Rick Warren: Balancing Consumer Success and Hate
Rick Warren is the celebrity founder of an evangelical "megachurch." He's also the author of The Purpose Driven Life, which has sold 30 million copies. Warren is the icon that every ambitious evangelical pastor strives to become the way a wedding singer grinding out tunes in some godforsaken Holiday Inn lounge would rather be Bono.
Been there, done that. I was an evangelical leader and sidekick to one (my late father, Francis Schaeffer) until I quit in the mid-'80s. Empire builders are empire builders, and entertainers are entertainers, regardless of what they call themselves. Mea culpa!
I only understood the reality of the symbiotic relationship between our consumer/entertainment culture and the star religious empire builders, after I quit being one. Judging by the many emails I am getting from pastors who have read my memoir Crazy For God, it seems that many a preacher is in the position of Groucho Marx. Groucho said he'd never want to belong to a club that would let someone like him join. The self-loathing in the evangelical world is rampant. With good reason -- something I'm exploring in my forthcoming book Patience With God -- Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism), due out this fall.
In Purpose Driven, Warren writes; "It's not about you." But his church is very much about him. He's the star in a personality-cult that fits the celebrity-worshiping temper of our times.
Ask yourself: what will happen to his church when Warren dies, leaves or is thrown out? Will it remain as "successful?" Are people are there for each other and their community? Are they there for Jesus? Or are they there for Rick Warren?
Fulfillment, satisfaction, and meaning can only be found in "understanding and doing what God placed you on Earth to do," writes Warren. But Warren's message turns out to be less about God than it is about trying to convince his readers to become American-style evangelicals -- in other words, to find purpose, they have to join the North American individualistic cult of one-stop, born-again "salvation" to which Warren belongs.
According to traditional Christianity a person was not "saved" or "lost" in a one-stop magical affirmation of Jesus, but rather the process of salvation was lived out in a community. Salvation was a path toward God, not a "you're in or out" event, as in, "At two thirty last Wednesday I accepted Jesus." The process of redemption took, as Hilary Clinton said about child rearing, a village. Bishops and priests came and went, but the Church -- the "village" -- remained.
Today the American evangelical consumer of religion is even more prone to the truism that nothing succeeds like success. Talk about unregulated banks and hedge funds, the biggest unregulated market is big-time religion. Its success isn't measured in spiritual gain that changes anything for the better.
Big-time as religion is in the USA compared to highly secular Europe, nevertheless America's teen sex statistics, abortion rates, spread of STDs, divorce, child rape rates are higher than those in non-church-going Europe. So, the "success" of Warren's type of entrepreneurship is measured in the same way all success in our consumer-driven culture is measured.
It's no coincidence that other entrepreneurs, who aren't necessarily believers, have gotten in on the act. Rupert Murdock now owns the largest "Christian" publishing company, having bought out and then folded it into his stable of publishing companies, one of which publishes Rick Warren.
The evangelical religion is no different in its core "values" than the celebrity-worshiping entertainment-oriented society it claims to be a prophetic witness to. Star power is seductive. The problem is that evangelical faith revolves around two directives: be successful and evangelize.
Pastors aren't a pastors in the evangelical culture any more than evangelical "writers" are writers. Rather "pastors" are but the inventors of their own product line sold as religion, offering it as just another consumer choice to a culture that picks churches the way they pick sweaters.
I can't prove this but I believe it's true: any person who remains a "professional Christian" in the evangelical world for a lifetime, especially pastors, risks becoming atheists. They put on an act of certainty that the actual uncertainties of life can't sustain. Sooner or later they become flakes faking it, or quit.
In the mid '80s my final break with my evangelical past was like turning on some sort of creative tap. I knew that as an artist and writer, even if I could have kept putting up with the "theology" -- which I couldn't -- let alone the insane hate-filled, war-loving, gay-bashing, gun-toting, moron-making right wing politics, that the evangelical subculture is death to creativity.
Since there is no there, there -- no tradition -- all that polices the empire-builders are the self-appointed Church Lady Brigade. You always have moralizing busybodies sniffing around your butt to see if you're pure enough: good for dogs, maybe, bad for writers.
When I left the evangelical world I found that I was no longer looking over my shoulder wondering what people, in other words the Church Ladies, would think. You see, a Rick Warren looks powerful, but he makes a bad trade, sort of like Prince Charles: you get the life and the palace, but being Prince Charles is all you'll ever be. You are your job. It's a gilded cage and you are stuck! It's the worst type-casting imaginable.
Warren, like any evangelical leader, knows that he must park his mind at the door of his golden cage or his empire will melt away under the intolerable weight of the gossip of the Church Ladies.
Warren got a whiff of this when he was foolish enough to go on Larry King in the spring of 2009 and mention that maybe he wasn't as firmly against gay marriage as he was said to have been. As the Washington Times reported on April 11, 2009, "I was extremely troubled," said Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville KY. "Absolutely baffling," huffed Wendy Wright, president of the Concerned Women of America organization.
My friend Richard Cizik, former vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, learned a hard lesson: you have to hate consistently to be an evangelical in good standing.
Cizik was being interviewed by Terry Gross on "Fresh Air" early in 2009 and mentioned that maybe he wasn't against gay civil unions. He didn't even mention gay marriage. End of story! He was fired within days.
Cizik had almost been forced out several years before when James Dobson, of "Focus on the Family" fame, wrote to the NAE board demanding Cizik's dismissal for saying that he thought global warming was real. Cizik got away with that "apostasy" against the Republican Party, that had long since come to be a stand in for Jesus for power hungry evangelical leaders like Dobson. But when Cizik didn't hate gays enough; game over!
Since evangelicals pretty much get to make up their doctrine as they go along they really only have to live by two rules. First, they must be commercial successes in our consumer culture. Second, they must always hate the "other."
Warren ultimately answers to the Church Ladies. And when they are sniffing around you to make sure you are "one of them" the thing they look for first is the reassuring stench of hate.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy For God -- How I Grew Up As One Of The elect, Helped Found The Religious Right And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back and the forthcoming Patience With God -- Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism), due out this fall.
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Tough talk... but sometimes reality is a hard pill to swallow. Unless you have lived inside the evangelical sub-culture some of the realities that Frank brings out is hard to comprehend as it seems so disconnected. Yet, as one who is an "ordained evangelical minister" I have witnessed these realities as well.
We preach a message of living for the Kingdom and yet the kingdoms we build are made with hands and the personality of the Sr. Pastor is the "spirit" that moves. These ministries are usually one or two generation wonders and then they flat line. I was planted in the "Independent Baptist" sub-culture as a very young child. I attended a Bible College in Northwest, Indiana and the bizarre stories I could tell you would send the NAACP and NOW organizations in a crazed frenzy. This insanity of racism and sexism still exists in these institutions and is done so in the name of "Jesus"!
These realities need to be faced and the questions need to be pondered so that we can enter into a real and meaningful conversation that deals with the actualities verses some fantastical dream state that has no connection to real life!
Thanks Frank! Keep sharing your story and the lessons you are still learning from them!
"We preach a message of living for the Kingdom and yet the kingdoms we build are made with hands and the personality of the Sr. Pastor is the "spirit"
MD,
Men have flaws. Who is a man of God? Who stood up in the pulpit as our nation made the descent into war for greed and torture and told their conservative congregation about the horror they were building? Certainly there was big pressure to not speak up. Telling the people straight would probably get a preacher fired, and if not might bring the feds looking into their tax exempt status or worse. It could easily make someone marginalized in the greater Christian community. But of course none of that means anything to a man of God.
I guess the issue would be is the church industry just that - a business? If so then it would not make "cents" to say or do anything that would threaten that livelihood.
The church is more than just a business. It has become the god that the people worship. They speak for the church, they listen to the church, and they believe the church. The primary business of the church is helping the people avoid the God of Truth.
Wow! Your perspective goes straight to the heart of the matter! If the Church truly is the body of Christ, the physical manifestation of our true Being this would make the Church an organism made up of His creation that has been made in His likeness! That would mean that I am the Church, you are the Church, we are the Church! That reality means that we are the physical expression of an unseen God who is at work in and through His creation. Somehow the church has been re-defined and as you so well stated the church has become the god people worship. To acknowledge that the church's primary business is helping people avoid the truth of God would in turn say that the institutional organization has become the antithesis of the Church!
More like A Purpose-Driven Cult Scam. Good point about what this cult of personality would do without him. Also, if he was thrown out what would he do next? These kind of people are used to sheepish flocks financing and enabling them. What would his life be like if he had to work for a living? Rev. bookburn - Radio Volta
Powerful post, as always, my friend. Keep writing, please. All us reformed evangelicals who consider ourselves spiritual but who recoil in horror at what the so-called "Christian" church of today has become, cling to your words for comfort.
I look forward to reading your new book when it comes out. I used to be an Episcopalian. But then I started studying other religions & was no longer comfortable with the "us vs. them" mentality. Plus as a woman (this was back before the women priests) I found the patronage insufferable. Keep up the good work, Mr. Scaeffer.
The problem is that evangelical faith ....: be successful and evangelize.....they must be commercial successes in our consumer culture....... they must always hate the "other."
Paraphrased of course, but that sez it all.... how else do you explain them always asking for money, and 'giving' out cheap tchockes for a 'donation' and always touting 'urgency' and 'you aren't good enough unless you (fill in the blank here).....it's the same message infomercials have. When you flip thru cable channels on sunday, that's all it is whether televangelists or infomercials (or even infomercials with televangelists in them!)
If your product is good, then you sell it in the stores. If it is of questionable value, then you sell it through infomercials. If it isn't good enough for infomercials, then you use multilevel marketing. Does evangelical mean salesman?
Yes.
Again, you are right on, Mr. Schaeffer!
Just like it is said that Washington, D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people, the religious right is Hollywood for intolerant people. All the evangelicals I have met in my life use God as an excuse to indulge their megalomaniac impulses or their inferiority complexes. Without exception. And it breaks many of them. They never find inner peace. Just look at Ted Haggard.
You can't talk about the sinful ways of modern life and broadcast that message on satellite T.V. without looking like a complete hypocrite. You can't praise the free market on the one hand and then turn around and condemn the fact that it delivers porn into every home. Well, you can, but you look ridiculous.
Are Christians better than non-Christians? Are they worse?
Christians believe God wrote the Bible for them, and it is the one true book written by God. They pray daily to God and ask for guidance and strength. They associate with others of God and gather together, many several times per week so that they can encourage and strengthen each other. They believe unlike the rest of humanity they are reaching for God, and they have been following this path for generations, hundreds, thousands of years. Has all this effort by all these people for all this time made them better than non-Christians? If not, then Christianity doesn't work and these things are an illusion that actually makes them worse than the non-Christians. I think if you insist on reclaiming your creativity, this is the kind of thoughts you will have.
Muslims have been reaching for their version of God for generations, hundreds, thousands of years. So have native Americans, and Buddists, and Taoists, and Hindus. Does there search have meaning? Is it comparable to the Christian search? If not, why not?
Why do the Christians need to say better or worse? Why is it always us vs. them?
Honestly, right now I have to say self-proclaimed "Christians" are worse than non-Christians. (True Christians, and I've met a very few, don't think in "better or worse" terms. They know that we are all the children of God and are welcome at the table.)
I think Christianity made it us vs. them with their terror war. They are always looking for ways to make their church feel justified, and the party of the rich saw this as a way to gain votes and reached out to them telling them what would make them happy. I think you would have to say the church was the dominate force in putting Bush in office, and that was the primary force splitting the world and driving us to war, wars designed to help nobody but the rich. I think Christianity has come to realize these wars won't lead to their rapture, but they haven't yet reached the point where they are willing to open up and discuss this situation with outsiders, non-Christians. If they would only listen, they might discover that non-Christians have a better understanding of God than they do.
Religion is a business selling a product that doesn't exist.
Chistianity is a failed religion at least at this point in time. It main problem is that it fails to turn out truely realised spiritual being like the Christ. Instead it seems to be lead and controled by sociopathic egotistical conmen. Also many of it tenets are based on the false understanding of the reserrection.
Christianity has not failed. The true Christianity has not been tried. (Chesterton)
I grieve over all of this. At the usurpation of all that is true about faith in Christ for political gain. At the hatred of a faith that has been misrepresented, misunderstood, misapplied. At the redefinition of terms that have been bastardized in ways for which they were never intended.
Jesus was never about hate. He always calmed fears. He always reached out in love to everyone, most especially the ones that were kicked to the curb by the society and the religious leaders. I am so saddened that it has come to this.
My little flock of 27 people are taught compassion for people, no matter who they are. We feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and educate their children. We house the homeless. We visit those in prison. We walk hospital corridors to find someone to encourage. We give free computer classes to prepare them for work. This is what Jesus did. When people tried to get him to delve into politics, he refused, because his purpose was a higher calling--justice, mercy and humility. He did say, "Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's." He never confused the two.
Had I been in Barack Obama's place, I wouldn't have wanted to "reach across the aisle". I would have had an entirely secular inauguration: I would have gotten sworn in not on a Bible, but on a book about the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez movie "Grindhouse".
Unfortunately, you wouldn't have gotten enough votes to even win the primary.
Mr. Schaeffer, you are a modern American heretic. And I love you. In a purely platonic way, of course.
If I remember my bible right, even Jesus warned against the fanatics. It's been so long though. When I read about the 12 legged insects, I realized that it was fake - if there was a god speaking to have stuff written down, you'd think they'd get the number of legs on their creation correct.
"You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." That philosophy of not letting someone else's enmity into your own heart is so practical and useful that to me it makes up for a lot of inconsistencies. You don't have to go to the Bible to get that, or even believe in God, but it's in there with all the stuff that throws people off. It's not all begats and smiting and thou shalt nots and Balaam's ass and all that. Some of it's pretty good.
And a lot of it is pretty bad.
Frank, I enjoy your posts and value your perspective on the church. Today, I think you've made the mistake of overly generalising. The evangelical world encompasses 10s or perhaps 100s of millions of people across the globe. Where I worship, the Rick Warrens and Ted Haggards have not been even heard of by everyone, let alone followed. I suspect that even within the US, evangelicalism is far more diverse than the sub-culture you have depicted and which is in your experience.
In your understandable vehemence, you've left out all the qualifiers necessary to give this piece substance.
BTW, the notion of salvation as a "process" rather than a one time "event" is deeply rooted in the thought of the "Greek Fathers" that inform the Eastern Orhtodoxy Schaeffer now professes and practices and of John Wesley, who read the "Greek Fathers" and is considered the "Father" of Methodism, which was an "evangelical" reform movement in the Anglican Church of the eighteenth century.
I know what Schaeffer means by "Church Ladies," but since all the "Church Ladies" he cites (Al Mohler, James Dobson, etc.) are actually men, couldn't he come up with a different descriptor?
Don't forget Enid Strict! (doin a Superior dance)
Nah, I think he's right on target calling them "Church Ladies"--they all remind me very much of Dana Carvey's cross-dressing character on SNL. Many times when I see them on TV (inadvertently, of course), I can swear I almost see the lace collars peeking out from their jackets.
Could it be.........S-A-T-A-N???????!!!!
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