President-elect Barack Obama triggered a liberal firestorm Wednesday with the announcement that noted evangelical minister Rick Warren would deliver an invocation at his inauguaration. The celebrity preacher at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., who hosted an important forum on faith with Obama and John McCain during the presidential campaign, is a best-selling author who fills stadiums with his sermons.
While liberal partisans were up in arms, some political analysts described the move as brilliant, a gesture not only to white social conservatives but an astute nod to the African-American and Latino communities, which are notably more conservative on religious and social issues than mainstream whites.
Blacks especially played a key role in supporting Proposition 8, the recently passed California ballot initiative that banned gay marriage in that state. Warren and his church also was a leader in that effort.
“… For Obama, making a statement about his inclusiveness and willingness to reach across ideological lines is more important than satisfying liberals on every issue as he has shown with his cabinet choices,’’ noted the Swamp, the political blog for the Chicago Tribune.
Liberal outrage, the post continued, “may help Obama with some centrist and more conservative voters. Also, many African American churchgoers tend to share Warren's views on social issues. So the issue is more complicated than simply right and left.”
Noted Dan Gilgoff, a religion analyst for “U.S. News & World Report:” “The selection of Warren… is an early taste of the Democrats' post-election effort to reach evangelical Americans.”
Gilgoff noted that white evangelicals supported McCain over the Democratic nominee by 73 percent to 26 percent, which for Obama represented a 4-percentage-point improvement over John Kerry's showing among white evangelicals four years earlier.
Many Democrats, however, weren’t sharing any sense of outreach. Within hours of the announcement, the liberal base of the Democratic Party – gay rights groups, abortion rights advocates, secular humanists, and a wide assortment of left-wing bloggers – were issuing press releases and filling the Internet with vitriol.
A sampling:
# People for the American Way: “He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion.”
# Sarah Posner, columnist for the liberal “Nation” magazine: ”Now it has officially gone too far: Democrats, in their zeal to appear friendly to evangelical voters, have chosen celebrity preacher and best-selling author Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration.”
# Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights campaign: "By inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you (Obama) have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table."
# California gay rights activist Rick Jacobs: ““It’s a huge mistake. He’s really the wrong person to lead the president into office.”
# Gawker.com: “Warren is a largely inoffensive figure, except as yet one more in a long and historic line of American Huckster Ministers, but he's still a right-wing crank in mainstream clothing, like Mike Huckabee.”
Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for Obama, defended the choice of Warren, saying to CNN, "This is going to be the most inclusive, open, accessible inauguration in American history."
"The president-elect certainly disagrees with him on [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] issues. But it has always been his goal to find common ground with people with whom you may disagree on some issues."
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Poster Comment:
Rick Warren is a lying Unified Global Governance Traitor-Wolf. He's an ecumenical Globalist deceiver.
Rick Warren: Is he or isn't he?
Posted: January 09, 2007
1:00 am Eastern
By Joseph Farah
© 2008
Who are you going to believe – Rick Warren or your own eyes?
That's the dilemma I face.
You see, back in November, I had a series of e-mail exchanges with the pastor of Saddleback Church and the best-selling author of "The Purpose-Driven Life."
Among several interesting revelations of that dialogue was Warren's admission – a boast, really – that he is a member in good standing of the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization specifically founded to attack national sovereignty, to promote world government and to enlist U.S. church leaders in those goals.
It was in the context of our debate over Warren's characterization of Syria as a "moderate" country that provides religious freedom to Christians that I suggested the media's favorite mega-pastor should have sought counsel from someone like me – a Christian journalist of Syrian and Lebanese heritage who has covered and analyzed the Middle East for the last 25 years.
Warren explained, somewhat condescendingly, that he had counseled with the National Security Council and the White House, as well as the State Department, before his little pilgrimage to Damascus.
''In fact,'' Warren added, ''as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Oxford Analytica, I might know as much about the Middle East as you.''
I hadn't asked about the CFR. I didn't use thumbscrews to pry this information out of him. He volunteered this bombshell in a written communication.
But there's something deeply disturbing I have learned about Warren: He generally tells people what they want to hear. And evidently he didn't realize how alienating news of his membership in the CFR would be to many in his own flock.
So what did he do?
He and his staff have revised history – or their story, anyway.
Now, according to an e-mail from John Mogush, his assistant at Saddleback, his boss was just confused.
"Pastor Rick is not a member of the Council on Foreign Relations," he wrote one concerned constituent. "He was asked to become a member, but declined. If you can tell me where it was written, we will respond to them."
Well, John, it was written by Pastor Rick. If you'd like to see a copy of the e-mail, I'd be happy to share it with you. The quote has been accurately published in WND. It has been read and reviewed by Pastor Rick. And it has not been disputed publicly – only privately.
There's a pattern here.
Warren went to Syria and recorded himself praising the totalitarian police state and its dictator.
Then he denied saying what he said.
Then, after removing a video recording from YouTube, he denied any recordings were made in Syria.
Then he told his congregation he had recorded some 12 hours of his trip through Syria and Africa.
Then Warren apologized to me for defending his actions and presumably misrepresenting the truth.
Then he told his congregation in writing that the controversy over his trip was just being stirred up by satanically inspired Internet pundits. (I assumed that was meant to be a description of me.)
Then he told me he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Then his assistant denied membership.
Is any of this important?
Well, if you consider the credibility of church leaders to be an important matter, I would say it is.
These may not strike you as big lies. But half-truths and white lies often lead to bigger deceptions. And, as I read my Bible, I'm not sure God makes any exceptions about truth.
By the way, Warren's interest in the Council on Foreign Relations is hardly ancient history. According to the group, he attended New York meetings in 2006 and was, in fact, an important part of the program. So a failing memory does not seem like a good excuse.
Now, Michael Medved will probably take issue with my characterization of the Council on Foreign Relations as "an organization specifically founded to attack national sovereignty, to promote world government and to enlist U.S. church leaders in those goals." He seems to prefer to think of the CFR as a well-meaning debating society.
While time and electron rationing do not permit me to delve into this topic in more depth, there is no denying reality, much as the talk-show host tries. The definitive, objective history on the founding of the CFR and its efforts to co-opt the churches in its globalist plotting is covered in the 2005 book by Martin Erdmann, "Building the Kingdom of God on Earth: The Churches' Contribution to Marshal Public Support for World Order and Peace, 1919-1945."
So, what's it going to be, Rick Warren? Are you in or out? Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
