Rick Warren, Footnotes

Dear "Rick Warren" and Wannabe Saddlebackers Worldwide:

Notice this?

"Mississippi Paper Offers Apology for Its 'Gross Neglect' During Civil Rights Struggle"

...and, er... this?

"In an unprecedented gesture, Pope John Paul II on Sunday publicly asked God's forgiveness for the sins of Roman Catholics through the ages, including wrongs inflicted on Jews, women and minorities."

That gays and lesbians are an individual harm to themselves is an argument that has been lost a long time, now (although Anita Bryant look-alikes show up all the time, still).

Notwithstanding that we should all be concerned about the threat to civil society from sexual relations amok, be careful how far you press the gays-are-bad-for-society, final-line of abuse.

I promise, it will come back to haunt you, if you go too far with hard-heartedness.

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Eyes Open and On the Prize

Matthew 10: 16 says, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

RICK WARREN'S CHARM OFFENSIVE

Reality check: the National Association of Evangelicals just fired - summarily fired? - its very, very eloquent and accomplished guy in Washington, Richard Cizik. He made some remarks on NPR. Why?

Some big guy puts his arm around you and assures you that God loves you and so does he.

Then, just as you are parting with a warm afterglow, says, "of course, you are in "error" and "intrinsically disordered", so you ought to repent or go to hell. Have a blessed day!!!"

Because he said he was for 'gay marriage'? No. Because he said he thought that 'civil unions' might be something to consider (you know, something quite with the times, something 'very Obamaesque').

Cizik repented, reportedly. The Board did not forgive.

Have you noticed this before? Well, reading the tea-leaves, look up ... Rudy Giuliani. Now, Rudy is fairly knowledgeable about gay relationships. He doesn't "fear us". Yet, once the national, GOP Priesthood got a hold of him, early in his campaign, he ditched civil unions.

Conclusions?

When Rick Warren asks that his 'mis-statements' be forgiven, that's more forgiveness than his own federation will do.

The "purpose driven" Warren and crew are organizationally committed to vacating the very voices on the Right, the aggressive middle, that one would like to see in a civil society, even from a progressive point of view. What's more, they are highly effective at neutralizing them (even at GREAT moral cost).

[Cynically, one can say that Warren's rush to reassure Jews and Muslims was an effort to further isolate gays, as "an issue" among issues. I don't know if it was on his calendar before the flap, so I cannot say with clarity...].

STAGE LEFT, ENTER MELISSA ETHERIDGE

Now, Melissa has just met with "Pastor" Rick (and she told two friends, and she told two friends, etc.). He proverbially put his big bear arm around her like Santa Claus, promised that he mis-spoke, and said he loved and wanted "equality" (no details, naturally - remember, "equality" could mean everyone with an opportunity to go to heaven).

It sounds like the Angel of the Lord shown all around and she was all amazed. (Andrew Sullivan even throws in a Christmastide to round it out.)

What strikes me (and I'm just one person) is how false it all seems. How blatantly staged and manipulative it appears.

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Some big guy proverbially puts his arm around you and assures you that God loves you and so does he. Then, just as you are parting with a warm afterglow, says, "of course, you are in 'error' and 'intrinsically disordered', so you ought to repent or go to hell. Have a blessed day!!!"

Apologies for mixing theological viewpoints, but the detail would bring the same result.

And, on the topic of apologies, apologies for Warren's mis-statements are not accepted (by me, at least - how to you apologize to a whole 'people' anyway?). He's not committed to overturning the legislative results of his wrongful speech, his ill-gotten gains. His apology is just a little too ... costless and convenient. Of course, he could withdraw himself from the inaugural. That could do the trick, if he said the right thing, alongside it.

RICK WARREN FAILING IN HIS CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY

Now, supposing, like me, you aren't swayed by a charm offensive. What do you do?

Well, what I want from Rick Warren, apart from his humble recognition that he is not the right guy to offer an invocation, is his statement on what public relationship recognition, civil and religious, he wants for gays. I'm not talking about what he will "put up with". I'm asking about what he is sincerely willing to fight for, on behalf of those he says he loves so much.

Now, he may not know what he wants. Who knows how many gay couples he's known or met or how many Andrew Sullivan's or Evan Wolfson's or Rauch's have brought the message to his doorstep - and Soul Force and many, many more besides!

But, the fact is, that it is 2009, and he has a Christian responsibility. It's NOT JUST THE RESPONSIBILITY OF GAYS to be "calm" and to 'stop marching long enough to say something'. The messages and messengers are out there. Rick Warren and crew are the ones who need to pause and take testimony, to 'calm down'.

The Episcopalian leadership was right, in other words, when they called for a period of discernment. I'm sad to say, from all I've seen, Evangelicals, including Warren, are not reaching out in that way.

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The Fight/Bully that You Think You Can Avoid

Here's another person who buys into the reasoning that gay marriage is ... too much, for lack of a any way to summarize.

Bob appears not to have listened to the people who are fighting 'gay marriage' the most ardently. Newsflash: they don't want any public relationship recognition, many of them, for gays and lesbians. None. Not "civil unions", not "marriages".

To them, it's the same fight, so ... it's not really a fight that you can duck. The notion that there is a 'choice' about which fight to pick is to a very large extent false (except maybe on a tactical basis - or in oddball beliefnet discussions).

Which brings us to this:

The fact is most of us won't marry even if we have the right to.

This smacks of outright first-person bias, not necessarily of the good kind. "We" may not marry, sure. We've all come of age in a different world. But young, gay kids should have the same opportunities as their non-gay peers. What the future holds for them, who knows. We can say, though, with confidence, that it will NOT look anything like the 70s, 80s, or 90s.

If gays and non-gays decide that marriage is a 'failed institution', then so be it. A kind of formal equality will have been satisfied.

Until then, the notion that committed gay and lesbian couples cannot have their relationships blessed, by both the State and the Church, is, in fact, an issue of equality and liberation.

To opine that 'gays know better' about relationships, based on 'sexual liberation', seems to be irrelevant, a side discussion (and nearly as universally proscriptive as those who wish the reverse for everyone...). The truth is, in an advanced and truly tolerant society, both can co-exist, right?

Flashback:
In Iowa, "Support has been overwhelming."

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Stop the Spiritual Violence

Rick Warren, happy with his celebrity status, is throwing out comments to "the media".

He's told "us" that he loves gays.

Great.

He shouldn't have any problem giving up his invitation to the inaugural, out of love.

What's the bet that his ego won't let him? He wants the stage - and Obama-Biden have handed him a great, big one (gee, thanks, guys). ["Gays" would also like the stage, but they'd be happy without it, too, so long as Warren isn't the chosen one.]

Whatever the case, Warren's ministry ought to stop the spiritual violence.

No more Prayers for Bobby.

Lou Dobbs doesn't care, for one. He thinks it's all about getting along with this kind of ... 'viewpoint'. (Tonight, he gets his commentators to say it for him, though).

If that posture wasn't sad enough a commentary on America, he's not alone and it's 2009, in just a few weeks - 40 years after Stonewall, when the minority decided that the majority was no longer going to use its 'police' force to terrorize them.

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Rick Warren, Man of God?

What Rick Warren might have said on day two:

in brief:

"The Gospel that we preach teaches that we should walk in love with our fellow Americans, with all men. Our Bible also teaches us to be warriors for Christ.

My fellow evangelists and Baptists, there is a time for war and a time for peace.

The invitation from President-elect Obama to offer words of thanksgiving and wisdom at his inaugural is gracious, but it cannot advance the good deeds of the Gospel, even moreso as we are called to proceed in great humility following our triumphs in California to protect marriage.

Accordingly, I will meet with the President on other occasions, to bear witness."

What Rick Warren said (notice the abject political references):

"I commend President-elect Obama for his courage to willingly take enormous heat [from the devil?] by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn’t agree on every issue [it's just another issue, eh? civil rights are like global warming?], to offer the Invocation at his historic Inaugural ceremony.

Hopefully individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America. [When you are appealing to civility in this way, isn't something wrong?]

The Bible admonishes us [the ambiguous connotation is working, eh?] to pray for our leaders. I am honored by this opportunity to pray God’s blessing on the office of the President and its current and future inhabitant, asking the Lord to provide wisdom to America’s leaders during this critical time in our nation’s history."

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A lightening rod in Washington gets struck

Oh, snap, someone is going to Zap! Rick Warren's ex-gay ministry, one day.

More from Sullivan:

Of course, being "pro-family" for Perkins and Warren definitionally excludes gay family members.

Yeah, and, if you watch the news, it means temple-sex with under-age girls at a polygamy cult is just fine with him and others.

...is not a function of an alienated base, it seems to me, so much as salt on the wound of Proposition 8

I think it is related to the fundamental unjustness of Proposition 8, not necessarily related to differences of opinion about its content.

What I mean is that all the deliberative bodies of civil society weighed in, including the highest court and the legislature. Eventually, the executive body (Schwarzenegger) acquiesced to the change. After that, the Mullahs moved in to exercise public-prejudice veto over it all, via a constitutional change, at a mere 50% of the vote.

There is something inherently unjust about muscling a minority, that way; and that's before we look at the kinds of disinformation and fears that they used to press their "Yes on 8" campaign.

The same goes for what happened in Arizona, which is arguably even worse. There, the Mullahs moved in advance of change, as the courts had already ruled in a way that indicated that they would not follow the California court.

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Lou Dobbs - Why are the gays so uppity?

He used his show tonight to ask why gays weren't more centrist, suggesting that the 'gay response' to Warren as been out of proportion.

Oh, those uppity gays. They'll be agitating to sit in the front of the bus, even though the whole bus gets to its destination at the same time for everyone! Gosh and golly.

Let me see if I can convey just how America's "Evangelical" Mullahs sit with the uppity gay aristocracy mafia and beyond:

"Fuck you, Lou Dobbs!"

Do you "get it", now?

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Homophobic Freak to Deface Obama Inaugural

Thank God we didn't spend any money to go to Washington for what is now something that isn't even worth watching. I suppose we could just symbolically throw our Obama-Biden pins - they can have 'em back.

The appeal to dialogue is a canard.

When Obama invites anti-Israel speakers on the platform with him, in a place of honor on his special day, we'll "talk" about inclusionism, okay? Otherwise, spare us the platitudes, please.

This is the second time, by my reckoning, that the Obama gang have totally misjudged the prevailing sentiments of the gay community.

They don't seem to understand that, right now, sore from losses on every contested rights issue in the past election, watching Warren in a place of honor on stage is akin to watching a Klansman offer up an inaugural "invocation" for Obama.

The appeal to dialogue is a canard. When Obama invites anti-Israel speakers on the platform with him, in a place of honor on his special day, we'll "talk" about inclusionism, okay? Otherwise, spare us the platitudes, please.

If Obama wanted truly to do something with the limited time he has in office, his team might have seized the day to ask Cizik* to do it. Now THAT would have been bold, a provocative message of dialogue and respect. How about the "noisy" Reverend Wright? I guess there a limits to outreach, even for Barack, eh?

As it is, however, the Obama team and the inaugural committee had choices and they chose poorly.

[*Cizik resigned Dec. 10 as the NAE's vice president for governmental affairs after saying in a radio interview his view on gay marriage was shifting and he now supports civil unions for same-sex couples.]

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