NPR’s Here And Now aired Robin Young’s interview with me today. We were able to cover lots of new territory in the interview, from the roles of Francis Schaeffer and R.J. Rushdoony in inspiring the Christian right’s tactics and goals, to Dwight Eisenhower’s prophecy about the radical right, to the birth of the terrorist wing of the anti-abortion movement, to the weird intersection of the LaRouche cult and the anti-Obama crazies. Listen to it at the 4:20 mark here.
On 12.23.08, By Max
Rick Warren, courtier and culture warriorToday I discussed Barack Obama's selection of Rick Warren as his inaugural pastor with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. Watch or listen to it here or read the transcript, which continues below the fold:
AMY GOODMAN: President-elect Barack Obama, speaking in Chicago last week.
I’m joined now by Max Blumenthal, Puffin Foundation writing fellow at the Nation Institute. His work has appeared in The Nation, Salon and many other publications, currently writing a book on the US evangelical movement. His latest article, “Rick Warren’s Hypocritical Double Life,” is online at dailybeast.com. Max Blumenthal joins us by DN! video stream.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Max.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Great to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the history of Rick Warren.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, the history of Rick Warren is pretty interesting. And you heard some of his views right there. These are views that people have only recently started paying attention to. Prior to this controversy, Rick Warren was, you know, proffered by the media as the voice of the new evangelical movement, which embraces environmentalism and fights poverty and is going to move beyond the old hobgoblins of the Christian right and the old, you know, draconian figures of the Christian right, like James Dobson and Pat Robertson. Rick Warren was supposed to be the pioneer of this new movement. He is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church, a megachurch in Orange County. And he’s the author of The Purpose Driven Life, which is, you know, a sort of subtly Christian, self-help manual that sold 25 million copies. So he has a really broad appeal, and he’s planted churches across the world, especially in Africa.
And because, you know, the media has expected evangelicals, especially conservative evangelicals, to be draconian and retrograde, you know, they’ve made a hero out of Rick Warren without looking at who he really is and what he really believes. Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times, for example, has called Rick Warren an evangelical liberals can love. You know,Newsweek named Rick Warren one of the fifteen people who make America great. And even The Nation, which I’ve written for, you know, the venerable left-wing magazine, in 2005 published a piece calling Rick Warren America’s pastor.
You know, he wears a Hawaiian shirt. He looks like a big teddy bear. He doesn’t holler or hector. He speaks in a ponderous tone. And he does seem to genuinely care about the environment and care about poverty. It’s not clear what he’s actually done.
Buy It Now
Recent Comments