Juan Cole's take on Rick Warren after appearing with him at MPAC council

[Hamlette]

I was in Long Beach,Ca. on Saturday for the annual conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, where Pastor Rick Warren and I were both headliners.
snip
I was told that Warren's friends among the MPAC Muslim community had urged him to call Melissa Etheridge Friday night in the run-up to their being (serially) on the same stage Saturday night, and that he did so and they talked for half an hour. During his address, Warren mentioned also seeing Etheridge backstage on Saturday. Local television in Los Angeles showed a short clip of Etheridge after the event asking gay leaders to reach out to Warren, just as they wanted him to reach out to them.

snip

So imagine my surprise when I heard Warren talk at MPAC and found that he is a genuine, likeable man. And more than likeable, he seems admirable. A lot of pastors would tell the story of building their congregations and saving souls as the pinnacle of their lives. For Warren, that was only the beginning. He and his wife had an epiphany six years ago when she read an article about there being 12 million children in Africa who had been orphaned by AIDS. They started going to southern Africa, and Warren became devoted to helping those orphans.

But then he began thinking bigger. He has identified 5 major problems he wants to address:
Spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, disease pandemics, dire poverty, and illiteracy. He wants to do job creation and job training. He wants to wipe out malaria in the areas where it is still active. He is convinced that religious congregations are the only set of organizations on earth that can successfully combat these ills. And he is entirely willing actively and directly to cooperate with mosques to get the job done.

Warren, in short, is a representative of the turn of some evangelicals to a social gospel.

snip

If Warren is the future of the American evangelical movement, then many more evangelicals might end up Democrats, since it is Democrats who care about poor people, illiteracy, and AIDS victims. And if any significant proportion of evangelicals can be turned into consistent Democrats, the party would more regularly win elections in some parts of the country and even nationally.

Moreover, Warren's work to improve the lives of Africans probably means something to Obama.

I came away liking and looking up to Warren. In fact, I wonder whether with some work he could not be gotten to back off some of the hurtful things he has said about gays and rethink his support for Proposition 8.

Maybe Melissa Etheridge, who is otherwise very angry about Prop 8, saw the same thing in him.


http://www.juancole.com/2008/12/rick-warren-i-love-muslims-i-happen-to.html

[judy]

1. Interesting, Hamlette...

Thank you for helping relieve the anxiety that the choice of Warren caused me...
Juan Cole is definitely someone I trust.
:)

[katandmoon]

2. Not convinced.

[moobu2]

3. They’ve had 2,000 years to do something

[NJmaverick]

4. Here is the telling line

"I wonder whether with some work he could not be gotten to back off some of the hurtful things he has said about gays and rethink his support for Proposition 8."

I am sure all the DUers comparing him to Hitler will do just that.:eyes:

[Warren Stupidity]

14. we should have tried that with hitler too

terrible mistake cost millions of lives

[NJmaverick]

15. hmm so Warren started a world war and killed millions

the things you learn reading DU:eyes:

[QC]

5. I don't think anyone here has said that Warren is Satan.

Nobody is totally without goodness, and I was giving Warren props for his more positive activities long before he was ever a DU cause celebre.

This really has little to do with whether he is an appropriate choice to open an inauguration.

[madeline_con]

6. Oh, please! Helping the heathen African. Give me a break!

"He is convinced that religious congregations are the only set of organizations on earth that can successfully combat these ills."

He SO wants him some of that faith-based inititiative $$$. Has Monkey Boy guaranteed that will keep flowing as part of his "legacy"?

"He has identified... problems he wants to address: Spiritual emptiness..."

Get a mirror, moran!

[glitch]

18. The kinder, gentler face of Christian Dominionism.

Whoever said theocrats can't be personally charming?

[IndyOp]

7. I love Melissa. Just love her. Thank you, M. (n/t)

[yardwork]

8. "I came away liking and looking up to Warren."

:puke:

[HamdenRice]

9. First hand reporting, rather than outraged opinion. Interesting! nt

[Warren Stupidity]

13. perhaps Cole ought to have followed up with some research.

then again he can always count on the gullible taking his crap at face value.

two minutes on the googler: warren aids africa condoms

ignorance is bliss

[NJmaverick]

16. Yeah that guy has no business being posted at DU

:sarcasm:

[Upton]

10. Give me a break

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Warren and AIDS - no condoms for you.

Of course the evangelical effort against AIDS in Africa is allied with the Catholic church dividing NGO efforts between prevention and treatment and creating friction between those who are trying to use all available tools and those who are ideologically impaired. For an interesting read on this see here:

A division of aims within the global AIDS movement between those advocating for prevention funding and those working for treatment access helped draw faith-based groups. Though treatment and prevention are complementary in fighting HIV/AIDS, the entry of religious right activists exacerbated this divide between the two priorities. Treatment access advocates sought out partnership with evangelicals hoping for increased funding and attention for expensive treatment programs. But the faith-based solution naturally brought with it skewed policies that limited prevention options and led to what Jacobson calls the "profoundly ineffective" spending of AIDS money: with $20 billion spent on treatment over the past five years, but six new infections for every person treated. "No one doesn't want people to have access to treatment," she says. "But my argument is about the tradeoff. You can't treat your way out of this epidemic."

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/12/19/untold-consequences-rick-warrens-aids-activism

[Mass]

12. delete.

[pretzel4gore]

17. what aboot self serving lies, told generation after generation?

One lie that speaks directly to Doc Warren: the 'dark continent' idea pushed for years by the greedy punks (cecily rhodes, ie) who tore africa (not to mention Asia, America and soon) apart regardless of cost in life. Today, the actuality of what it was like in olden days, say 1492, is lost in the glut of self-glorifying bullshit pushed by the same type of greedy tapeworms who somehow turned the USA into the most despised bankrupt seen in history- and they did it by building policy on lies that served only their short term interest, even if it cost their grandkids everything! After all, who, except the stoopid hippies, gives a crap about the future? Obama has survived, and that's a helluva lot when you think of the forces at work, but regards rick warren, all Africa ever needed was to be left alone, especially by the like of him. Note: something besides robert mugabe's political gangsterism is causing the 1/2 million percent inflation in Zimbabwe (modern Germany experienced inflationary pressure as bad as that after the so called allies began printing their money after dubia dubia 1, iow HINThint!) and ....to put everything in simplest perpective- THE POWERLESS ARE NEVER THE GUILTY!

[pnorman]

19. Here's much of what you may want to know about Jun Cole:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Cole

pnorman

[NashVegas]

20. Warren and Other RW Religious Figures Are Desperate To Remain Relevant

And it's for that reason that they are picking up the mantle of AIDs work and other charities the religious/spiritual left has been involved in for years. Smart people know a band waggoneer when they see one.

Warren wants on this train to promote himself.

[autorank]

21. His work on Iraq is brilliant but here, he just another sucker

What is it about someone who calls a class of people pedophiles and incestuous but turns around and
says 'some of my best friends are' or 'I spoke to Melissa etc.' Sorry Jaun, you're out to lunch on
this one. Warren is a classic demagogue - he mercilessly slanders people then is kind to individuals,
yet his slanders are extremely harmful and his individual kindness is belied by his original charges.

Stop the bull shit about this guy. He's loathsome. His AIDS program is bogus and I'll bet the rest
are too.

This is a big screw up, inviting him. It's not the end of the world for Obama. He's got huge tasks
ahead of him. However, supporting Obama's programs for the economy and what should be a general
shift back to some degree of lawfulness DOES NOT mean that tortured logic needs to apply for this
very nasty mouthed man mistakenly invited at an event that belongs to us.

[tblue37]

22. So why was he so eager to try to help McCain and the evil

Republicans win the election?