Purpose-Driven Terrorism?!?!?!?!?
Last week Southern Baptist evangelist and best-selling author Rick Warren travelled to Syria and met with Syrian President Bashir Assad. Apparently Warren's visit left a bad taste in the mouths of some fundamentalists...
Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily writes...
For a long time I've held off criticizing mega-church leader Rick Warren, author of the best-selling "The Purpose Driven Life," even though I have been sorely tempted.
When he joined up with now-disgraced National Association of Evangelicals leader Ted Haggard to suggest man-induced global warming represented an impending calamity, I didn't say too much. I questioned it, but I let it go.
When he joined Haggard again in writing an open letter to President Bush urging government action to fight global poverty, I didn't say a word – even though I thought it ironic. After all, it is the church's responsibility to help the poor. It is not government's responsibility.
But now that Rick Warren has traveled to and provided legitimacy to a hostile foreign government, presided over by a brutal fascist dictator who hates Jews, threatens Israel, subverts neighboring Lebanon, imprisons and terrorizes its own citizens and even kills them in massive numbers when they stand up in revolt – now I have to denounce this impostor in the strongest terms possible.
It is my biblical mandate to do so.
In response to his critics, Warren said....
"I believe it is a mistake to not talk to nations considered hostile _ isolation and silence has never solved conflict anywhere, whether between spouses or between nations,"
Warren's planned visit in March to North Korea has also raised conservative eyebrows. In an interview with the PBS show "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly," Warren commented....
"People say, `Well, you're being a pawn. You're being used,' and things like that. The truth is I want to get the Good News out," Warren said. "My reasoning is: why not? There are people in North Korea that have not heard for 60 years there is a God."Good for Rick Warren. Southern Baptists are supposed to be Great Commission Christians, right???
Perhaps Warren will soon pull a Jimmy and shower those Communist Cubans with a little Christian Love????
Sneaky suspicion, but if that were to happen my gut tells me that the messengers to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention would promptly denounce Warren and Saddleback.
We all know that the SBC is some-kinda-good at telling the world what and who they're AGAINST....
Sorry I couldn't resist. 23 posts and over 40 days since I gave the SBC a good kick, BigDaddyWeave-style. Just needed a little inspiration of sorts.
posted by Big Daddy Weave at 11:15 PM
3 Comments:
I think Warren's theology suspect, but my respect for him as a Christian has been growing since he became one of the initial signers of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture's initial statement. Most evangelical leaders are still either silent about or defending Bush's torture regime, but not Warren. Now, he has apparently remembered the gospel call to be peacemakers, too.
6:25 AM
Billy Graham received similar kinds of criticism when he went into the then Soviet Union during the cold war. Many thought he was being used but he went with the intent of preaching the gospel. I suspect he knew what he was getting into.
We'll see how this plays out.
7:01 PM
The problem is flawed thinking on the part of conservatives who believe that the presence of a high profile evangelical leader in a country like Syria or North Korea constitutes endorsement of their government. That is the result of far too many years of religious right wing politics. They can't see anything without attaching a political agenda to it because that's the way they operate themselves.
I've never understood how some conservative, evangelical American Christians have become so politically focused that they devote their passion and their resources in greater amounts to electing candidates than to spreading the gospel. Most of the candidates they elect are glad for the support, especially since there is usually nothing required in return for it.
As for World Net Daily, it is not worth the cyberspace it takes up. It doesn't exactly have a reputation for accuracy.
8:02 AM
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