The Church of Jesus Christ

Rick Warren has issued a video statement to his small town congregation in which he first blames everyone else for the backlash against him for his upcoming invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. He goes on to defend himself in his views on gay marriage. I generally have no disagreement with him on this issue, but his attack on me (well, not just me) is reprehensible.

The way that Rick Warren is talking about the media and talk radio brings to mind the reasoning behind the limiting of free speech. They he takes on us humble bloggers, blaming us for making people rude and ‘throwing bombs’.

I am against Rick Warren’s invocation, believing in that old notion of a separation of Church and State, and from Barack Obama from choosing Rick ‘Wealth Driven Life’ Warren from saying such a thing. He speaks  against those that stand against him, accusing us of hate speech and ‘Christophobia’. It is not Christophobia that we have, but the love of Christ, wishing to see the hate in His name, and the vanity in His name, and the misuse of His name cease.

Finally, he uses this video, knowing that this will be widely watched, to sell his new project – The Purpose Driven Connection – to be released in January. Note that he wants 20,000 or more of his members to use this and then they will release this to all the churches in America. Rick is planning on starting an entire internet devoted soley to the Purpose Driven cult that he has helped create.

From here:

Pastor Rick Warren, chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to pray at his inauguration, said in a video message to his church that he doesn’t equate gay relationships with incest or pedophilia, but opposes redefining marriage just as any conservative Christian would.

Warren said that disagreeing with gay-rights activists on same-sex marriage does not qualify as hate speech and doesn’t mean he is anti-gay. He said Obama chose him to give the invocation at the swearing-in to show that people with different views don’t have to demonize each other.

“We’re both willing to be criticized in order to try to bring America into a new day of civil discourse and to create a new model that says you don’t have to agree only with your side on everything,” Warren said in the video posted Monday night by Saddleback Community Church.

Gay-rights advocates were enraged that Obama had given the evangelical clergyman a prominent role at the Jan. 20 inauguration. Obama said he wanted the event to reflect diverse views and insisted he remains a “fierce advocate” of equal rights for gays.

Warren had backed Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in his home state of California, where he founded Saddleback. He had recently said that he opposed any redefinition of marriage, including a brother marrying a sister, or an adult marrying a child.

In his video, he insisted he wasn’t equating gay marriage with incest or child molestation.

“I have in no way ever taught that homosexuality is the same thing as a forced relationship between an adult and a child, or between siblings,” Warren said. “I was trying to point out I’m not opposed to gays having their partnership. I’m opposed to gays using the term marriage for their relationship.”

On Tuesday, the church replaced a brief article on the Bible and homosexuality with an audio message on Saddlebackfamily.com to better explain the church’s view that Scripture prohibits sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman, according to Larry Ross, a Warren spokesman.

Anyone can attend Saddleback worship services. But the church article had said that gays “unwilling to repent of their homosexual lifestyle would not be accepted” as members.

Saddleback members must sign a broadly worded covenant in which they agree to follow Bible teachings. While gay relationships aren’t mentioned in the pledge, it is meant to cover the spectrum of conservative Christian belief.

Tags: barack obama, bloggers, Christophobia, gay marriage, God, Media, msm, religion, separation of church and state, talk radio