California mega-church pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren says he apologized to his homosexual friends for making comments in support of California's Proposition 8, and now claims he "never once even gave an endorsement" of the marriage amendment.
Monday night on CNN's Larry King Live, Pastor Rick Warren apologized for his support of Prop. 8, California's voter-approved marriage protection amendment, saying he has "never been and never will be" an "anti-gay or anti-gay marriage activist."
"During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never -- never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop. 8 was going," Warren claimed. However, just two weeks before the November 4 Prop. 8 vote, Pastor Warren issued a clear endorsement of the marriage amendment while speaking to church members
I think this may help explain the seeming contradiction:
“Throughout his pastoral ministry spanning nearly 30 years, Pastor Warren has remained committed to the biblical definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, for life — a position held by most fellow Evangelical pastors. He has further stressed that for 5,000 years, EVERY culture and EVERY religion has maintained this worldview. “When Pastor Warren told Larry King that he never campaigned for California's Proposition 8, he was referring to not participating in the official two-year organized advocacy effort specific to the ballot initiative in that state, based on his focus and leadership on other compassion issues. Because he's a pastor, not an activist, in response to inquiries from church members, he issued an email and video message to his congregation days before the election confirming where he and Saddleback Church stood on this issue.“During the King interview, Pastor Warren also referenced a letter of apology that he sent to gay leaders whom he knew personally. However, that mea culpa was not with respect to his statements or position on Proposition 8 nor the biblical worldview on marriage. Rather, he apologized for his comments in an earlier Beliefnet interview expressing his concern about expanding or redefining the definition of marriage beyond a husband-wife relationship, during which he unintentionally and regrettably gave the impression that consensual adult same sex relationships were equivalent to incest or pedophilia.”http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21157.html
I understand this puts Rick in a difficult position, but, in my opinion, he desparately needs to clarify his position publicly. Members of our congregation want us to stop using Saddleback materials and he loses credibility as a spokesman for the Christian community. I articulated my position to my congregation as follows.
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1. Prop 8 is not the way to win people over. You can’t legislate the lost or confused into eternity – in fact the opposite is likely to happen (so, is this Rick’s reasoning also … which he can’t say out loud), so yes support it, but realize it may have negative consequences. You love them and show them God has a better way and then let the word convict them of their sin.
2. To legalize and affirm gay marriage is to fuel the fires of confusion. If someone experiments, or gets teased, or gets excited by a readily available same sex encounter, and the world is saying, this is not only OK, but an absolutely acceptable alternative and to think otherwise is close-minded bigotry … then it makes the path to self determination so easy and offers no reason to battle those urges. So, I fully support prop 8, but I fear/believe we have gone too far down the other path already and we now live in a post Christian society and we should EXPECT the persecution and challenges.
I too am very confused and quite disappointed. I had a relative send me the Larry King clip as a proof point to Pastor Rick's political relativism. I listened to it side-by-side with the video he sent out to us pastors in Oct. The two could not have been more contrary.
A clarification statement at the very least is more than appropriate, it is necessary.
Craig