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Rick Warren: work in progress?
Jan. 01, 2009
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Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionWe’re in Pennsylvania for Christmas. Under the coffee table lies Rev. Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life, one of more than 25 million sold in the United States. Warren, selected by Barack Obama to deliver the inaugural invocation, is much in the news.
He backed California’s Proposition 8, a ballot measure banning gay marriage, arguing that “we should not allow 2 percent of the population [gays and lesbians] to change the definition of marriage.” He fueled the fire, comparing gay unions to the marriage of a brother and sister or to polygamous relationships. Meanwhile, he recently expressed some openness to the idea of civil unions and domestic partnerships.
None of this is discussed in The Purpose-Driven Life, nor is his support for measures to curb global warming and to fund antipoverty programs, or his opposition to abortion.
The “purpose” Warren writes of is not ours, but God’s. It is the individual’s responsibility to discover the life the Creator wants for him or her and then lead it. A little strong on the predestination for Catholic sensibilities, to be sure, but a useful guide for readers looking beyond their personal desires to something larger, something more, well, purposeful.
Warren told Beliefnet.com last month that he supported Proposition 8 primarily because without it clergy opposed to gay marriage would be subjected to charges of “hate speech.” This is a shallow argument -- public figures are objects of accusation all the time. And it’s fanciful to suggest, assuming Warren meant some penalty would be invoked, that both the free-exercise and free-speech clauses of the First Amendment could be so easily discarded.
Still, Warren’s latest anti-gay marriage rationale is based on amazingly narrow ground, less expansive than, for example, the Catholic church’s opposition to same-sex unions.
Most Americans oppose gay marriage. Barack Obama opposes gay marriage. No Catholic priest, at least one who accepts official church teaching on gay marriage, would be welcome to pray at Obama’s inauguration under the criteria established by Warren’s critics.
God, writes Warren, “deliberately chose your race, the color of your skin, your hair, and every other feature.” What about sexual orientation?
He doesn’t go there.
Warren seems like a lot of conservative American baby boomers -- trying to reconcile ideas of fairness with the treatment gays and lesbians are accorded under our laws and customs. He appears, in short, to be a work in progress.
Aren’t we all?
Joe Feuerherd is NCR publisher. His e-mail address is jfeuerherd@ncronline.org.
National Catholic Reporter January 9, 2009
While the people in power
While the people in power search their own souls the whole time worrying if their churches will maybe be hurt by no longer treating gay people as inferior, gay people really are getting hurt by the unjust attitudes and laws against them. Fortunately the US isn't as bad as Senegal anymore, but for God and goodness' sake, people should just do what's right and stop trying to force gay people away from loving each other. Gay people are not evil, and the interpretations of the Bible that suggest that are flat-out wrong.
TURN YOUR BACK TO WARREN,
TURN YOUR BACK TO WARREN, and kiss the partner of your choice through the Invocation
LOVE conquers H8
Progressives and LGBTs will decide what we accept, and what we DON'T.
Pay No Attention! While I
Pay No Attention!
While I agree with your sentiments, Mark, all the mainstream media will show is one or two folks doing some kind of protest action during Warren's invocation, and he will be able to make himself out to be some kind of "victim of intolerance." It plays right into his hand. The best thing to do is let the moment pass into the ether and not draw any more attention to the man who seems so much to crave it.
I don't know much about Mr
I don't know much about Mr Warren and I certainly cannot read hearts, however it should be remembered that objectively all of humanity has a vocation to holiness, without holiness there is no authentic Joy. Even in the depths of his torment on the cross, Christ is Joy! Christ is Being! Christ is Love! Truly a divine mystery. Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your divine love! Grace and Peace with prayers for all..
Excuse me, but what was that
Excuse me, but what was that all about? Is there something you really are trying to tell us that needs to be said or is this just a way to walk a line and show you are a thoughtful columnist? Bigotry and hate are wrong always but where is this being exposed? This is not a simple issue by any means and those that think it is simply don't have a clue. Bring this dimension out of the clouds to concrete realities that stir the passion of our souls. Do not try to force us into a political correctness where the pendulum swings far right and left. Right and wrong are not always on a list of do and don't do when it comes to our attitudes.
Thanks for the challenge of
Thanks for the challenge of this comment, Tom. I agree. The pundit/editorialist spin in the mainline media on this topic has been about Warren's political position on gay marriage not about his offensive and deeply disrespectful comments which have equated LGBT people with pedophiles and those persons that practice bestiality. It is beyond imagination that at the inaugural of our first African-American President such a person would be permitted to lead prayer. People who spew that kind of hate shouldn't be leading prayer anywhere. Mr. Allen and Mr. Obama appear to be on the same page as Mr. Warren: LGBT citizens are politically, and perhaps in other ways, expendable.
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