I forced myself to watch a talk this smarmy bastard gave at Saddleback on 12/20 to a Muslim group -- it was aired on CSPAN.
The whole thing was pretty much a commercial for his leadership training but, when he was talking about tithing and how he & his wife keep giving more and more he said,
"It's a way to get shake the hold materialism has on my wif -- life."Backing up a little, he has a story he tells about how he got involved with AIDs orphans. The way he tells it, his wife had breast cancer and one day, she read an article in a magazine and she got a "call". (When he talks about his wife's cancer, he shows no emotion at all, pays no attention at all to what that might have meant to her as a person -- it's just part of his rap.)
The story continues, she starts going to Africa a lot, (Africa, not any particular place) and one day, he decides to go with her. He asks to be taken to see a congregation and by miraculous accident, he's taken to see a community of 50 that are taking care of 25 orophans, and whose pastor claims the only training he's had is from
downloading Rick Warren's weekly sermons. This
community leader walks an hour and a half both ways to get the
Word of Rick.
* * *
So, I'm wondering what this "calling" to AIDs was in response to, i.e., what was Mrs. Rick up to before she got her "calling"? He also claims they give 90% of their income away. I'm wondering when he began to make that claim and how he figures the math and who he gives to besides Saddleback or its / his own projects.
The myth he's building is that God keeps rewarding him for giving away so much. But if you look at the details of his story, it seems a little more complicated and a little less God-centered than that. For example, he says he never wanted national attention but because his book is the most successful one AFTER THE BIBLE, he started getting a lot of attention and money. Of course, he asks God what to do with both. (I guess God told him to diversify from leadership to social issues moderates can agree to: AIDS is bad, poverty is bad, taking care of the environment is good. That God is pretty smart -- anticipating as he did the collapse of the conservative movement!).
Anyway, I'm looking for dish on the wife since she's been made a character in "his hero pattern".
Kay Warren says she was addicted to porn in her youth as an effect of a molestation at three. And she says she could warm up to AIDs in Africa because
it's not a gay disease.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=3983833&page=2