Obama’s Provocative Preacher

The invocation at Obama’s inauguration was given by a controversial evengelical preacher. That ensured some protest among Obama’s backers.

Matthew 23 (“The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses”) wasn’t read at Obama’s swearing in but 2,300 miles away it was there on a sign carried by Shelley Kuchta who stood arm in arm with her friend who held a sign saying “Warren, you hypocrite.” In front of the glass doors of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, hundreds of demonstrators waved rainbow flags and pink protest signs while the object of their contempt stood briefly in the world spotlight on the steps of the nation’s Capitol.

One week previously, Barack Obama had asked prominent preacher Rick Warren to offer the official prayer at his swearing in ceremony. Normally, these pious words don’t arouse much in the way of public interest, but this time was different.

The invitation to the evangelical preacher had already provoked intense protests, especially because Warren is openly anti-gay. Obama fans reacted indignantly, especially in the state of California where just weeks earlier newly married homosexual couples were forced to take their wedding rings back because of a change in state law.

Would Warren use the opportunity to cause further polarization and division? He adopted a conciliatory tone and asked God to grant the new president “the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity and the compassion to lead us with generosity.”

Nonetheless, as Warren prayed for “freedom and justice for all” before millions in the television audience, it wasn’t only anti-discrimination groups and a few cat-callers in the audience who felt excluded from this pious wish. “The Democratic Party has always counted on the gay and lesbian community for their votes, then thrown them under the bus once they get elected,” said liberal Jenny Mirmak who, along with her husband and seven-year old daughter, marched in protest at Saddleback Church.

Who is this Rick Warren, and why did Obama take such a risk on him?

When you visit his church in Orange County, California, Warren appears as a welcome change from Obama’s previous religious mentor, hate-preacher Jeremiah Wright, or from the strict moral lecturer, Billy Graham, the traditional selection to offer the inaugural invocation.

Warren is one of those charming, non-confessional preachers who regards God as a good buddy. Not a withdrawn, distant man of the cloth, but a down-to-earth, jovial preacher to whom God presumably says really personal things like, “Hey, Rick, you don’t seem to care much about the poor and the sick. You have to change!”

It was God, after all, who sent the fourth-generation pastor’s son from northern California to rapidly expanding, anonymous Orange County in 1980. For three months, the newly ordained minister and his very pregnant wife went from door to door, asking people why they didn’t attend church. Too snobby, too unfriendly, too money-grubbing, the people said.

Like a commissioned architect, Warren designed not a church with wooden pews and stations of the cross, but a multi-media religious theme park covering 150 acres, including a tramway, fitness studio, bar, children’s playground and religious services all at the same time. Weekend visitors average 22,000 and have a choice of whether they want to hear amen accompanied by hard rock guitars, attend a cool disco service for 20 to 30 years olds, or just marvel at their pastor live in the severely plain mega-auditorium

No confessionals, no Christ tableaus, instead comfortably upholstered rows of seats, three guitars, six background singers, saxophone, and drums that will get even the congregant in the last row out of his seat. “Hope in my heart,” rocks the congregation, as if they had set Obama’s words to music. And behind the pulpit, Rick Warren with a 6-day growth of beard in a Hawaiian shirt and baggy jeans.

“What will heal America?” is the theme for Warren’s last sermon this week before the inauguration. With both hands in his pockets, he makes a restless pilgrimage back and forth before his flock, spelling out the answer: “confess, repent, pray.”

Only on second glance, does the apparently harmless 54-year old Warren reveal himself as the coolly calculating CEO of an evangelical mega-church, as the cocky religious salesman who applies the principles of dynamic business expansion to faith. From zero to 40 million fans in 28 years. Time magazine calls Warren “undoubtedly the most influential clergyman in America.” But his success is due not as much to his interesting sermons as it is to his professional sense for religious market niches.

Warren’s 40-day program “The Purpose Driven Connection” works on the principle of franchising. If Saddleback were a company, it would be in the same league with Starbucks and Microsoft. Warren’s spiritual bestseller “The Purpose Driven Life” with 40 million copies sold made him a multi-millionaire and one of the world’s most successful non-fiction authors.

But Warren isn’t satisfied with his rise to the status of being the nation’s preacher. His vision is the spread of his mission to the entire world, his so-called P.E.A.C.E.-Plan* to extend his vision for social justice to every church on the planet.

Just last year, Warren exhorted his followers to take an example from the commitment of the Hitler Youth. Warren said the youth spelled out “Hitler, we belong to you,” with their bodies in formation in the Munich Stadium, “before they almost conquered the world.”

Since Warren recognizes that Republicans belong to a species caught up in the transition in Washington, he has positioned himself as the pastor of harmony. He has deleted the text from his website in which he justified excluding gays and unmarried heterosexual couples “living in sin” from membership in his congregation. These days, he doesn’t like to be reminded that just a year ago he referred to being gay in the same breath with pedophilia, polygamy and incest, nor that he advised his congregation four years ago to re-elect George W. Bush. Warren needs Obama because he needs the support of both political parties to realize his worldwide vision.

Likewise, Obama needs preacher Warren because he opened the door to the conservative, white church-goers without whose support he wouldn’t have been elected President. As early as 2006, Warren invited Obama to Saddleback in order to discuss strategies to combat the spread of HIV – in itself almost an act of blasphemy for an evangelical preacher and for which he was viciously attacked by his own supporters. He made the invitation despite their differences concerning abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage.

In August 2008, both John McCain and Obama did Warren the honor of allowing him to test their biblical strength for two hours in Saddleback – something neither did for any other clergyman. To those who criticized Obama’s decision to accept Warren’s invitation, Obama said “I had an opportunity to speak, and that dialogue, I think, is a part of what my campaign’s been all about, that we’re never going to agree on every single issue. What we have to do is create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans.”

In order to placate those upset in the liberal wing of the party, Obama asked Bishop Gene Robinson two days before his inauguration to give the blessing at a large Lincoln Memorial event featuring Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and Beyonce. Robinson is in a different league altogether: the first and only openly gay Bishop of the Protestant Anglican Church, a gently smiling enormously popular 61-year old church father who last year officially married his life-partner in a ceremony where they both wore body armor beneath their wedding garments because of the many death threats they had received.

In his speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Robinson affirmed gay and lesbian rights, but Obama’s team had already lost their courage shortly before that: the Bishop was obliged to deliver his speech five minutes prior to the start of the official program. The loudspeakers and TV cameras weren’t yet turned on and only those within earshot got to hear what it was Robinson prayed for: “Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.”

* P.E.A.C.E. is an acronym for Promote reconciliation, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick, and Educate the next generation.