E. J. Dionne offers a reasonable interpretation of Obama's scandalous invitation to Rick Warren: that Obama wants to reach out to evangelicals and Warren wants to lead them to engagement with a wider set of social issues.
We say that this is certainly true of Obama and probably partly true of Warren. But it almost certainly isn't primary with Warren.
Political animals like Dionne assume that every move made by a public figure is political. But pastors, regardless of their public profile, tend to think like pastors. Or more particularly, like evangelists.
Evangelists take the gospel anywhere they can. Their formative stories include those of people who found themselves in unlikely places, where they got to tell the story that comprises the good news to people in otherwise inaccessible places, whether those places are socially or geographically inaccessible.
So a pastor will go just about anywhere he can, for the chance to tell the story. Even to a Presidential Inauguration. So goes Rick Warren, who isn't nearly as cagey as Dionne imagines.
We assume that Warren is in trouble with those who don't want him associating with pro-abortion types. Such is to be expected: evangelists who go places to tell the story generally get criticized for the company they keep. So good evangelists learn to ignore that criticism.
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If the President of the United States asked me to pray before any event, no matter what my political affiliation I would be honored. I am sure this is Rick Warren's viewpoint.
I just heard that Mark Dricoll, the popular conservative Reformed pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, has accepted an invitation to preach during the Hour of Power at the Crystal Cathedral. His reasoning for accepting the invite: even if I don't buy into Schuller's theology, the opportunity to preach in front of millions cannot be turned down.
I attend a church where the pastor is constantly doing things like this. He's a great evangelist, and his only rule when asked to speak or pray at an event is that if they try to censor his content, he won't speak, so that he will go anywhere he is allowed to preach the gospel freely.
I think Rick Warren has a wonderful opportunity to touch the lives of not only the president-elect and his family, but the whole country as we watch a really incredibly historic moment.
And it's a little bit interesting how he's been criticized by the conservatives, because he's doing exactly what Jesus did. It says something about conservatives when we criticize one of our own for reaching out to the lost in such a non-traditional way.
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