The Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, California held a political forum Saturday evening. This is nothing new for the mega-church founded by nationally-known Pastor Rick Warren.
Warren often delves into politics while claiming neutrality on the matter. Yet when it comes to his much-publicized forums at the Church, he has consistently invited speakers that are clearly Leftwing in their politics while virtually ignoring conservative political leaders.
For example, Warren invited Hillary Clinton to speak at an annual forum at the Church in 2006 and followed up with Barack Obama at the same forum in 2007.
Where are the speakers with a clear conservative Christian point of view?
On Saturday evening, Warren held a so-called 'civil forum' in which he acted as a moderator by posing questions to guests John McCain and Barack Obama, the two Presidential candidates.
But Warren received help and guidance in formulating those questions from the Leftwing group known as 'Faith in Public Life.' This group is loaded to the gills with extremist liberals.
And that's not all.
Warren's position on international affairs is clearly anti-Israel yet flies under the veneer of being an 'opportunity for dialogue between religions.'
While he claims he is simply following Jesus' command of showing compassion to the poor, Warren consistently supports government programs funded through tax dollars rather than emphasizing the simple Gospel message that each individual Christian is charged with the responsibility of caring for the poor individually and by personal choice.
This is a far cry from forced participation in government programs through taxation.
Nowhere in the Christian Gospel does Jesus anoint governments to be the instruments of service to the poor. But individual Christians both personally and collectively through their Churches are certainly admonished to do so. Service to the needy is a matter of individual initiative rather than government mandate.
As Dr. Walter E. Williams of George Mason University often says, 'For me to reach inside my pocket voluntarily to help the poor is a noble and worthy gesture. But for government to reach inside my pocket and take my money to do so is stealing and should be punished by law.'
Make no mistake, Rick Warren has an agenda, and it certainly isn't the standard evangelical model based upon the New Testament.
Although he is often referred to as 'the most powerful evangelical leader in America today,' Warren's vision has inflicted a dangerous, festering wound upon the Christian evangelical movement that has split the Church as never before.
At one time evangelicals were clear about certain things--abortion is wrong and politicians who support it are wrong; liberty does not mean we must place a muzzle on Christians in the marketplace, in the government, and in the schools in order to avoid 'offending' someone; as Christ has made us free so should we work for the freedom of all people, particularly from the shackles of oppressive governments--even our own; if lying is wrong then there is no adequate, moral defense of a politician who lies; if stealing is wrong then there is no justification for government doing it through the confiscation of personal property and funds from the citizens; and on and on I could go listing the basic convictions of the evangelical movement when it comes to politics.
Due to the fuzzy and vague views of leaders such as Warren, evangelicals have begun to exhibit
some shocking waffling on issues that were previously viewed as settled matters.
Rick Warren has not given the views of traditional Christianity and its concomitant conservative political agenda an adequate hearing at the Saddleback Community Church. And this is precisely why many Christians view him and his Church will great skepticism and suspicion.
For more information on this issue, click on the links below:
Gateway Pundit
Fox News
CNN
The Liberty Sphere--previous post 1
The Liberty Sphere--previous post 2
The Liberty Sphere--previous post 3
Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton at Saddleback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton at Saddleback. Show all posts
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Hillary Gets Standing Ovation at Evangelical Church
Hillary Rodham Clinton went to a major evangelical church on the west coast this week to deliver a speech, and received a standing ovation.
When one considers the church and its Pastor, it is easy to see why the candidate would receive such an overwhelming welcome.
Saddleback Community Church is not your normal evangelical church. In fact, you would never know it is a church at all except for the name. Visitors are treated to jazz and rock music upon entering the facility, which can hardly be called a 'sanctuary.' The minister has been known to deliver his 'talks' in shorts and a tee-shirt, or his signature wild-Hawaiian shirts.
The minister in question is Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book, The Purpose-Driven Life.
Warren is the founder of the Saddleback Church, which he claims is purely an evangelical enterprise that seeks to win over the non-church crowd in California. An ordained Southern Baptist minister who graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and who claims that Fundamentalist icon W.A. Criswell, long-time Pastor of the megachurch, First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, is his spiritual hero, Warren has nonetheless discarded most of the accoutrements of the evangelical Christian culture that Southwestern and Criswell held so dear. Warren claims his only goal is to reach people who are turned off by church.
And, to that end, he has been quite successful. The church is now one of the largest in the world. And most of the 'congregants' never cared much for the churchy stuff of which American evangelical Christianity is made.
Hence, everything is informal. There are dance routines, musical groups that sing the popular music one might hear on the radio, and there are no 'sermons' but talks that are geared toward the interests of the non-church suburbanites in California.
The controversy of the church does not stop with its methods, however. For the past two years Warren has made the controversial decision to invite two of the most liberal icons in American politics to speak at his annual AIDS conference.
Last year the special guest was Barack Obama. This year it was Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Warren's hero, W.A. Criswell, surely must be turning over in his grave. Criswell was an unabashed political conservative who made no secret of supporting Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. He was also known to deliver a zinger or two aimed at liberals in his sermons if he felt they had betrayed not only the Christian faith but the ideals of the Founders of the Republic.
Warren, on the other hand, embraces these liberals, and his congregants love it, as the standing ovations exhibit.
It is not clear as to Warren's true motives, his rhetoric notwithstanding. This is an election year, and we are in the middle of a campaign. To invite Clinton to speak at this particular time has a symbolic endorsement written all over it.
In case you are wondering, I have no use for the Rick Warren methodology. The fact that he tends to wrap himself in liberal politics only further raises my suspicions as to just how 'evangelical' he and his congregation actually are.
When I go to church, I want to feel like I have been to church and not to a bar. Yes, I have tried out these so-called 'seeker-friendly' type churches that are modeled after Warren's Saddleback experiment. I departed the building thinking that the only thing lacking in the experience were the drinks and the cocktail waitresses.
Spare me the informalities, the jazz music, and the 'hip-pop' culture. I can get that at the bar.
Oh, and if I had been in attendance at Warren's Hillary-fest, I would have stood up and booed at the end.
When one considers the church and its Pastor, it is easy to see why the candidate would receive such an overwhelming welcome.
Saddleback Community Church is not your normal evangelical church. In fact, you would never know it is a church at all except for the name. Visitors are treated to jazz and rock music upon entering the facility, which can hardly be called a 'sanctuary.' The minister has been known to deliver his 'talks' in shorts and a tee-shirt, or his signature wild-Hawaiian shirts.
The minister in question is Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book, The Purpose-Driven Life.
Warren is the founder of the Saddleback Church, which he claims is purely an evangelical enterprise that seeks to win over the non-church crowd in California. An ordained Southern Baptist minister who graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and who claims that Fundamentalist icon W.A. Criswell, long-time Pastor of the megachurch, First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, is his spiritual hero, Warren has nonetheless discarded most of the accoutrements of the evangelical Christian culture that Southwestern and Criswell held so dear. Warren claims his only goal is to reach people who are turned off by church.
And, to that end, he has been quite successful. The church is now one of the largest in the world. And most of the 'congregants' never cared much for the churchy stuff of which American evangelical Christianity is made.
Hence, everything is informal. There are dance routines, musical groups that sing the popular music one might hear on the radio, and there are no 'sermons' but talks that are geared toward the interests of the non-church suburbanites in California.
The controversy of the church does not stop with its methods, however. For the past two years Warren has made the controversial decision to invite two of the most liberal icons in American politics to speak at his annual AIDS conference.
Last year the special guest was Barack Obama. This year it was Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Warren's hero, W.A. Criswell, surely must be turning over in his grave. Criswell was an unabashed political conservative who made no secret of supporting Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. He was also known to deliver a zinger or two aimed at liberals in his sermons if he felt they had betrayed not only the Christian faith but the ideals of the Founders of the Republic.
Warren, on the other hand, embraces these liberals, and his congregants love it, as the standing ovations exhibit.
It is not clear as to Warren's true motives, his rhetoric notwithstanding. This is an election year, and we are in the middle of a campaign. To invite Clinton to speak at this particular time has a symbolic endorsement written all over it.
In case you are wondering, I have no use for the Rick Warren methodology. The fact that he tends to wrap himself in liberal politics only further raises my suspicions as to just how 'evangelical' he and his congregation actually are.
When I go to church, I want to feel like I have been to church and not to a bar. Yes, I have tried out these so-called 'seeker-friendly' type churches that are modeled after Warren's Saddleback experiment. I departed the building thinking that the only thing lacking in the experience were the drinks and the cocktail waitresses.
Spare me the informalities, the jazz music, and the 'hip-pop' culture. I can get that at the bar.
Oh, and if I had been in attendance at Warren's Hillary-fest, I would have stood up and booed at the end.
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