Tag: Rick Warren

Jan 20 2009

Rick Warren, This May Be Jesus Talking

(Emphasis mine)


Source

Yet in the media’s Bush propaganda wing, Fox was still Fox. Bill O’Reilly, deaf and blind to the obvious class implications of the pre-flood exodus, speculated, “A lot of the people who stayed wanted to do this destruction” and wondered why “looters” were not being shot on sight. Indeed, aside from the surprisingly passionate Shephard Smith, much of Fox’s reporting could have been datelined “Neverland.” Neil Cavuto brought in Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, to advise those who’d lost everything to “play it down and pray it up.”

Dec 21 2008

On Dialogue with Oogedy-Boogedy Bigots

President-elect Barack Obama’s invitation to Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation on January 20th deserves something other than just a visceral negative reaction. Warren’s pre-scientific, homophobic views and his church’s exclusion of gays and lesbians from membership have understandably created an uproar of criticism from the progressive community. But we need to reflect not merely on Obama’s tactic for his inaugural ceremony, but on his long-term political strategy.

First, the numbers: in the 2008 elections exit polls suggested that evangelicals made up 23 to 26 percent of all voters. Barack Obama was the choice of 25 to 26 percent of those evangelicals. Here is an interesting map of the evangelical voting breakdown state-by-state. Note the wide variation in Obama’s evangelical totals: in Iowa and MInnesota he even managed to garner 38 percent of the evangelical vote; in Mississippi, only 9 percent.

How can we expect Obama to deal with the evangelicals during the next four years? Let us ponder the question below the break.

(X-posted at Big Orange.)

Aug 18 2008

I’m Going To Hell

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Pardon me.  I’m not a Christian.  Never was, never will be.  I don’t believe that Jesus was the messiah, that he died for my sins.  I don’t have a personal relationship with him.  I haven’t been saved.  Or redeemed.  I haven’t been re-born.  I don’t believe the Bible is the literal word of God.  And I was simply and utterly infuriated that both the presumptive presidential nominees decided to attend Rev. Rick Warren’s forum so they could show him and his many co-religionists that they were, well, just like them.  That they were all good, moral Christians, and they all believed very much in a particular kind of Christianity, and that they were willing to prove it.  I was outraged that they decided to make a spectacle of their “faith.”  But I was even more outraged that they would seek to prove they had the right kind of faith to this particular audience.

That’s right, prove it.  They weren’t going to refuse the invitation.  They weren’t going to say, “I’m sorry, but what I believe is private.  It’s between me and my God.  I am not willing publicly to discuss theology.”  They weren’t going to say, “I’m sorry, I believe in the separation of church and state, and, therefore, I consider this mega church to be an inappropriate setting for a political discussion about secular, political matters.”  They weren’t going to say, “I’m sorry, I’m a very good person, but I don’t believe the same things you say I should believe.  I’m nevertheless scrupulously honest and moral.”  They weren’t going to say, “You’re free to think about these issues any way you wish, but I don’t want to discuss how my religious beliefs might be related to my policy positions.  My policy positions stand on their own merit.”  No.  No chance.  The candidates decided to show up, and they blatantly pandered to these right wing evangelicals.  To gain their approval, to gain their votes.

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