Word: warrens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...several hundred thousand pastors on his mailing list, enumerating "non-negotiable" issues for Christians to consider when casting their votes: abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, euthanasia and human cloning. Shortly after the election, two attendees of a Washington meeting of conservative religious and political heavyweights remember Warren's actively soliciting advice on how he might increase his clout with GOP politicians...
...upon exploring the role, Warren grew uncomfortable with it. "I have never been considered a part of the religious right, because I don't believe politics is the most effective way to change the world," he says now. "Although public service can be a noble profession, and I believe it is our responsibility to vote, I don't have much faith in government solutions, given the track record. It's why I am a pastor, not a politician. None of my values have changed from four years ago, but my agenda has definitely expanded...
...Warren had an epiphany in 2003. His wife Kay had dedicated herself to the fight against HIV/AIDS, a brave move in a community where it was still often stigmatized. In Africa with her nine months later, he says, he heard a message from above. "God said, 'You don't care squat about the sick and the poor. And you need to change; you need to repent.'" He became fond of repeating that the Bible has 2,000 verses dedicated to the poor and that the Gospel of Matthew contains not only the Great Commission, in which Christ bids his disciples...
...Evangelicals who came of age during the Graham generation, notes Andy Crouch, head of the Christian Vision project at the Evangelical monthly Christianity Today, charitable mission work tended to be relegated to "occasional action to keep people alive, to teach them the Gospel in a credible way." Warren, by contrast, yearned for full-scale battle with the "five global giants": spiritual emptiness, selfish leadership, hunger, sickness and illiteracy. If he could provide the proper vehicle for change, millions might jump...
...Warren's insight was to combine both models in a plan aimed at energizing Third World churches. He knew they were everywhere, including backwaters unreached by government or NGOs. He started comparing them to McDonald's franchises. Or to desktop computers: if they could be infected with the virus of good works, the world could be transformed. (Put simply: if every pastor in the world taught basic water hygiene, it could significantly cut rates of dysentery, a major global killer.) Scores of short-term activists, armed with Saddleback-crafted training, would go into a foreign country, locate its most promising...