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he amazing ineptness of the media and the left in processing Pastor Rick Warren’s beliefs reveals the deep divides that exist in our society, and the emotional alliance between the media and the radical left and gay activists.  Here’s just a sampling of what’s being written about Warren this morning.

Here’s DeWayne Wickham writing in USA Today: “Recently, Warren — who, like most evangelical leaders, disagrees sharply with Obama on social issues such as … gay rights …”

Richard Cohen, writing in WaPo: “Warren is anti-gay.”

Also in WaPo, E.J. Dionne:  “[Warren] would do well to apologize for comparing gays to pedophiles.”

Here’s Derrick Z. Jackson in the Boston Globe:  “Obama seems compelled to close his eyes to one of the most powerful forms of conservative-driven bigotry left in this country.”

And Katha Politt in the LA Times:  “Warren doesn’t just oppose gay marriage, he’s compared it to incest and pedophilia.”

As I’ve written previously, you can be opposed to gay marriage and for gay rights, you can be opposed to gay marriage and not be anti-gay, and from a Christian worldview, all sin is just plain sin, wether it’s homosexuality, adultry, materialism – or incest or pedophelia.

I’m not going to write about it again.

Instead, I’m going to give you the chance to hear Warren answer these charges in his own words, in video clips embedded in his “Pastor Rick’s News & Views” newsletter that goes to members of Saddleback Church.

In the first video, Rick confronts the “incest and pedophelia” challenge head-on and restates his view on marriage, as defined in the Bible and by virtually every other religion, worldwide for all time.  In this clip, Rick says:

I am opposed to forcing people to act the way I want them to act.  … I have to love everybody regardless of the choices they make.  I am not free to hate anyone.

In the second video, Rick discusses civil rights, free speech and the role of the Christian to be a champion of civility – something that’s been missing from many of his accusers.  It’s pretty straightforward (gayforward?):

No Americans should ever be discriminated against because of their beliefs. Period.  Because we are Americans.

Finally, in the third video, Rick discusses how he will respond to the attacks and accusations – by returning love to hate:

How will we respond to these people who attack Saddleback?  We will love and we will love and we will love, and we will pray and we will care.

If you’ve come to this site full of anger over Obama’s designation of Rick Warren as prayer-leader for the inauguration, I invite you to listen to these clips and understand the man and the faith.  You will feel better, I guarantee you.

And I also encourage you even more to read Melissa Ethridge’s piece at HuffPo.  She came to Warren with the same sort of anger:

I hadn’t heard of Pastor Rick Warren before all of this. When I heard the news, in its neat little sound bite form that we are so accustomed to, it painted the picture for me. This Pastor Rick must surely be one hate spouting, money grabbing, bad hair televangelist like all the others. He probably has his own gay little secret bathroom stall somewhere, you know. One more hater working up his congregation to hate the gays, comparing us to pedophiles and those who commit incest, blah blah blah. Same ‘ole thing.

But after talking with him, came away with a very different view and great hope for a more reconciled, less angry future:

On the day of the conference I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn’t sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn’t want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife’s struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.

When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.

That’s what can happen when people move beyond mere posturing.  Will the issues be resolved?  Who really cares. Right now it would just be good if we could just dial down the volume.

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understand why some of the more vocal gay opponents of Prop 8 are angry that Barack Obama has extended an invitation to Rick Warren to give the invocation at his coronation inauguration – it makes them feel like the two or three percent of the population they are instead of the ten percent they’d like us to believe they are.

Being gay isn’t mainstream, but being Rick Warren is.  Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life has sold well over 30 million copies, making it the best selling Christian book of the modern era, and hundreds if not thousands of churches have had “40 Days of Purpose” sermon series.  His other primary book, The Purpose-Driven Church is a blueprint many pastors have used to make evangelical Protestantism more approachable, and has helped lead the growth of the church in America.

To say that Warren is not mainstream requires redefining mainstream, as does saying opposing gay marriage isn’t mainstream after every state that’s had to consider it has rejected it by strong margins. Still, WaPo saw the merit to give Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a front and center position on today’s op/ed page to rail against Warren.  Solmonese gets it wrong from the start:

It is difficult to comprehend how our president-elect, who has been so spot on in nearly every political move and gesture, could fail to grasp the symbolism of inviting an anti-gay theologian to deliver his inaugural invocation.

Warren is not anti-gay; he’s opposed to gay marriage; the two are entirely different matters and Solmonese is dishonest in attempting to paint with this brush.  Unlike Obama at United Trinity, I listened when I was in the pews at Warren’s church, and his teachings on homosexuality are straightforward:  It is a sin, just as adultery and lust are sins, and all have fallen short of the glory of God and therefore need Christ.

While it’s true that Warren would never marry a gay couple at Saddleback, it’s also true that he doesn’t marry straight couples if they’ve been “living in sin” prior to marriage.  But neither does he turn away gays.  I have a very good gay friend who feels very welcome at Saddleback.  Many of the pastors there know he’s gay and have encouraged him to work with other gays to encourage them to live without sexual sin.  That doesn’t mean saying you’re not gay; it means giving over your sins to Christ and striving to live in a way that pleases Him.  My friend by no means is always successful at this – such is the nature of sin – but he is happier by far now than he was when he indulged his sin – such is the nature of Christ.

Solmonese also incorrectly refers to Warren as “a general” in the Yes on 8 campaign, but he didn’t even speak on it until late October.  Still he blames Warren for Prop 8′s success:

One of the biggest reasons for that hurtful outcome was the Rev. Rick Warren, who publicly endorsed Proposition 8 in late October. He told his parishioners and reporters alike that “any pastor could be considered doing hate speech if he shared his views that he didn’t think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships.” But civil marriage rights for same-sex couples had nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

Notice that Solmonese has abandoned gay marriage for the much more milquetoast “civil marriage rights?” Notice also that he is certifiably bonkers because he says that marriage has nothing to do with religion; of course it does!  Marriage began as a religious ceremony and still asks God to bless the union.  Typing that it’s not so does not make it not so.

I’m ready to stop fisking Solmonese now, but gay activists would shame me for not dealing with this:

More recently, he even compared same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy. He may cloak himself in media-friendly happy talk that plays well on television, but he stands steadfastly against any measure of equality for LGBT Americans.

Same-sex marriage is comparable to incest, pedophilia and polygamy in that it’s a sin.  I would be surprised if Warren also didn’t address adultery in that statement, as well.  Because Warren is most definitely a “hate the sin, love the sinner” kind of preacher, Solmonese’s comment about him standing “steadfastly against any measure of equality” for LGBTs is ludicrous.  Again, gay marriage is a separate issue, and is not about equality; it’s about redefining an institution that is and always has been defined as being exclusively between a man and a woman.

Meanwhile, Geoff Kors, executive director of the mis-named Equality California, is jumping on the misinformation wagon and is turning down his invitation to the inauguration:

Kors … called it “disappointing and hurtful” that a prominent Orange County minister who backed the measure to ban gay marriage has been chosen to speak at the inauguration.

“Accordingly, I have decided to decline the invitation to attend the inauguration as I cannot be part of a celebration that highlights and gives voice to someone who advocated repealing rights from me and millions of other Californians,” Kors said in a statement. (Sac Bee)

Repealing rights?  What a joke.  A few California Supreme Court justices wrongly gave a false right to gays after the people of the state made their position against gay marriage clear, and we’ve set matters straight.  Gays, by appealing the matter to the Supreme Court, took away our rights under California’s constitution to express our vote through referenda.

Meanwhile, Warren is gracious and conciliatory:

“I commend President-elect Barack Obama for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn’t agree on every issue, 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.” (OC Reg)

Keep praying, Rick.  I don’t think Solmonese, Kors and their supporters have yet achieved your mainstream way of looking at this.

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week back, I asked you to provide me with questions you would like Pastor Rick Warren to ask of Barack Obama and John McCain tomorrow when they appear at Saddleback Church. As a former church leader who never got purged from Pastor Rick’s leadership list when I moved on to a smaller church, I was in a unique situation of being asked to submit questions for Rick’s review.

Generally, but not exclusively speaking, what a bunch of bozos you turned out to be.

Most of the questions I received were of the “Why don’t you show your birth certificate or Selective Service registration?” and “Are you really a citizen/are you not a Muslim?” variety. Get over it! You’re as boring and falsely fixated as 9/11 Truthers. Your questions will get us nowhere and I’m certainly not going to forward them to Pastor Rick – especially since I made it clear that he is going to ask the same questions of both candidates.

And what’s with you “civilian defense force” people? Give me one reason why that has any relevance in this election where so much matters so profoundly?

I hoped you would think creatively, offering up something that would get to the soul of the candidates because where else does a pastor want to probe, but around a person’s soul? As Warren himself said:

I’m going to ask them questions about character, competence, about values, vision, virtue, about their convictions in leadership, about their experience. And I’m going to deal with their personal life – because character matters. Their personal life does matter as a leader. God says so.

When it comes down to it, there was only one good response out of the whole mess and not surprisingly it came from my old blogfriend, Naval aviator wife and Very Thoughtful Person, Anne the PalmTree Pundit. Anne kept it simple and kept it important, asking in just 6 words something that would show very profoundly the difference between the candidates: What is the role of government?

Thank you, Anne. I’ll pass your question on, along with mine:

Have you seen evidence of God’s active intervention into your life? If so, tell us about it, and tell us how you’d explain it to someone who doesn’t believe in God.

I believe the first part of this question would open a window onto the candidate’s soul, particularly in the area where humility and pride are spawned. The second part would let us measure the depth of the candidates’ convictions.

I don’t know what you’re planning on doing tomorrow afternoon, but I’d suggest you watch this.  I sat in Rick Warren’s pews for many years and the man is profoundly intelligent and deeply sensitive.  He is going to take these two interviews to places MSM reporters and national debate panelists will not dare to tread. It should be time very well spent.

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