Rick Warren and my take on his statement

So recently, I was asked to write a posting about something an article in the news that I have read and decided to post it here: Enjoy.


As a child, I remember going to Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Orange County and have always found it a welcoming and open place. I remember going there and learning about a god that was all inclusive, and hearing the message of Jesus as a message of tolerance and love. Rick Warren was very close to my family, my father was his head usher before taking a job in Phoenix and my mother was a dedicated member of a bible study group. I also went to a private Christian school with his daughter Amy. My next door neighbors were the first to attend Pastor Warren’s church when it was only a few families attending in a member’s living room; and were such dedicated members that the wife of the family, Cynthia Hensler had worked for the administrative offices at Saddleback and had become a Pastor herself and purveyed over my sister’s wedding a few years ago, and over the funeral of my childhood best friend many years before that.

That is why it came as a great shock to me when I heard the statement that we have all heard by now made by Rick Warren and how he equated homosexuality with things like bestiality, and pedophilia, including his endorsement of the narrowly passed California bill banning gay marriage. This is not the Rick Warren that I grew up with, nor is it the one who told me about scripture. I believe that his statements of late are completely contrary to the teachings of Jesus and do not share what I have come to know about God. I believe that Pastor Rick Warren has allowed the tremendous success of books like a Purpose Driven Life and his many lectures that have refreshed so many a Christian traveler, to alter his understanding of the teachings in exchange for the promise of becoming the next Billy Graham.

Some bigoted people such as Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, and Billy Graham have portrayed persecution and hatred of gays as a Christian thing to do. Now Rick Warren seems to be next in line for this portrayal of ignorance. I can find nowhere in the bible that Jesus said anything about homosexuality.

We live in America where freedom to choose and participate in life as you wish it, provided your activity does not endanger the lives and well being of others is still true.
However, I can never suggest encoding Christian teachings into a Sharia-like law to force religious beliefs on society.

Homosexuality is normal human behavior, period. It should be noted that same sex partnerships exists in every species and also in large enough numbers in humans that it could be considered a subgroup. I challenge all men and women to remember a time when they might have thought that a person of the same sex is attractive; or when a friendship ran deep enough to call it love.

I believe that God loves us all equally, and that we are called to treat each other with the same love in which God created us. We have no need to hate, or to discriminate against, any group for any reason. It is simply not Christian to do so.