April 2010
The Christians Have Lost Their Goddamned Minds
I drive kind of a lot for my job, sometimes as much as 150 miles a day or more. I generally like driving, but even I need something to break up the monotony. I've found that one of the most entertaining things to listen to while driving is hard-core Christian radio. I like it for two reasons: first, I like learning about viewpoints I fundamentally don't understand. Second, some of the things they say are so fucking ridiculous that they're just absurdly entertaining. The other day, they were having a discussion that pretty much blew my mind.
Ok, there's this show on one of the Christian radio stations called Crosstalk. It follows the standard talk-radio format: they have guests and then random people call in. Earlier this week, the topic they were discussing was John Piper's invitation of Rick Warren to speak at the Desiring God 2010 Conference. This is apparently a big deal because Rick Warren apparently isn't a very good Christian. In fact, he's pretty much the antichrist.
How is it that the man that delivered the invocation at President Obama's inauguration is the antichrist? Well, it's because he's apparently not hard-line enough for the people who produce the show I was listening to. In their opinion, Mr. Warren--a guy whose views are consistent with other evangelical Christian on most if not all points--is a terrible Christian because he doesn't talk about the gospel enough. The radio show cited two examples.
First, they played a clip of Mr. Warren addressing a roomful of Muslims. Here's the clip:
The gyst of the host's objection to Mr. Warren's address to the Muslim group was that, instead of telling them that they were all going to hell for not accepting Jesus, Mr. Warren spoke to them about how they should not only be tolerated but respected and about how they could work together to end stereotyping. That, apparently, is wrong.
Then, the host referred to an instance in which Mr. Warren appeared in front of a group of Jewish leaders and only mentioned Jesus once, after which he apologized for telling a Jesus-related parable. This, apparently, is also wrong.
The Crosstalk show posted these clips and several other videos defending its position here.
Crosstalk's position scared me for several reasons. First, it's scary to think that there's a significant portion of people in this country for whom Rick Warren--a guy that's against abortion, doesn't believe in evolution, and thinks gay marriage is rightly outlawed--isn't religious-right enough. But I think the scariest thing about it was the thought that these same people are so absolutely assured of their nonsensical position that they believe that anyone who doesn't address a roomful of non-believers with condescension and disrespect is committing an egregious sin. These are people who are so convinced of their own righteousness that they're condemning a guy who believes almost exactly what they do simply for saying that people who believe differently should be not only tolerated but respected.
Rick Warren certainly isn't the least bigoted person in the world, but it's really fucking scary when even suggesting that we should respect people who are different than ourselves gets you thrown under a bus.
