Let me begin by being honest and saying I am no fan of Rick Warren. However, though my personal opinion is against the methodologies he has chosen as a preacher, I believe he will be in heaven with me nonetheless. Therefore, when I see him being treated as he is in the media right now I stop and take a look to see just what it is that’s going on.
For those of you who may not yet have heard, Pastor Warren has been selected by President-elect Barack Obama to deliver the invocation at his January inauguration. This has caused a major backlash in liberal democratic circles with the reason given being Warren’s unabashed stance against gay marriage, and in particular his endorsement of the successful California marriage amendment, Proposition 8. In the week-and-a-half since the announcement, the Warren debate has carried on all over the news world, including in a blog posting by Dr. Al Mohler which I found quite interesting.
All this said, I would probably not have posted on the issue had it not been for one set of commentaries that I came across. The articles I speak of are the two opinion pieces written on the issue by infamous (and supremely arrogant) anti-theist Christopher Hitchens (articles one and two). In these articles, especially the first, there are several things which stick out to me as being disconcerting not just for fans of Rick Warren, but for most consistent, knowledgeable American evangelicals. Here is a quote from the beginning of the first article:
[I]f someone publicly charges that “Mormonism is a cult,” it is impossible to say that the claim by itself is mistaken or untrue. However, if the speaker says that heaven is a real place but that you will not get there if you are Jewish, or that Mormonism is a cult and a false religion but that other churches and faiths are the genuine article, then you know that the bigot has spoken.
Hitchens continues on to call out Rick Warren for his own “bigoted” views in this respect, as well as to label former SBC president and influential preacher W.A. Criswell as a “dismal nutbag” (He bases this in part off of Criswell’s belief in dispensational premillennialism, which again, though I don’t agree with the theological view, I do not believe it condemnable).
This all is disconcerting for your everyday evangelical because the stances which Hitchens is decrying are not “crackpot” and unusual like he makes them seem, but instead are actually at the core of mainstream orthodoxy. The sinfulness of homosexual behaviors, the exclusivity of the gospel, and some sort of Christian eschatology are not radical views, at least not from a biblical standpoint, yet being firm and convicted in them has led to a typically well-liked evangelical being run through the crapper of media scrutiny. If that is what’s happening to Rick Warren, just imagine what may happen to a little old Bible-believing baptist minister who isn’t making millions of dollars a year, living in California and rolling with Presidential candidates. If Warren could so quickly fall out of favor, how much more danger are we in as common biblical Christians?
I dislike making dire pronouncements, and praying for the rapture isn’t my idea of our Christian mission, but I do not believe that we can ignore the animosity and distrust that is rapidly arising from the popular culture against orthodox Christianity. For many years, possibly half a century or so, tolerance has been cruising it’s way to the top of American social thought. But in the last few years we have seen a steady increase from disdain of Bible-based Christianity in America to outright anger towards it. Now with the election of a radically liberal president and the controlling powers of liberal politicians in Washington and in the media, the fields are ripe for persecution. Someone of Rick Warren’s stature, though it looks bad publicly, will most likely not feel a great effect from this recent uproar. However it is you and I, the common everyday, hard-working American evangelical, who are about to put all those Don’t Waste Your Life books to the test.
Posted by Todd Burus 
