Rick Warren Invokes Hate
Rick Warren stands for several things that are destructive of progressive goals. For me, televangelism is an evil, and one I have suffered directly. It diverts particularly those who are alone and confused, and turns them to the uses of a cult group. The hate it uses to activate fundraising has traditionally been turned against progressives, and has particularly hit on abortion/women's rights and gay rights as unifiers of the 'flock'. His recent activities to lead a drive for Proposition 8 is an insult to the real Jesus Christ.
Proposition 8 was about denying gays the rights they are entitled to as American citizens for the reason that they do not have everyday sexual inclinations. Anyone who espouses this kind of measure may make any kind of qualifying statement about personal beliefs, but qualifications are specious: this is espousal of hatred.
Of course marriage in the Bible often was between a man and a woman and another woman, and then maybe several other women, depending on the ability of the particular patriarch to support others in his tents. There is no exact definition of marriage in the Bible. This whole argument sounds to me like we ought to live in the desert because that's what the biblical figures lived in. Of course, that's what the West is rapidly turning into, so maybe the televangelist sees divine will working its way in climate change. When he says we 'have to get along' he re-enters the door he just closed, verbally separating his own circle from those he disagrees with.
Rightwing religions have made the issue of gay bashing a uniting one, and fought against their rights. Proposition 8 is yet another instance of this activity. The depiction of the gay community as evil has been an activity that has appealed to 'church' people as no good works ever has. Any leader who chooses to lead in this direction is diverting his 'flock' from the good they could be promoting. While it unifies the 'flock' by giving it a purpose to serve, even more it serves as a great fundraising gimmick. Rick Warren is visibly making that a major function of his 'church'. Those funds are hardly being used for good works when they are directed against gays. Anyone who can cite any passage of the Bible that calls for uniting to make gays be what they are not, please let me know.
Waking up, getting online, and finding out that some one promoting recidivism and making his personal fortune off of it is going to be a featured speaker at Obama';s inauguration makes me really annoyed. I was excited about the inauguration, volunteered to assist with staffing it, and would have already bought my ticket except that I am working on getting the price down. A lot of us who comment and get together under the eschatonian family tent were getting together, as well as some of The Seminal group, while I am in the D.C. area. I'm not sure about that, now.
I got on the Obama/Biden website this morning, began a blog, and made this entry:
Televangelist Warren
By Ruth Calvo - Dec 18th, 2008 at 7:21 am EST
I am someone who has watched an aging elderly relative be drawn into the trap of trusting the godliness of a wealth-directed televangelist, Pat Robertson. She was enticed into giving all her extra cash and listening only to telephone communications from the organizations, rejecting news, family, and reason on the grounds that only the voice of Satan would oppose the healing graces from tidewater Virginia. This is a degrading end, and that relative now lives in a house that is falling down around her, desperately trying to believe she has followed the voice of god when that is not so, obviously.
Rick Warren is an insult to anyone rational, and I will bring extra shoes with me on the off chance I can get a good angle to heave one at him.
I understand there are other opinions on this, and hopefully I will always be able to have an open mind in all things. I keep up a dialogue with those I disagree with. I do, however, condemn those who take advantage of and live off of the weakminded. And my work for the Obama campaign is sullied, that my support has been used to elevate the kind that work against progressives and human rights.
Proposition 8 was about denying gays the rights they are entitled to as American citizens for the reason that they do not have everyday sexual inclinations. Anyone who espouses this kind of measure may make any kind of qualifying statement about personal beliefs, but qualifications are specious: this is espousal of hatred.
The pastor, known for having amicable relationships with people he disagrees with, explained that he is opposed to redefining marriage.
“For 5,000 years that term, marriage, has represented a man and a woman,” Warren said. “And so, even some of gay leaders like Al Rantel, KABC, and others, have said why would we redefine marriage?”
But everyone should be given respect regardless of their lifestyle, religious beliefs and any other beliefs, Warren added.
“I think we live in a pluralistic society where we have to get along with each other and show common grace to each other. But I just didn't believe in redefining marriage,” he said.
Of course marriage in the Bible often was between a man and a woman and another woman, and then maybe several other women, depending on the ability of the particular patriarch to support others in his tents. There is no exact definition of marriage in the Bible. This whole argument sounds to me like we ought to live in the desert because that's what the biblical figures lived in. Of course, that's what the West is rapidly turning into, so maybe the televangelist sees divine will working its way in climate change. When he says we 'have to get along' he re-enters the door he just closed, verbally separating his own circle from those he disagrees with.
Rightwing religions have made the issue of gay bashing a uniting one, and fought against their rights. Proposition 8 is yet another instance of this activity. The depiction of the gay community as evil has been an activity that has appealed to 'church' people as no good works ever has. Any leader who chooses to lead in this direction is diverting his 'flock' from the good they could be promoting. While it unifies the 'flock' by giving it a purpose to serve, even more it serves as a great fundraising gimmick. Rick Warren is visibly making that a major function of his 'church'. Those funds are hardly being used for good works when they are directed against gays. Anyone who can cite any passage of the Bible that calls for uniting to make gays be what they are not, please let me know.
Waking up, getting online, and finding out that some one promoting recidivism and making his personal fortune off of it is going to be a featured speaker at Obama';s inauguration makes me really annoyed. I was excited about the inauguration, volunteered to assist with staffing it, and would have already bought my ticket except that I am working on getting the price down. A lot of us who comment and get together under the eschatonian family tent were getting together, as well as some of The Seminal group, while I am in the D.C. area. I'm not sure about that, now.
I got on the Obama/Biden website this morning, began a blog, and made this entry:
Televangelist Warren
By Ruth Calvo - Dec 18th, 2008 at 7:21 am EST
I am someone who has watched an aging elderly relative be drawn into the trap of trusting the godliness of a wealth-directed televangelist, Pat Robertson. She was enticed into giving all her extra cash and listening only to telephone communications from the organizations, rejecting news, family, and reason on the grounds that only the voice of Satan would oppose the healing graces from tidewater Virginia. This is a degrading end, and that relative now lives in a house that is falling down around her, desperately trying to believe she has followed the voice of god when that is not so, obviously.
Rick Warren is an insult to anyone rational, and I will bring extra shoes with me on the off chance I can get a good angle to heave one at him.
I understand there are other opinions on this, and hopefully I will always be able to have an open mind in all things. I keep up a dialogue with those I disagree with. I do, however, condemn those who take advantage of and live off of the weakminded. And my work for the Obama campaign is sullied, that my support has been used to elevate the kind that work against progressives and human rights.
Labels: Election 2008, Gay Rights, Human Rights, Separation of Church and State
posted by Ruth at 9:00 AM
22 Comments:
He's the worst. I sincerely hope he gets pilloried at the Inauguration.
Should not be giving the invocation.
Good work, Ruth. I don't know if you saw yesterday, but NTodd (who I think is a massive jerk) tried to shut down any criticism yesterday at the Crack Den of this choice by Obama by saying we were all children.
You succinctly described why this is not a trivial matter and why this choice by Obama is so very disappointing. He had the whole nation of religious leaders to choose from and he chooses a charlatan from a warehouse church with a divisive and hateful message? What could Obama have been thinking? Perhaps this is Rahm Emmanuel's doing--after all, the Zionists and the evangelicals are bosom buddies. Until the rapture, that is...
--mothra
Well done, Ruth, thanks.
Appreciating your good comments. Once you've seen the evil this type does, the breed's true colors are obvious. This is the lowest con artist in existence.
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Thanks, Ruth. I'm so angry right now, I don't think I'll even watch the damned inauguration on the teevee.
Ruth,
You're certainly entitled to your anger about Rick Warren's views on Proposition 8, but to depict him as a money-grubbing televangelist is factually incorrect.
As mentioned in the Christian Post article that you yourself linked to above,
"Furthermore, neither wealth redistribution nor wealth monopolization is the answer to getting America out of the economic crisis, says Warren, who tithes 90 percent of his income."[Emphasis added]
How many politicians believe so strongly in government's ability to solve problems that they pay 90% of their income in taxes?
The problem with the campaign of Barack Obama for the presidency was that it was long on platitudes ("Yes, We Can!," "Change We Can Believe In", etc.) and short on specifics. As a result, he became a Rohrschach test; people read into his inspirational message whatever they wanted.
As a political conservative and an evangelical Christian, I'm pleasantly surprised, not only at Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaurguration (merely a symbolic gesture), but at many of his cabinet appointments which indicate that he's not the wide-eyed radical that many on both the Left and the Right perceived him to be. He's turning out to be much more of a centrist and a pragmatist.
Welcome to reality. Deal with it.
Taking 90% of an income which you completely determine does not impress me, sorry. The uses of the church treasury are unlimited, as well. From Daddy Grace on, I've seen the graft of those who live off the church. They are vultures, who teach their flocks to give to them instead of to good works. The weakminded are always drawn to those who claim that by following them a person can be blessed the easy way, without earning it.
Ruth, you're wrong again. Rick Warren doesn't "live off the church."
In the 07/20/2007 article, Affluent pastors use wealth differently: Some give back; others buy yachts, the following was reported:
"Warren said he and wife, Kay, looked to Scripture for answers. Like Osteen, Warren decided not to take a salary from the church. But he didn't stop there. He added up all the money the church had paid him over the past 25 years and gave it all back. So the 10 percent the Warrens now live on is 10 percent of the income Warren earns from book royalties and additional ventures."
"The Warrens have vowed never to change their lifestyle. They have lived in the same house for 16 years. Warren drives the same Ford truck he had before the book came out. And he owns the same two suits." [Emphasis added]
I'm sorry about your aging elderly relative being "drawn into the trap of trusting the godliness of a wealth-directed televangelist." I hate to admit it, but once was conned into contributing a small amount of money to Jimmy Swaggart's "ministry." Like you, I find those who "peddle the word of God for profit" (2 Corinthians 2:17) to be particularly despicable.
But if you really hope you "will always be able to have an open mind in all things" and are willing to "keep up a dialogue with those [you] disagree with," then I hope that you'll admit that you didn't do your homework when you accused Rick Warren of being a "wealth-directed televangelist."
Disagree with him on gay marriage if you must, but don't portray him as something he's not.
I still have two suits I had 16 years ago, and I can't get into them any more than Rick Warren could. I imagine his truck still runs pretty well, too, since I don't see him making his constant travels in it. It's nice to have all expenses paid, and be able to let a tax-free institution take care of them. When Rick Warren asks his church to give all its takings to good works, I'll see him as a better man.
Conservative evangelicals defending same: lizard people defending lizard people. Enough with them.
I wish Rick Warren would just butt out of the lives of the people. Those of us who are women, gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender do not need a well-fed, privileged, wealthy white heterosexual male who stands at a podium on Sundays and Wednesdays to the adulation of alleged worshippers of Jesus telling us how to live our lives.
Rick Warren wants to tell us who we can marry and whether or not we can control our own bodies. He doesn't live our lives, he should basically f*ck off.
And he doesn't fit in the suits he got 16 years ago. I bet he doesn't even wear them.
I understand there are other opinions on this, and hopefully I will always be able to have an open mind in all things. I keep up a dialogue with those I disagree with.
I'm not asking you to have an open mind about the issue of gay marriage. All I'm asking is for you to be honest enough to admit that you totally mischaracterized Rick Warren by calling him a "wealth-directed televangelist."
For some on the Left in general, and in the GLBT movement in particular, it's not enough to debate the issues. Those with an opposing point of view must be totally demonized, even to the point of fabricating things that simply don't agree with the facts.
I give you solid evidence that Rick Warren isn't as materialistic as you make him out to be, and you resort to argumentum ad hominem by calling him too fat to get into his old suits (which, by the way, he bought "before his book came out" - not 16 years ago). You then go on to accuse him of having "all expenses paid" by "a tax-free institution," without offering a shred of evidence to back it up.
I'm sorry, Ruth, but that doesn't sound very open minded to me.
'Solid evidence' appears to be promotional statements by Rick Warren, which I see no evidence of. Indeed, I thought I said I was the one who couldn't fit into my 16 year old suits, but not to quibble. He has rather obviously outgrown anything he was wearing before 1995, when his first big book was published, as I have. The use of church to support activities is assumed, as Rick Warren is traveling all over promoting his church, and if you have any evidence that he pays his own expenses while doing that, by all means, send it on. I repeat that if he were to direct his church to 'go, give all you have to the poor', I will be impressed.
For the curious Texan: There is a limit to what is appropriate for inclusion in the American political tent, and you know it. If Rick Warren had made remarks as anti-Semitic has he has anti-Gay, would he have been asked to take part in the inauguration in the name of inclusion? I think not. There are two minority groups left for which there is no real protection from bigotry, and they are the GLBT community and theological nonbelievers.
Waldenfrosch,
Can you give me a quote from Rick Warren that you think illustrates just how "anti-gay" he is?
P.S. I really like your screen name. Koennen Sie Deutsch? Vehstehen Sie was "Waldenfrosch" bedeutet?
Ruth you have covered the subject well. His words are hollow and upon exposure to real love, which is that that accepts one with no conditions, they crumble to dust, much like vampires are depicted do when exposed to light. To use all those millions of dollars to deprive a group of their rights is beyond understanding. He is not a true follower of the Jesus we are told about in the bible. Just because he holds his riches and says he peels off 90 percent of 25 million so what. It does not change that he sees himself as a righteous man. That makes him even more of what I maintain he is a charlatan but more to himself than to any of us who can see through his delusion. As a former Baptist preacher, I know that homosexuality is enough to get you cast forth, with Jesus in my heart, they cast me forth. It was hurtful and disrespectful. However I am so glad for it gave me a chance to find acceptance of myself.Warren's words kill the vulnerable youth who find themselves different and promote violence.
Remember Milk and Shepherd? Or how soon we forget. He is the same Ilk of Farwell and Robertson and the creep Dobson. He has brought religion where it does not belong and he has no decency.
Q: Who said this, and when did he say it?
"I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian -- for me -- for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union...I am not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage, but I do believe in civil unions."
A: Barack Obama at the Saddleback Presidential Candidates Forum on August 16, 2008 (nearly three months before the election). If you don't believe me, here's a link to the transcript. Please note that he also said the issue of gay marriage is up to the States (i.e. the people of California have spoken through Proposition 8).
Given that Obama made his position clear well before the election, why does it now surprise you that he would choose Rick Warren to give the invocation?
Also, where's the anger at the 73% of African-American voters in California who voted for Proposition 8?
sorry, curious, I know how it must feel to be taken in by promos. We do not any of us wish you anything but good. Needless to say, the ones who use promotion that hurts other people are the evildoers; those who are taken in by them are pitied.
Those who do good will promote the best for all. Good luck.
What about Melissa Etheridge? Unlike you, she's actually met Rick Warren. Here are some of her impressions:
"On the day of the conference I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn't want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife's struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine."
"When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future."
Is Melissa Etheridge to be pitied, too?
BTW, I've never met Rick Warren personally, but my wife has; she attended his church about 35 years ago when he was just starting out in the ministry. Her recollections are very similar to those of Melissa Etheridge.
It really is a shame that so many people that have actually met Rick Warren (gay as well as straight) have been "taken in" by him.
/sarcasm off
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