Posted on 08/16/2008 11:59:35 AM PDT by XR7
LAKE FOREST, Calif. — When John McCain and Barack Obama appear on the same stage today, they will vividly demonstrate the reach that has made the Rev. Rick Warren among the most significant evangelists of his generation.
He's a megastar who leads the nation's fourth-largest church and reaches thousands of ministers through the Internet and crusades against poverty and AIDS. That globe-trotting work and his successful book — "The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?" — puts him at the vanguard of a movement that inspires young, socially conscious Christians.
But his willingness to soft-pedal political issues once central to U.S. evangelicals, such as opposition to abortion, has opened him to criticism that he has strayed from his calling to spread the Gospel.
Today's forum also is a sign of religion's importance in the 2008 presidential campaign, and the emergence of a new style of evangelical leadership on the national stage that is not tied to a single party and has broadened its social agenda beyond that of the religious right.
"This is absolutely a changing of the guard, and it suggests that the new guard of the evangelical movement is able to generate the attention and focus of both parties," said D. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University and author of "Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite."
Warren personally invited the two candidates — "friends of mine" — via their cellphones. His event at the Saddleback Church will be broadcast live on CNN and Fox News Channel and streamed on the Web. It has among its aims "helping the church regain credibility and encouraging our society to return to civility," he said.
It's likely that fans and critics will be watching closely...
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Why do you think he signed the Global Warming initiative in 2006? Or for that matter, the anti-torture initiative also in 2006?
Does it concern you at all that your pastor is willing to publicly speak out against the water-boarding of three mass murdering islamists, but refuses to utter a peep about the 1,500 infants who are butchered in this country every day?
Ask yourself why Mr. Warren believes speaking out for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s civil rights is somehow less “divisive” than speaking out for unborn children.
There are plenty of baptist preachers who have attended SW Bapt Sem in Dallas with Warren. I believe the Huckster did too, but I can’t say correctly.
The biggest problem with RW, (and the one that most conservative pastors who took on his pd program should have realized) is that RW’s PhD is from Fuller. It is a new age seminary.
At our local supposed “Baptist” Div. School there is a Fuller grad on staff who is teaching “Feminist Theology”.
Go figure that one.
It will be, without a doubt.
Warren is compared to Billy Graham, but Billy has NEVER been given the same reverence that RW has.
Billy has never sold books like RW has.
Billy is faithful to Jesus and the Bible. RW is faithful to his own purpose-driven agenda.
Remember too that Warren gave the O his speaking engagement back in 2006 for the Aids conf.
That conference was held something like two weeks after RW’s visit to Syria.
Remember that visit.....Warren wore a coat and tie to visit that country’s leader. How often do you see him dress that reverently???????
It would be more accurate in my opinion to say that Cass is just plain wrong.
CBF pushes women preachers, the social gospel, and approves of gay marriage. The cbf churches are declining in membership. surprise.
Both left-wing initiatives came out in 2006 and assisted the democrats greatly that November by specifically targeting traditional GOP voters. Warren was the most visible "religious leader" in both causes.
I wonder what kind of work Rick Warren would do if he had to work for a living
"It's a moderate country, and the official government rule and position is to not allow any extremism of any kind."
"No extremism of any kind"... the country where Hizballah is based.
This is a very dangerous man.
“Pray for our Country and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” ~ Ladycalif
Good advice.
Also pray that “we the people” will make the effort to be accurately informed in order to have the discernment to vote for worthy leaders to represent us in all levels of government:
Jonah Goldberg cites a survey from 1987, indicating that 45% of adult respondents thought that the phrase “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” a quote from Karl Marx was in the Constitution.
April 24, 2007
JONAH GOLDBERG
The will of the uninformed
Pundits and politicians love to be on the side of the people, even if the people don’t have a clue.
HUGE NUMBERS of Americans don’t know jack about their government or politics. According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 31% of Americans don’t know who the vice president is, fewer than half are aware that Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House, a mere 29% can identify “Scooter” Libby as the convicted former chief of staff of the vice president, and only 15% can name Harry Reid when asked who is the Senate majority leader.
Also last week, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that two-thirds of Americans believe that Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales’ firing of eight U.S. attorneys was “politically motivated.”
So, we are supposed to believe that two-thirds of Americans have studied the details of the U.S. attorney firings and come to an informed conclusion that they were politically motivated even when Senate Democrats agree that there is no actual evidence that Gonzales did anything improper. Are these the same people who couldn’t pick Pelosi out of a lineup? Or the 85% who couldn’t name the Senate majority leader? Are we to imagine that the 31% of the electorate who still after seven years of headlines and demonization can’t identify the vice president of the United States nonetheless have a studied opinion on the firing of New Mexico U.S. Atty. David Iglesias?
Oh, before we proceed, let me make clear: This isn’t a column defending Gonzales. This administration should have long ago sent him out of the bunker for a coffee-and-doughnut run and then changed the locks.
No, this is a column about how confused and at times idiotic the United States is about polls, public opinion and, well, democracy itself. We all love to tout the glories of democracy and denounce politicians who just follow the polls. Well, guess which politicians follow the polls? The popular ones, that’s who.
And guess why: Because the popular ones get elected. Bucking public opinion is the quickest way for a politician to expedite his or her transition to the private sector.
More to the point, Americans God bless ‘em are often quite ignorant about the stuff politicians and pundits think matters most. They may know piles about their own professions, hobbies and personal interests, but when it comes to basic civics, they just get their clocks cleaned on Fox’s “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”
Though examples are depressingly unnecessary, here are two of my favorites over the years. In 1987, 45% of adult respondents to one survey answered that the phrase “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” was in the Constitution (in fact, it’s a quote from Karl Marx). Then, in 1991, an American Bar Assn. study reported that a third of Americans did not know what the Bill of Rights was.
That the public mood is a poor compass for guiding the ship of state is an old lament. Here are two reasons why.
The first has to do with the laziness, spinelessness and vanity of political elites. Citing polls as proof you’re on the right side of an argument is often a symptom of intellectual cowardice. If the crowd says 2+2=7, that’s no reason to invoke the authority of the crowd. But pundits and pols know that if they align themselves with the latest Gallup findings, they don’t have to defend their position on the merits because “the people” are always right. Such is the seductiveness of populism. It means never being wrong. “The people of Nebraska are for free silver, and I am for free silver,” proclaimed William Jennings Bryan. “I will look up the arguments later.”
Which brings us to ideology. The days when politicians would actually defend small-r republicanism are gone. The answer to every problem in our democracy seems to be more democracy, as if any alternative spells more tyranny. Indeed, once more the “forces of progress” are trying to destroy the electoral college in the name of democracy. Their beachhead is Maryland, which was the first to approve an interstate compact promising its electors to whichever presidential candidate wins the national popular vote.
If these progressives have their way, we’ll soon see candidates ignoring small states and rural areas entirely because democracy means going where the votes are. The old notion that this is a republic in which minority communities have a say will suffer perhaps the final, fatal blow.
But that’s OK, because 70% of Americans say they’re for getting rid of the electoral college. And Lord knows, they must be right.
More:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2042332/posts?page=7#7
Andrea Mitchell is easily offended.
Except by rapists...
Unfortunately, many people, even baptists do not know the difference.
Shame on all of them. If Warren is truly a Christian he should never have asked Obama and McCain should never have agreed to appear with either one of them.
LOL— precious...
so this is a media stunt... not an actual Christian- where are ya- Forum....
I am so not surprised
TOUGH QUESTIONS!
lol
It deserves a great big barf alert.
yea, Osama Obama Hussein is looking like a Bulldozer ran over him getting off that “Vacation Plane” alone. Sure looks like he wasn’t in receipt of any “Mile High Treats” from the Mrs. Hussein at vacation’s end. Maybe he found out he couldn’t pay off anybody enough to get a “legal Birth Certificate!” Do you think Michelle ma belle did a Lorana Bobbitt on The Messiah, do You?
Sounds like you might need a new church.
bttt
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