said, where there are socially conservative values in terms of morality and more moderate values regarding the role of government, yes, there might be that. That’s definitely growing. And I would say this — I even mentioned earlier, one of the trends is evangelicals are finally coming back to the table and speaking out about the poor, the sick, the environment and other issues that they took off the table when they basically said, “We’re only going to care about moral issues — quote, ‘personal moral issues.’ ” Those other issues are moral issues too. The environment is a moral issue.
You know, 500 years ago, the first Reformation with Luther and then Calvin, was about beliefs. I think a new reformation is going to be about behavior. The first Reformation was about creeds; I think this one will be about deeds. I think the first one was about what the church believes; I think this one will be about what the church does.
The first Reformation actually split Christianity into dozens and then hundreds of different segments. I think this one is actually going to bring them together
I think, though, it’s what Augustine said: “In the essentials, unity; in the non-essentials, liberty ; and in all things, charity.” And I think that’s how evangelicals and Catholics can get together.
SARAH WILDMAN, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT: I’ll try to be quick, although I think my two or three questions are sort of unconnected. What about people who don’t have Jesus in their lives, if you could address that sort of generally, and then also, do you see this Reformation involving conversion? And then also, how do you see people responding to this in the wake of, say, the tsunami this year? How dose the purpose-driven life connect to natural disaster?
MR. WARREN: Before you go to the third, let me answer those two. First, on the answer to the first one, everybody is betting their life on something . Every one of you are betting your life on something. You’re all doing it. Every one of you are betting your life on something. I’m betting my life that Jesus was right when he said, “No one comes to the Father but by me.” Now, I may be wrong, but I’m betting my life that he knew more about it than I do. And that’s all I can say.
On the other issue, on the Tsunami, …
Life is not fair. The Bible doesn’t say it’s fair. In fact, it’s very unfair. And that’s why I happen to believe in an afterlife. If Hitler doesn’t get his just rewards, then life is not fair. And there are a lot of things that are not fair in this world.
Now the word “fundamentalist” actually comes from a document in the 1920s called the Five Fundamentals of the Faith. And it is a very legalistic, narrow view of Christianity, and when I say there are very few fundamentalists, I mean in the sense that they are all actually called fundamentalist churches, and those would be quite small. There are no large ones.
A lot of political issues are really what I call heart projection. That is, in the book, I talk about how we’re all wired different ways to care about different things. If we all cared about the same thing, a lot would get undone in the world. For instance, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t believe that the environment isn’t important, but some people really care about the environment —it’s like they’re rabid about it. Well, fine. I think it’s important to take care of the environment; it’s just not my passion. Some people are really rabid about protecting the rights of the unborn. I happen to believe the rights of the unborn need to be protected, but I’m just not rabid about it. I happen to be rabid about some other things. Why? Because we’re all passionate about different things.
Now, what happens is, when I force you to say you must feel as passionate as I do about this particular issue, whether you’re a believer or not, then that’s going to create political conflict.
I don’t accept gay marriage. I don’t think that a gay relationship is exactly what God wants in life. But I don’t think that homosexuality is the worst sin. The Bible says it’s not. The Bible says the worst sin is pride. Pride is what got Satan kicked out of heaven. The Bible says pride goes before destruction of the body and a haughty spirit before a fall. So, you know what? In looking at a hierarchy of evil, I would say homosexuality is not the worst sin. But I would also say homosexuality is not natural….
By the way, my wife and I had dinner at a gay couple’s home two weeks ago. So I’m not homophobic guy, okay? We had dinner with a gay couple because we are heavily involved in helping people infected and afflicted by AIDS and we’ve given millions to it. So I’m no homophobic guy. I just don’t believe it’s God’s will.
MS. EISNER: But, I mean, with all due respect, I belong to a tradition that contends that it’s been here for 5,760 years.
MR. WARREN: Well, if you’re Jewish, then you’re my cousin, okay?
MS. EISNER: But you may think that predicates a purpose in life, a belief in Jesus Christ, and a belief in an afterlife. If I don’t share those beliefs, I mean, where am I?
MR. WARREN: You know what? I believe I’m going to hell. I believe I’m going to hell if I don’t do what God tells me to do. And as I said earlier, I believe everybody’s betting their life on something —you’re betting your life that Jesus was wrong. I’m betting my life that he was right.
E.J. DIONNE JR., THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, what happens to those who – because that’s the question — who don’t make your bet? What is your belief about what happens to the people who don’t make your bet?
MR. WARREN: My belief is that people who don’t accept what Jesus said will end up where Jesus said they’d go. And if you have a problem with that, it’s not a problem with me. It’s a problem with what Jesus said. I believe to go to hell you have to do the impossible: you have to reject the love of God. I believe that God came to earth in a human form 2,000 years ago, that he split history into A.D. and B.C., that even if you don’t accept that Jesus was who he said he was, every time you write a date you use his life as a reference point – A.D. and B.C. And I believe that he came to earth because he wanted to show us what God is like.
I have a hard time relating to an impersonal force in the sky that’s like, “May the force be with you.” I need a God with skin on it. I need to see what it’s like — it’s kind of like for me to understand God without some kind of human form would be like an ant trying to understand the Internet.
I am firmly a cultural conservative. There is no doubt about that. I’m just more than the four issues that have been brought up — okay? In other words, I’m a right-to-life person. I’m very firm on that. I believe that everybody makes a decision on these issues based on their values. I happen to base my values on certain values that I get out of the scriptures. Other people base their values on some other beliefs. Everybody makes a value-based judgment.
MR. DIONNE:… how can you avoid politics — and I mean in the large sense; not just go to a convention and endorse candidates — but how can you avoid politics given the problems you care about, since in a sense your very criticism of Falwell and Robertson is itself in some sense political?…
MR. WARREN: Let me just say that I’m having the time of my life here — I live for this kind of discussion. Most of the time when I do interviews, I get the lamest questions. These are serious questions. I mean, you guys are really asking fundamentally important questions. And we don’t have to agree on it, but at least we’re talking about it. So I’m having a good time with this. Let me go back down the list, E.J. …
On the politics, let me say this — I think government is a noble profession; it’s just not my calling. I think it’s a noble profession. I was president every year in high school and senior class student body president and I actually intended to go into government — and when I was a sophomore in high school I got appointed to the Senate as a page. And I thought, this is going to be great. And I wanted to go make a career in government. That summer, I got a job as a lifeguard at a Christian camp —and that summer my personal conversion took place and I lost all interest in government. That’s the truth. And I just thought, I’m more interested in helping people change personally..
Now the four biggest reasons in my area why people didn’t go to church – here’s what they were: Number one, they said, “Sermons are boring and they don’t relate to my life.” So I decided I had to say something on Sunday that would help people on Monday. Number two, they said, “Members are unfriendly to visitors; I feel like it’s a clique.” Number three, they said, “Most churches seem more interested in your money than you as a person.” And number four, they said, “We want quality children’s programs for our children.”
Now it’s interesting to me that out of the four biggest reasons why people said they didn’t go to church, none of them were theological. They were all sociological. And I had people say, “Oh, it’s not that I don’t like God. I like God; I just can’t stand church.” I go, okay; we’ll build a whole new kind of church….
I’m just so tired of a huge movement called evangelicals being pigeon-holed into just four, primarily, personal moral issues when these issues are important, but they are not everything. And that’s why I emphasize what I’m passionate about. I’m passionate about the poor, I’m passionate about the sick, I’m passionate about the uneducated, I’m passionate that people know God the way I know him. I have a personal relationship with God. It’s not just a “religion”; it is the most meaningful thing in my life.