Posted on 02/09/2012 3:48:43 PM PST by NYer
LAKE FOREST, CALIFORNIA, February 9, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rick Warren, perhaps the nation’s most influential evangelical pastor, has tweeted he would “go to jail” rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates God’s commandments.
Pastor Rick Warren, pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, tweeted his defiance of the Obama administration’s requirements that religious institutions cover all forms of contraception, including abortifacients like Ella and the IUD, as part of their health care plans.
On Tuesday, Warren addressed the issue three times on his Twitter feed.
“I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a govement [sic.] mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29,” he wrote.
The second message quoted that verse of Scripture: “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name” The apostles replied “We must obey God rather than men!” Acts 5:29
Pastor Warren’s third tweet stated, “I’m not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers & sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure.”
Warren has been called “America’s most influential spiritual leader” and “America’s Pastor.” His 2002 book, The Purpose Driven Life, sold more than 30 million copies.
Warren’s words come as a particularly stinging indictment to Barack Obama, who chose Warren to give the invocation at his presidential inauguration in January 2009.
Warren’s comments come as part of a flurry of evangelical condemnation of the mandate, which goes into effect for religious institutions in 2013.
On Wednesday, Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and one of Time magazine’s “Twenty-five Most Influential Evangelicals in America,” told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the mandate.
“We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just like Dr. King wrote his from the Birmingham jail,” Dr. Land told LifeSiteNews.
Dr. Land urged all Southern Baptist pastors to “preach from the pulpit just how serious and dangerous this initiative by the Obama administration is,” and “encourage their parishioners to contact their congressmen and their senators and the president and let them know how deeply unhappy they are with this decision.”
Dr. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said evangelical Christians may be required to face imprisonment over the issue last Tuesday, announcing on his daily podcast, “You at least have to admire the courage of the Roman Catholic bishops in saying they are willing to go to jail rather than to comply with this. How many evangelical presidents and pastors and leaders would be willing to do the same?”
“We’re going to find out in coming months,” he warned.
Numerous Orthodox and Protestant churches have joined Roman Catholics in stating the provision, adopted as part of the president’s health care reform bill, violates religious liberty and undermines the First Amendment.Click “like” if you want to end abortion!
The man who has constantly played footsie with the Democrats has suddenly found his spine?
Sounds like a terrorist per Homeland Security, maybe I should ping my list. Janet will probably be happy to accomodate him. Hard to believe we’ve gotten here so quickly.
My guess is that a lot of these guys will find some weasel words somewhere and won’t go to jail over this.
re: The man who has constantly played footsie with the Democrats has suddenly found his spine?
I am glad he did. Meanwhile I do wonder why he found his spine. Afterall, to play footsie with the Democrats one has to ignore or condone a lot of unBiblical stands.
Baptist ping
I see Warren’s church, books, and speaking schedule must be taking some hits. He let 0bama’s answer on the point of conception ride.
There are consequences.
You mean like the graduated tax code?
"Thou shall not steal" Yet, people will vote so that government steals for them.
And who shall we steal from? From those who have what we covet. We look at those who have more than we do and decide it's ok to steal from them.
To justify that theft, we tell lies about those from whom we steal, (They are greedy, selfish and take from others, etc.) so we are socially justified to steal from them!
As it is, despite our stated philosophy of all being equal, our tax code discriminates and pits groups of Americans against one another and all for the lowest of reasons.
And does so in violation of at least 3 of the 10 Commandments.
But isn't that what you'd expect from DemonRats?
This guy is a fraud. He will cave.
Bozo is not subject to going to jail. Just fines designed to make his business stop providing health insurance so that everybody is forced into a government-run health insurance pool.
Them fleas kinda itch, don’t they Pastor Rick?
Maybe a DUI....but that's about it.
Can you feel me???
If we leave the Obamists in power, it will eventually come to this. We all need to be prepared for it.
Not just jail, but child custody fights, lawsuits that can bankrupt you, and when it happens you probably won’t have a lot of friends.
This may be the first thing he’s done that I can respect.
There is not gonna be any jail over this. Zer() is merely taking away from us something that he will selectively give back, in piece-meal fashion. Not only is he the food stamp president, but he is the waiver president as well. He takes away so that he can give back... especially in states he needs to win in November. I could possibly go further, and call this a rope-a-dope situation, but I don't know enough about Warren.
Rick Warren SHOULD go to jail for being an accessory to the crime of Obama’s destruction of our liberties. Three years ago, Warren gave his pulpit over to the Corrupter in Chief. Any pator who allows another in his pulpit is repsonsible for those who do speak in it.
Sure, no one can know everything a speaker will do thereafter. But, Warren was told by everyone, close friend to far acquaintance, that Obama would do exactly as he has done and plans to do. Since Warren disregarded them for the moment’s fame and popularity gain of allowing Obama to speak, he now needs to apologize for it, or we need to write icabod over the doors of Saddleback since their leader is a popularist who will not admit his faults.
Rick Warren’s EXCUSE MAKING for ABORTIONISTS suddenly NOW decides to be PRO-LIFE?
What happened? When he was yucking it up with Gore and Clinton giving them political cover for supporting the continued legalization of partial-birth abortion he seemed to want to trade ANY belief for “elbow rubbing” with Presidents.
RICK WARREN IS A FRAUD. A Wolf in sheep’s clothing. Maybe he should go back to meeting with dictators like Bashar and Kim Jung Ill. Or hosts Muslim clerics in his Church.
I wonder about people who are fooled by him. Or Obama.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.