Is Rick Warren Going Too Far?

I’ve been reading some really interesting articles concerning Pastor Rick Warren’s presidential candidate “Civil Forum” at his Saddleback Church on Saturday night in which he hosted both Barrack Obama and John McCain for a sit-down interview type forum.  In case you don’t know, Rick Warren is the author of the second best selling non-fiction book in history (behind the Bible) called The Purpose Driven Life.

Most of what I’ve read has been more of a debate on whether Rick Warren has any business hosting such an event at his church in the first place.  And this debate stems from both Christians and non-Christians. 

In an excellent article entitled Pastor Warren: Stop politicizing religion, Star Parker had this to say:

For whatever good intentions Pastor Warren may have, by posturing as a neutral broker between different points of view, many of which have profound moral and religious implications, he contributes to the moral ambiguity we’d expect a pastor to be combating.

We have institutions for civic and political forums. The press, universities, town halls, etc. If they’re not delivering well, let the marketplace work to improve what we’re getting. But this is not the job of pastors or churches. If it is, where do we go to learn about good and evil?

In another article on the WashingtonPost.com entitled What Rick Warren Should Have Asked, David Waters summed up his opinion by saying this:

I still think a church is no place for a campaign event, and a clergy person has no business posing as political moderator.  But if the church is going to insert itself into the electoral process, it should do so as the church and not as a political action committee.

Now I am certainly not the person you should talk to if you want someone to support the opinion that Christians have no business in politics.  As a Christian, I think Christians should be more involved in politics because our Christian heritage and even many of our religious rights and freedoms are in danger of being taken away.  However, that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with what Rick Warren did.

I tend to agree with what Star Parker said.  The problem with Rick Warren and other pastors who try to act as some sort of mediator in a forum such as the one he had on Saturday night is that acting in that capacity prohibits him from really making judgment calls on what the candidates actually said.  And the pastor of the church should be most definitely be telling his church members what the Bible says about the issues and the pastor should be able to speak his mind freely concerning those issues.

Rick Warren effectively took himself out of a position of moral authority over his church when he decided to host the forum as more of a mediator than a pastor and allow both candidates to speak freely on a bunch of soft questions. 

Had he acted as a pastor he would have been able to take the candidates to task for any answers they gave that didn’t line up with his Christian beliefs.  Of course, had he said he was going to host the forum as a pastor, it seems unlikely that at least one of the candidates would have agreed to come.

I agree with Star Parker when she said, “If anything characterizes the problems we’re having today it is relativism and ambiguity, a blurring of lines between everything.”  I don’t think a pastor of Rick Warren’s stature should be contributing to that blurring of lines.