logo

Rick Warren: An Evangelical that Progressives Can (Maybe) Be Okay With

By Saxon Baird - Aug 19th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

Over the last two weeks a number of publications have taken up the task at examining the anomaly that is evangelical pastor Rick Warren, who hosted the Saddleback Civil Forum, in which he publicly interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain, over the weekend. The most recent issue of The Economist declared him “the most powerful evangelical in America,” asking whether he might be the next Billy Graham. A recent article in Time proclaimed that “religion in America will never be the same” because of his influence. That piece goes on to note that Warren is unique because he has remained “conspicuously neutral on candidates,” while spending “the past few years positioning himself for… a role as a suprapolitical, supracreedal arbiter of public virtues and religious responsibilities.”

If you’re like me, you cringe at the word “evangelical.” Though I understand this is a bit of a caricature, I associate the term with Bush-loving conservatives and radical preachers proclaiming natural disasters as God’s will. However, my interest was piqued when I heard that the strange preacher who wears Hawaiian shirts and has done air-guitar moves on stage while singing “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix had brought together Obama and McCain to talk about faith at his Southern California-based Saddleback Church.

What I discovered was that Rick Warren isn’t really all that bad.

When compared to the likes of John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and the late Jerry Falwell, Warren seems like a breath of fresh air. Choosing to soft-pedal such contentious issues as abortion, Warren focuses on promoting a movement to mobilize a billion Christians to stop what he has identified as the “five global giants”: spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, poverty, disease, and illiteracy. He backs major initiatives to fight global warming. And, as a 2005 New Yorker article reported:

[Warren] and his wife, Kay, decided to reverse tithe, giving away ninety per cent of the tens of millions of dollars they earned from [his bestselling book] “The Purpose-Driven Life.” They sat down with gay community leaders to talk about fighting AIDS. Warren has made repeated trips to Africa. He has sent out volunteers to forty-seven countries around the world, test-piloting experiments in microfinance and H.I.V. prevention and medical education.

Warren represents a brand of evangelicalism more concerned with social issues than partisan politics. And he seems to respect the separation between church and state. As a recent Los Angeles Times article reported, in a letter to his congregation Warren admitted to receiving calls from three Republican and three Democratic candidates during the primaries, but they were looking more for spiritual counsel than a political leg up:

You know that I never endorse, nor campaign for, political candidates. Neither is it my role to give political advice. But I am a cultural observer and I do understand the unique stresses and responsibilities of public leadership, so I try to help leaders when asked.

Warren, who has had both Obama and Hillary Clinton appear at his Saddleback Church during events concerned with AIDS prevention, also tolerates diversity of opinion. Prior to the Forum, Warren stated that it was an attempt to introduce civility into public discourse and went on to say that both candidates “were very different in personality, in philosophy, in direction, in goals and in vision, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Admittedly, Warren won’t garnet much respect from staunchly secular progressives who believe that religion is the root of what is wrong with this country. And I realize that it is probably hard to disassociate evangelicalism from conservatism or the Republican party. Yet, as a recent E.J. Dionne, Jr. column about Warren reminds us, this is often a false assumption:

The notion that Christianity in general and evangelicalism in particular are by nature right-wing creeds has always been wrong. How can a faith built around a commitment to the poor and the vulnerable be seen as leading ineluctably to conservative political conclusions?

I certainly don’t agree with all of Warren’s political views. However, I do agree that it’s important to listen to those with whom you disagree, and I respect the social projects sponsored by Warren and his church. Furthermore, Warren seems to keep his political views to himself to such an extent that he comes across as a non-polarizing figure, someone who could appeal to those on both sides of the political spectrum. Regardless of your stance on or belief on Christianity, it is certainly an influential force in America. And as long as the evangelicals are around, we should hope for more like Warren.

Tags: Christianity, politics, religion, religious right, Rick Warren