Is Rick Warren Outing His Tolerant Self of Just Bluffing?

[question everything]

Is Rick Warren Outing His Tolerant Self of Just Bluffing?
Posted by Matt Coker in A Clockwork Orange
December 23, 2008 12:32 PM
The OC Weekly

The choice of Rick Warren as Barack Obama's inaugural invocation giver has apparently so touched the leader of Lake Forest's Saddleback Church that he has become The Most Tolerant Pastor Ever!!! He posed for a photo that has his arm around an openly gay guy at the Out of the Closet thrift store in West Hollywood. He met with Melissa Etheridge, apologizing for the way he vehemently supported Proposition 8 and agreeing to come to the home of the preeminent out lesbian songstress so he can meet her wife and kids. Now missing from his megachurch's website is this message that was there just days ago: "Because membership in a church is an outgrowth of accepting the Lordship and leadership of Jesus in one's life, someone unwilling to repent of their homosexual lifestyle would not be welcome at Saddleback."


(snip)

I would love nothing more than to hear Rick Warren overtly and publicly express his support for full legal recognition for same-sex couples at a state and federal level under any name. I would love for the fact that Saddleback Church decided to remove such divisive language from its website to be an indication that Warren is re-thinking his understanding of what it means to be gay or lesbian. But -- until I hear a clear, unambiguous statement from Rick Warren's own lips to this effect -- I am protecting my neck and keeping garlic and a wooden stake handy.

(snip)

The purpose-driven pastor's main purpose is to drive liberals crazy, Alan Bisbort writes in "Brokeback to Saddleback" for the Hartford Advocate. The Reverend Rick Warren wants us to lead "purpose-driven lives." We, of course, would love to do this, but every time we turn around some member of the clergy, like the Rev. Warren, is quite purposefully pissing on our leg -- metaphorically and metaphysically speaking, of course. Bisbort really gets going when he writes about Warren's Orange County base, "a bastion of extreme Republicanism whose last big gift to Washington D.C. was Rep. Robert 'B-1 Bob' Dornan.

Dornan's idea of a witticism was, "Don't use the word 'gay' unless it's an acronym for 'Got Aids Yet?'" Warren would make Dornan proud. Because he is on the fast track to becoming America's next Billy Graham -- the preacher who blesses the bombs -- Warren warrants closer scrutiny. His past statements seem to indicate that he holds some rather un-Christian attitudes toward, among others, homosexuals. He has equated homosexuality with child molestation and incest and he has been quoted as encouraging George W. Bush to "take out" foreign leaders who are "evil." Indeed, he all but advocated national policy in this exchange with Sean Hannity on Fox News: "The Bible says that evil cannot be negotiated with. It has to just be stopped ... that is the legitimate role of government. The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers. Not good-doers. Evildoers."

(snip)

Ironically, Warren is still fending off criticism from other evangelicals, who complain he backed Proposition 8 belatedly and unenthusiastically, that he was missing from stadium rallies Christian conservatives held to raise tens of millions of dollars for the ballot effort, that neither he nor his wife Kay donated any of their considerable fortune to the campaign. Indeed, Warren has dealt with the perception he is not conservative enough since began his climb to prominence in the 1980s. Scott Thumma, a professor at Connecticut's Hartford Seminary who researches megachurches and writes about the challenges for gay and lesbian Christians, tells the Associated Press' Rachel Zoll: "The comments from many of the evangelicals further to the right of him are often critical for his lax stance on their passionate issues."

Speaking of fundamentalist right outrage directed at Warren, check out this Orange County Register piece, where Pastor Wiley Drake of First Baptist Church of Buena Park says in an email of the Saddleback leader's "recent plan to invoke the presence of almighty God on this evil illegal alien" (Obama): "I pray He is kind to you in this punishment that is coming. . . .God will deal with you on this ... God will not wink at this."



http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/a-clockwork-orange/is-rick-warren-outing-his-tole/

[Recursion]

1. Well, you got one of those

I would love nothing more than to hear Rick Warren overtly and publicly express his support for full legal recognition for same-sex couples at a state and federal level under any name.

Done. He told Curry he supports civil unions that carry every legal benefit of marriage. Not good enough, but it's a start.

EDIT: He told Steve Waldman that, and unfortunately backpedaled in a later "clarification"

[Bolo Boffin]

6. "he supports civil unions that carry every legal benefit of marriage"

What the????

So if they get all the legal benefits of marriage, Warren is 100% behind gays, but if they call themselves married, they're like pedophiles and incest and off they go to hell, regardless?

His eyes must be brown from being that full of shit.

[Recursion]

8. I didn't say I understand it, I said he said it

He thinks the word "marriage" means "one man and one woman committing to a lifetime together" and nothing else. He also admitted to Curry it's hypocritical for a divorce-ridden Protestant community to spend so much energy on keeping the state from recognizing gay marriages, and compared it to how a fat preacher like him probably wouldn't spend as much time talking about obesity as he should.

but if they call themselves married, they're like pedophiles and incest

Not that this excuses it, but he has said he's sorry for making that comparison, and that he shouldn't have done it.

and off they go to hell, regardless?

That's a more subtle question than someone who hasn't studied theology might realize; the main bit I know about is when he got cornered into saying something like "Jews are going to hell". It reminded me a lot of when Cat Stevens got cornered into saying something like "Salman Rushdie should die"; both had an interviewer boxing them into making a short definitive statement about a complex and debate corner of doctrine.

Non-dispensationalist eschatology varies a lot. Dispensationalists believe in a New Jerusalem as an actual physical place to be created in the (near) future wherein Christians will live in their resurrected and "glorified" bodies. Non-dispensationalists tend to have a more "traditional" view of heaven as "another plane" or whatever where souls go. I honestly don't know much about Warren's own eschatology, having said that, but his "Purpose Driven Life" suggests to me he's a "the kingdom of God is within you and around you" kind of guys.

[Bolo Boffin]

11. Things are tense around here, aren't they? :)

I wasn't intending to slam on you at all there. Completely was going after Warren's hypocrisy. If anything made you think I was venting ire in your direction, I apologize.

Warren says a lot of things. His walk has been completely consistent, though. I'm going to need a lot more evidence of an about face before I calm down about this selection.

Take the "Jews going to hell" situation. This is how he should have handled it. He should have told the lady that if she stands before the Lord in judgment and the Lord ushers her into heaven, Rick Warren is not going to argue Scripture with the Lord. He preaches Jesus Christ as the only sure way to heaven, and if she rejects Jesus, Rick Warren doesn't have any other hope to offer her, but it's God Almighty on the throne that day and not Rick Warren.

But he didn't. He flat out told her hell and no other options. He does that a lot. He's got a different tune these days in public, now that all of this is coming out. But public protestation after exposure is the easiest thing in the world to do. I'll need some major verification of this change of heart.

[Luminous Animal]

9. Maybe there is another Curry interview

but I just read the transcript and he said no such thing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28298093/

[Recursion]

10. My mistake! It was with Steve Waldman

http://www.beliefnet.com/News/2008/12/Rick-Warren-Transcript.aspx?p=7

And I hadn't read his "clarifications" until today :(

[flyarm]

2. ahhh to quote LATIMES..

quote the L.A. Times : Warren doesn't just oppose gay marriage, he's compared it to incest and pedophilia. He doesn't just want to ban abortion, he's compared women who terminate pregnancies to Nazis

from the very pro-Obama L.A. Times: Speaking of Jews, Warren has publicly stated his belief that they will burn in hell...

sugar coat if you will..I will not!

enough said..

[gravity]

3. Warren seems to be covering his ass more than Obama on this

I don't know what to make of all this

[Hydra]

4. Nice. Warren will change his colors for a bit

And be back to square one once he gets what he wants. Good to know that we're getting pissed on by the best of them- it would be embarrassing to be shown up by a complete fool in a collar.

[earth mom]

5. Warren is so full of shit he's about to explode.

:puke:

[ColbertWatcher]

7. Bwahahahaha! That's funny! n/t