What Rick Warren Is Teaching Me

December 31, 2008

I’m hoping I have one more chance before the end of the day to to post a more New Year’s Evey post but this one has been in the hopper so long it’s either post or delete so I’m going with post it.

Since President-Elect Obama selected Warren to give the invocation prayer at the Inauguration, Warren’s been picked apart like a 10 pound holiday turkey at a family gathering of 300 kinfolk. Like you I’ve read a slew of commentaries, blogs, and op-eds from the most compassionate to the most snarky and in the end I stand shoulder to shoulder with Bishop Gene Robinson:

I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table, but we’re not talking about a discussion, we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.

I don’t have much more to say beyond what Robinson has said about Warren’s participation in the Inauguration. I’m disappointed by Obama’s choice but I’m over it. Life goes on and I’m not going to allow Warren’s presence or prayer rob me of the hope for change that lies before us in a new year and a new presidency.

But looking beyond the invocation debate, I continue to watch Warren as a pastor and Christian and as I do I’m coming to a renewed commitment of how it is that I want to live out my own life in the world as I watch his life play out under the media spotlight. Admittedly the teachable moments have been centered around what I consider to be Warren’s mistakes rather than his strengths but to be fair I have a library annex of life lessons gleaned from my own mistakes, and with the reality of my failings laid out before me I’m more earnest than snide when I say Rick Warren is teaching me.

In the days prior to Christmas Rick Warren had several highly publicized encounters with queer folk. On December 21 Warren had a 30 minute phone conversation and then a face to face meeting with Melissa Etheridge. Melissa recounts her time with Warren in an Open Letter to The Huffington Post, as does her wife, Tammy Lynn Michael, on her blog at Hollywood Farm Girl. On that same evening during a gathering of the Muslim Public Affairs Council Warren referred to his earlier encounter with Etheridge by saying he was a long time fan of hers and that he “loved gays.”

On the following day Warren visited Out of the Closet, a West Hollywood thrift store that helps fund programs offered by AIDS Heathcare Foundation. He browsed through the store, purchasing ten books including copies of two of his own, stopped to talk with the openly gay store manager, Erol Sarabi, and pose for a photo with his arm draped around Sarabi’s shoulder.  The story was originally released on the TMZ blog.

There’s nothing in either of these two highly publicized encounters to suggest Warren was anything but warm, friendly, and genuine in his demeanor and conversations. Clearly he wooed Melissa and that’s all fine and good. The problem for me was that when I heard of these events I was propelled back to a story I’d read only days earlier by Jeff Lutes in a post contributed to The Bilerico Project entitled “That Weird Hug from Rick Warren.” If you’re too tired from the holidays to follow the link, here’s an abbreviated summary of Jeff’s story. As abbreviated as is within my verbosity to provide that is.

Jeff Lutes first began making arrangements in December 2007 to meet Rick Warren on Father’s Day in June, 2008. According to Jeff, the Executive Director of Soulforce, it was agreed in a series of phone conversations with Warren’s chief of staff that Warren and his wife, along with several other members of his staff and their families would join in a meal after worship that day to talk together about how they might find ways to move beyond differences and look to what they shared in common as parents and people of faith. This was to be part of a series of conversations with evangelical leaders as part of Soulforce’s American Family Outing 2008 project.

Months passed. One week prior to the meeting an article appears in Newsweek mentioning the upcoming meeting between Soul Force families and Rick Warren. In the end Warren’s people informed Jeff that Warren would be unable to meet with them while at the same time Warren himself posted a comment on Get Religion:

(You) were correct in assuming Newsweek quoted a Soul Force press release headline that was 100% false. We did not invite this group and I will not be meeting with them. They invited themselves to draw attention to their cross country publicity stunt.

My staff has already told them that neither my wife nor I will meet with them for any discussion or debate. This weekend, both Kay and I are receiving awards from two different universities so we’ll be out of town! Also, it’s Father’s Day and I’m spending the holiday with my children and grandchildren, as are all my staff.

In the end Warren preached on Father’s Day at a satellite church to Saddleback and agreed to sit down and meet for 10-15 minutes after worship with Jeff Lutes and his family. Following the conclusion of the worship service, Jeff, along with his family stood in the church waiting for their meeting with Warren. According to Jeff the meeting went something like this:

Eventually, I heard Warren call out my name. As I turned to greet him, he hugged me, my partner, and our three children . . . and then walked away. No conversation. Minimal eye contact. Just an awkward hug and he was gone.

I can’t help but hold these three separate encounters with Warren side by side. Whether or not Warren originally agreed to meet with Jeff Lutes and the folks from Soulforce and then reneged on the arrangements or the accuracy of Warren’s statements in his comment on Get Religion is a secondary concern to me. What caught my attention is that in his own words Warren refused to meet with the group from Soulforce because it was a meeting intended as nothing more than a publicity stunt. I’m familiar with the work of Soulforce and just as I believe their intention was to create an opportunity for a genuine dialogue between gay and straight families of faith, I would imagine they were also hoping to gain a certain amount of media mileage and there’s nothing wrong with that. Media attention is critical to any non-profit organization yet Warren mentions it in such a way as to suggest their motives were less than genuine and that they only intended to use him for their own purpose.

In his meeting with Melissa Etheridge and then browsing through a thrift store in queer WeHo how was Warren doing anything different than what he accused Soulforce of attempting to do to him? Both occasions, however genuine Warren may or may not have been in participating in them, were used by Warren for his benefit. He didn’t hesitate to mention his conversation with Melissa at a large public event or to pose for a photograph with his arm draped around the gay manager of the thrift shop. These events and people were used for his own purpose and so the very thing he accused of Soulforce he in turn seems to have done to others.

And what of the difference in the quality of meetings between Melissa Etheridge, Erol Sarabi, and Jeff Lutes? Melissa and Erol had warm and engaging conversations with Warren. We know this because they were reported on publicly by the media and the participants to the events. Jeff had nothing more than a hug given in haste. We only know this from Lutes own telling of what happened since there were no cameras in church on that day to record it and no queer icons present to draw media attention to it.

I can’t let go of this one thing; before Warren is a best-selling author or a public personality, he is a pastor, and as a pastor committed to caring for all people and for a man who repeatedly proclaims his love and commitment to gay people, why could he not have met for a few minutes with one gay couple? On that day, for the sake of a family who traveled all the way to meet with him there could have surely been time set aside and a church staff office provided where Warren could have met privately with Jeff, his spouse, and their children for a pastoral and compassionate conversation.

I don’t have any idea why things played out as they did but that doesn’t stop me from wondering about it all, and even as I wonder about things I may never know and have no power to change, I’m compelled to turn my attention away from Warren, Etheridge, Sarabi and Lutes and look deeply within my own life.  Do I treat all people with love and compassion whether enemy or friend? Do the words I speak and the actions I take reflect integrity and consistency regardless whether they’re disclosed in public or concealed in private?

Authentic. Real. Consistent. Genuine. These are words we often hear and though they might have become trite sounding in our culture they aren’t meaningless or empty aspirations;  not for anyone and even more particularly for people of faith committed to living out their lives in a way that reflects well on the Gospel message.  Like you, I want the love of God to flow through me and the life of Christ to be reflected in me. Neither will  happen unless I live my life authentically in a way that’s consistent with what I believe concerning God and God’s relationship with the world. In my transparency I risk, no, I guarantee, the failings of my humanity will be seen by all but in the end, that’s the very place where God’s grace will most shine, for in spite of my weaknesses and failings, my sin and my selfishness, God’s grace might not only be evident but flow from one such as I into the world.

I don’t know if this makes a whole lot of sense to anyone but me but it’s something that’s occupied my thoughts and prayers over these past days. Take it for what it’s worth, if it be worth anything at all to you.

Posted in Christian Living and Faith, News and Events