McCain and Obama at Saddleback Church?

I love Rick Warren. I attended a conference on preaching at Saddleback in 2000 that changed the way I approach my pulpit ministry. I’ve ReadThe Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life. I’ve led one church through 40 Days of Purpose. So I’m not anti-Rick Warren. I think people who have barely heard what he has to say are far to harsh toward him. Nonetheless, I’m dissappointed.

Here’s a link: http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug16/0,4670,CandidatesReligion,00.html

Angie and I were flipping through the channels and stumbled up on the airing of Pastor Rick’s interviewing of both Obama and McCain on the stage of Saddleback at a “Forum on the Presidency.” Rick was pretty neutral and allowed both candidates to speak equally and fairly without much argument. Therein lies the problem for me. We can’t be neutral in this current culture war.

You can’t control what a speaker might say, so if you don’t respect his viewpoints, he has no business on your church’s stage. If your purpose is evangelistic, there are better ways to go about reaching people. If your intent is to rally people around a good cause, you’ve underestimated the intentional divisiveness of the gospel itself. And you can’t allow a man to support abortion in any way, shape, or form and not argue. And those are just a few of the issues. If you take the Bill Hybels mentality - that we can learn some good stuff from anybody - aren’t there better teachers available?

The biggest issue of all, for me, is Warren’s approach to the definition and purpose of the church. I love The Purpose Driven Church with the exception of the seeker-sensitive approach to worship. I appreciate the way it concisely narrows the purposes of the church to 5 main functions or objectives. So I’m surprised that in recent years, Rick’s focus seems to have shifted so much toward social advancement and cultural change. I’m all for a good cause - like ministering to AIDS victims, feeding the hungry, and educating the less fortunate. But the great cause of the church is missions and evangelism.

Rick knows this and preaches it - I still greatly appreciate his HUGE support of church planting around the world - I just wish it got the bulk of the attention over social causes.

Ultimately I don’t intend this blog entry to be a slam against Rick. Like I said, my ministry has been shaped, in part, by his ministry. Rather I hope this can teach us all something about where our emphasis should lie and how the world should perceive the church. For my part, I don’t ever want a church I Pastor to be viewed as so “relevant” that we’re the best place to turn for information on the presidential candidates. I want us to be known as the place where individuals living in a decaying culture can come for spiritually eternal healing in the gospel of Jesus Christ.