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You can read some of his thoughts here in a rare interview with the Wall Street Journal. The article is worth the read but here's a brief summary of Warren's main points:
- He's pro-life and believes abortion is the most significant issue affecting the evangelical vote in the fall.
- He rejects the idea of tolerance as far as it has come to mean that all ideas are equally valid. He is no relativist.
- He views McCain as a limited government guy and Obama as a big government guy.
- He wants a non-government solution to things like poverty and disease, believing that churches should lead the way in this fight.
- Though he's one of the most generous men in the world (giving away 90% of his income), he believes "the answer to poverty is business development, not charity." He believes free market, enterprise and creativity are vital to a society.
- He knows that true answers to societies ills can only come from Jesus and His Church. The government cannot be a savior.
- He wants to return civility to the public square, wishing that people could "disagree about the issues without demonizing each other." And Saturday night was one of his efforts in doing so.
4 comments:
Although the "Saddleback Debate" was Constitutionally legal, IMHO it is a back-handed way of introducing a "religious test" for office. We are electing a Commander-in-Chief NOT a preacher-in-chief. I am really tired of the pandering of both candidates to the Christian right. The Saddleback forum privileges Christianity over the approximately 1000 other faiths in the US. It is WAY past time to untangle church and state as our forefathers intended. After all, many came here to escape the tyranny of the Anglican Church. In the interest of fairness, should we have more forums led by a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, etc? That could get a bit cumbersome I think. It is best when church and state stay seperate.
I think your interpretation of our forefathers intentions may be slightly off.
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Cristians, not by religions, but by the gospel of Jesus Christ."--Patrick Henry
“Principally, and first of all, I resign my soul to the Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust relying on the merits of Jesus Christ for the pardon of my sins."--Samuel Adams
"The only foundation for a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."--Benjamin Rush
"You do well to wish and learn our arts and our ways of life, and above all the religion of Jesus Christ..."--George Washington
"And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in the exclusion of religious priciple." --George Washington
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other"--John Adams
"Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the Foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of the human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?"--John Adams
i really enjoy this blog. i also watched the forum. can't say i'm big on politics in general...or i'm just not very smart in them, really. having anyone, be it Rick Warren, Oprah or Richard Dawkins, sit down and ask relevant (and somewhat difficult) questions was very informative and quite helpful.
Nathan: Thanks for all the on-point quotes.
Louis: Our founders never intended to remove faith from the public square. The phrase "separation of church and state" is actually nowhere in our founding documents. What they did intend was a country of religious freedom where there was no federally mandated/sponsored church. The tyranny they were escaping was not the tyranny of the Anglican church but the tyranny of a state sponsored church, which is what the Anglican church had become (The official "Church of England"). Furthermore, they only prohibited the federal congress from making a law "respecting an establishment of religion". States were actually permitted to set up state churches. There is no denying that our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and these principles have provided for the most prosperous, successful, inclusive and free nation thus far.
All Readers: Beware of revisionist history!
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