Keep the faith -
What Saddleback's Pastor Really Thinks About Politics
*By NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
August 23, 2008 WSJ
Lake Forest, Calif.
'Overhyped." That's how the Rev. Rick Warren describes the notion that the evangelical vote is "up for grabs" in this election. But what about the significance of the evangelical left, I asked the pastor of Saddleback Church after his forum with the presidential candidates last weekend. "This big," he says, holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.Sitting on a small stone patio outside the church's "green room," I question him further -- has he heard that the Democratic Party is changing its abortion platform? "Window dressing," he replies. "Too little, too late."
But Rev. Jim Wallis, the self-described progressive evangelical, has been saying that the change is a big victory. "Jim Wallis is a spokesman for the Democratic Party," Mr. Warren responds dismissively. "His book reads like the party platform."
[Rick Warren]
If you've read any of the hundreds of articles about Mr. Warren that have appeared over the past 10 years, perhaps you think I've got the wrong guy. After all, the leader of the fourth-largest church in the U.S. is supposed to be part of a "new breed" of evangelicals, according to the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and dozens of other publications. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof paid him what Mr. Kristof might consider the ultimate compliment earlier this year, referring to Mr. Warren as an "evangelical liberals can love.
"It is true that Mr. Warren, whose book "The Purpose Driven Life" has sold 25 million copies, argues that his community needs to "broaden its agenda" to include issues like environmental conservation and fighting poverty and disease. "I don't just care that the little girl is born," he tells me. "Is she going to be born in poverty? Is she going to be born with AIDS because her mom has AIDS? Is she going to never get an education?" And he adds that there are plenty of evangelicals who are tired of the "combativeness" associated with the religious right.
But there is a misunderstanding by the media, says Mr. Warren. "A lot of people hear [about a broader agenda] and they think, 'Oh, evangelicals are giving up on believing that life begins at conception,'" he explains. "They're not giving up on that at all. Not at all."Democrats might want to keep this in mind next week as their convention tries to welcome this "new breed" of religious folks. And as for the notion that younger evangelicals are ready for rebellion against their parents' ideals, Mr. Warren cites polls showing that the younger evangelical generation is even more concerned about abortion than the older one.
After the Sunday morning service at Saddleback last weekend, I interviewed 15 random attendees. Only two were Obama supporters, one of whom was a British guy on holiday. Almost all of the remaining congregants mentioned abortion as the most significant issue affecting their vote in November. So why is most of the press under the impression that Rick Warren, a Southern Baptist, is so different from, say, Focus on the Family president James Dobson?
"It's a matter of tone," says an amused Mr. Warren, who seems unable to name any particular theological issues on which he and Mr. Dobson disagree. Speaking at the Aspen Institute a few years ago, Mr. Warren was asked by a member of the audience whether he believed that she, a Jew, would be going to hell after she died, since she had not accepted Jesus as her savior. "Yes," he answered, honestly.
But Mr. Warren, a large man whose paunch is emphasized by his penchant for untucked Hawaiian shirts, generally leaves fire and brimstone out of his public statements. He is on a mission to bring civility back to America, he says in the sermon the morning after the presidential forum.
He believes that people can disagree about the issues without demonizing each other. "We are all created in the image of God." In our interview, he recalls that tolerance used to be the idea that you "treat others with respect." Now, he laments, it has come to mean that "all ideas are equally valid."
And so you can begin to understand why some people today are not happy with the idea of tolerance. But Mr. Warren aims to return Americans to that old view. Despite his calm demeanor, his easy laugh and his casual dress, there doesn't seem to be a relativist bone in Mr. Warren's body.
On Saturday night, the pastor introduced both John McCain and Barack Obama as his "friends" and as "patriots." The following day, I ask him about the biggest differences between the two. He mentions their styles of leadership. (Sen. Obama is the "thoughtful consensus builder," while Sen. McCain is the "straightforward, happy warrior.")
But the other important distinction Mr. Warren notes is the candidates' approaches to government, which he says are "totally opposite." "McCain is more of a limited government guy and Obama sees government as the solution to major problems in society."
Mr. Warren falls into the former camp. Over the years, he has repeated the idea that he became a pastor instead of a politician because he does not have a lot of confidence in the ability of government to get things done. In addition to social issues and foreign policy, this is where evangelicals often part ways with more secular types.The media assume that when religious people express interest in the problems of poverty and disease, they must have taken a left turn politically.
But one can be interested in solving such problems without believing that government is the solution. "Our government has spent trillions of dollars in Africa," says Mr. Warren, "and the standard of living is worse now than it was 50 years ago." He knows whereof he speaks, having launched a massive effort to help the country of Rwanda rebuild itself. "There is only one way to get people out of poverty and it's not charity. It's jobs.
"While many pastors admonish their congregants to "teach a man to fish," Mr. Warren says that is "not good enough." He explains, "If all you do is teach a guy to fish, you create a village of fishermen and everybody does the same thing. They all catch the same fish. They all sit on the side of the road. They all sell the same fish. The same fish rots. They go home and they never get above subsistence level."
As if channeling Adam Smith, Mr. Warren continues, "You have to develop a complex economy, where one says I'll make the hooks, I'll catch the fish, I'll can the fish, I'll skin the fish, I'll fry the fish, I'll do the fish accounting, I'll build the boats. I'll franchise the fish markets.
The answer to poverty is business development, not charity. . . . Trade, not aid."As you might expect from someone who counts the late Peter Drucker among the figures he most admires -- and who has grown a church from nothing to a 120-acre campus with 22,000 weekly attendees, 300 ministries and a mailing list of a few hundred thousand laymen and pastors across the world -- Mr. Warren is interested in business. Not because he makes a lot of money off of Saddleback -- he "reverse tithes," giving 90% of his income away. But rather, he is interested in building organizations.
In Africa, his plan has been to use churches to promote literacy, economic growth and public health. Short-term visits from American churchgoers serve to train church leaders. But there are also less tangible tasks -- cultural problems -- which Mr. Warren believes churches can address better than governments or nongovernmental organizations. For instance, we need "to teach men and boys to respect women and children."
No amount of AIDS education is going to help if women are still being raped by men in their villages. "And that is my job as a pastor. No government can do that."Mr. Warren's notion that you can't have "salvation by government" extends to domestic politics as well. When it comes to gay marriage, he says, the government operates "downstream from the culture." If you wanted to change people's ideas about sexuality, you should have been doing it through the culture, "through sports and music and entertainment."
While he notes that religious people often look to the church to help with these efforts, "secular people have to look to the government." Indeed, what struck him most about the Aspen Institute discussions was that the people there thought "the answer to everything was a government program."
Mr. Warren is not opposed to all government programs. On Saturday, he complimented President Bush's efforts to combat AIDS in Africa, and asked whether something similar couldn't be done to help the world's 148 million orphans. Both candidates readily agreed. And no one should expect Mr. Warren to drop the issue, as he has clearly done his research. A lot of people think that you can just put these kids in orphanages, he tells me, but they "don't realize that when you put a kid in an orphanage in many countries . . . they lose the land rights to their parents' property. So, you are ensuring that the kid will be poor the rest of his life because he loses the only inheritance he's had."
From there, Mr. Warren is off on a riff about the importance of property rights.The pastor's performance on Saturday night has been praised by pundits on the left and the right. His questions -- he calls them "heartland questions" -- were straightforward, culled from thousands he received from people on his mailing list. And he seemed friendly to both men without being too chummy.
Unlike some other prominent religious leaders, Mr. Warren won't be endorsing anyone this fall. On Sunday morning, he encouraged his congregation only to participate in the election. "If you don't vote, you are giving up a privilege people die to make possible." Spoken like a man who wants to keep the power with the people.
*Ms. Riley is the Journal's deputy Taste editor.*/S/
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