New Evangelicals - SOF

Last week I was taken in by Jim Wallis in Speaking of Faith's twofold program about a new kind of evangelicals. This week's issue with Rick and Kay Warren inspired me less. Somehow, the political walk connects with me all right, but the spiritual talk can put me off seriously. Jim Wallis was fine, when he points out that the Bible is very frequently into poor people and how to help them, but with the Warrens I get rubbed the wrong way with certain phrases.

Look, the most important thing, I might and maybe must think, is that they have understood they shouldn't enter politics the way evangelicals did until recently and that their Christian Faith pulls them towards taking on the AIDS problem and to stop marginalizing people. That is where Krista Tippett comes in and where the parallels with Jim Wallis are drawn. That is also where obviously, they cannot be solely identified with a conservative right wing view on society.

I just feel extremely uncomfortable with the near casual way of talking about Jesus and the Lord as if they are each other's neighbors and have conversations on a day to day basis and know what the other thinks as clearly as can be. I could take out of the transcript about ten passages that express this emphatic faith but let's take just one where Kay Warren speaks of her husband.

I always knew Rick was — that God had big plans for Rick. I met him when he was 17. And I said he was — I had never met anybody like him then and I've never met anybody like him to this day. So I had a sense that God was going to do something through Rick, not because Rick was anything different, it's just — for whatever reason, it was God's choice that he was going to use Rick.