Y
ou may have seen Rick Warren
on the “Larry King Show.” Or some well-intentioned person
may have given you
The Purpose Driven Life
or
The Purpose
Driven Church
, books that have sold well over 25 million copies.
You may have noted that
Time
magazine named him one of “15
World Leaders Who Mattered Most in 2004,” and in 2005 one of
the “100 Most Influential People in the World.”
If you are wondering whether he is “all that,” consider
this: in 1980 Warren founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California
with one family. Now he is presiding over a congregation averaging
between 22,000 and 25,000 weekly attendees, he’s built a 120-acre
campus, and he has more than 300 community ministries to such groups
as prisoners, CEOs, single parents, and people with AIDS.
According to his website, “He also leads the Purpose Driven
Network of churches, a global coalition of congregations in 162
countries. More than 400,000 ministers and priests have been trained
worldwide, and almost 157,000 church leaders subscribe to
Ministry
Toolbox
, his weekly newsletter.”
He has spoken at the United Nations, the World Economic Forum in
Davos, the African Union, the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government,
Time
’s Global Health Summit,
and numerous congresses around the world.
Here is what a handful of mainstream publications are saying about
him:
-
“Arguably the most influential pastor in America” (the
Economist)
-
“Business and political leaders across America are turning
to [him] for guidance” (London
Times)
-
“Were it a business, Saddleback Church would be compared
with Dell, Google or Starbucks” (Forbes) -
“
The Purpose Driven Life
is the epicenter of a spiritual
shockwave taking root across America” (ABC News)
In every generation, it seems as if at least one Christian preacher
rises above the others and achieves special distinction. He—and
it’s always a he—has a large and faithful following, receives
ample attention from the media, and often even earns the admiration
of non-Christians. Who hasn’t heard of Rev. Billy Graham? In
a sea swarming with televangelist wannabes, Rev. Graham rose above
by projecting a more honest-seeming demeanor. Over the course of
several decades he became one of the most respected, recognized,
and influential Christian leaders in the world.
Like the many Christian evangelicals and missionaries before him,
Rick Warren, the son of a Southern Baptist preacher, has a grand
vision. However, unlike most of his predecessors, Warren has a robust
array of skills, attitudes, and resources. He has a well-honed business
sense and is fully conscious of the power of the Internet. He has
successfully managed his message and has an impressive cash flow.
According to Warren, much of the money is generated by the sales
of his books and goes to his Acts of Mercy Foundation.
Warren’s agenda is centered around attacking what he calls
the five “Global Goliaths”:
-
Spiritual emptiness—“[people] don’t know God made
them for a purpose.” -
Egocentric leadership—“the world is full of little Saddams.
Most people cannot handle power. It goes to their heads.” -
Extreme poverty—“half the world lives on less than $2
per day.” -
Pandemic disease—“we have billions of people dying from
preventable disease. That’s unconscionable.” -
Illiteracy/poor education—“half the world is functionallyilliterate
.”
According to his website, “His goal is a second Reformation
by restoring responsibility in people, credibility in churches,
and civility in culture.” To achieve his aims, he has developed
what he has called a PEACE agenda:
-
P
lant new churches, or partner with existing ones -
E
quip leaders -
A
ssist the poor -
C
are for the sick -
E
ducate the next generation
I
n a recent
New York Times
Magazine
story on the latest efforts of U.S. evangelicals to
convert Africans to Christianity, Daniel Bergner writes that Warren
declared Rwanda the world’s “first purpose-driven nation.”
According to Bergner, “The country would be a test target for
his global plan to eradicate spiritual deprivation along with physical
poverty and disease and illiteracy. ‘God gets the most glory
when you tackle the biggest giants,’ he told
Christianity
Today
magazine.”
According to Bergner, last summer Warren “sent an advance team
of about 50 American evangelicals to meet with Rwandan leaders and
soon, he envisions, hundreds of short-term Saddleback missionaries
will fan out across the nation, armed with kits of instruction and
resources called ‘church in a box’ and ‘school in
a box’ and ‘clinic in a box’ that will help them
to rescue the country.”
Warren
told Paul Nussbaum of Knight Ridder News Service, “I’m
so tired of Christians being known for what they’re against….
The New Testament says the church is the body of Christ, but for
the last 100 years, the hands and feet have been amputated and the
church has just been a mouth. And mostly, it’s been known for
what it’s against.”
According to Nussbaum, “Warren is looking to the future by
invoking the past. ‘One of my goals is to take evangelicals
back a century, to the 19th century. That was a time of muscular
Christianity that cared about every aspect of life.’”
Warren “is able to cast the Christian story so people can hear
it in fresh ways,” Donald E. Miller, director of the Center
for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California,
told Nussbaum.
Besides being among the most influential evangelical leaders, Scott
L. Thumma, a professor of the sociology of religion at Hartford
Seminary and the author of a forthcoming book on megachurches, told
Nussbaum, “One of the interesting things is that he crosses
boundaries…he’s not just respected by the evangelical world
but by many outside that world.”
Despite his conservative views— he opposes abortion and same-sex
marriage and supports the death penalty—Warren claims that
the religious right does not represent evangelicalism and that he
is not part of the religious right.
Charting the future
I
n Key West, Florida in May 2005 Warren spoke
to “some of the nation’s leading journalists” at
the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s biannual Faith
Angle conference and appraised them “of four or five trends
or stories I think you need to be aware of that have come in on
the scene.
“The first trend…is the return of the evangelical movement
to its 19th-century roots…. What are those roots? Compassionate
activism. Another trend that I see is this 40 days phenomenon—this
40 Days of Purpose, which of course I’m right in the middle
of. Ten percent of the churches in America have now done 40 Days
of Purpose and that’s just now. We will take another 10,000
to 15,000 through it this year and on and on and on.
“The third trend I think you need to be aware of is the signs
of the possible spiritual awakening in America…[which] will come
through two words—small groups. A fourth trend…is the move—the
shift in power—in evangelicalism from what’s called para-church
organizations to local churches.
“Another issue that I think you need to be aware of is what
I call the 3 great questions of the next 20 years. And I think these
are questions that we’re going to be facing—they’re
all religious issues— and here is what I think they are.
“Number one, will Islam modernize peacefully? Number two, will
America return to its religious roots and faith? And number
three, which is a really big one and of particular interest to me,
what is going to replace the vacuum in China now that Marxism is
dead? What’s going to replace it? In all likelihood, it’s
going to be Christianity.
“Then the other story that I would encourage you to look at
is this evolving alliance between evangelical Protestants and Catholics,
particularly in the evangelical wing of Catholicism.”
As a sign of the times, last year the sale of Bruce Springsteen’s
album
Devils & Dust
—which describes an explicit
encounter with a prostitute in the song “Reno”—was
banned by Starbucks. This year, according to a Knight Ridder report,
“Starbucks will print spiritual quotes from Rev. Rick Warren,
author of the best-selling
The Purpose-Driven Life
, on coffee
cups.”
Bill
Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering conservative movements.
