Rick Warren??

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


rick_warren.jpg This one puzzles.

Rick Warren is the pastor of the California-based megachurch known as Saddleback and the author of super-bestseller The Purpose Driven Life. He wins plaudits from mainstream media types and Very Serious People because he is trying to expand the evangelical community’s priorities beyond the standard social issues. He wants to see more attention paid to poverty, climate change, AIDS, and human rights. That’s all well and good, but Warren still has many views that match the hardline right. He strongly supported Proposition 8. He considers stem cells “non-negotiable.” He compares abortion to the Holocaust. He has admitted the difference between between him and James Dobson is primarily “a matter of tone.” In a move that would make George Orwell proud, he just gave George W. Bush an “International Medal of P.E.A.C.E.”

And this is the guy Barack Obama has chosen to give the invocation at his inauguration? A man whose views stand in stark contrast to the ones held by the tens of millions of Americans who elected Obama?

I’m not the only one who is shocked. There is already a petition at whitehouse2.org that urges the President-elect to give this incredible privilege to one of the nation’s thousands and thousands of men and women of the cloth whose views match Obama’s, and those of the people who will have flown in from around the country to see the inauguration in person. Take a look.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate