As many of you have surmised, Rick Warren's fundamentalist, evangelical Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA--recent host of the controversial Obama/McCain forum--has a history of affiliations with some in The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Communion Network (ACN) a group moderated by Bishop Duncan. This would explain a few things I have come across in reading that I did not understand but creates even more questions.
What is clear is Warren has been working with some in TEC for at lest five years. Warren has been involved with several lgbt violence promoting African GAFCON/FOCA Archbishops likewise.
1. On July 24, 2008, I found Warren's church, Saddleback Community, named on a Common Cause Partnership (CCP) list. Puzzling since he is a fundamentalist Baptist not Anglican of any stripe. Apparently a slip, CCP removed the name within 72 hours of my finding it as reported here by the infamous Father Christian Troll. Things like this don't just "happen". Names on lists mean something. In this case, he was on a list of TEC churches/dioceses which have left, are in the process of leaving, or who have made known they are considering leaving TEC. He has much in common with these folks:
Warren is part of the ultra-conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and all his senior staff sign on to the SBC's doctrines, such as the literal and infallible Bible and exclusion of women as senior pastors. Yet Warren's pastor-training programs welcome Catholics, Methodists, Mormons, Jews and ordained women. "I'm not going to get into a debate over the non-essentials. I won't try to change other denominations. Why be divisive?" he asks, citing as his model Billy Graham, "a statesman for Christ ministering across barriers." [emphasis mine]
("This evangelist has a 'Purpose," by Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY, 7/21/2003)
The call for volunteers to the reforming of Anglicanism was an ecumenical one and extended beyond the Anglican Mission in America and the members of the “Common Cause” partners of the Anglican Continuum. Keynote speaker Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of The Purpose Driven Life, said Christianity was “on the precipice of a new Reformation, and I believe God wants to use Anglicans like he did Moses.” There will be trials ahead, he said, “but God is at work in the Anglican Communion. He has raised up leaders for a movement.
“They may get the building, but you will get the blessing,” he added. “What God is looking for is your faith, not your facilities.”
During his address, Pastor Warren praised the six congregations which recently decided to withdraw from the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Florida. Later in remarks to The Living Church, Pastor Warren said he was eager to work more closely with Anglicans and said he admired everyone who stands up for the courage of their convictions. “Too often today tolerance has come to mean that all ideas are equally right,” he said. “That’s ridiculous.”
Compare that to this (from Warren's first quote): "I'm not going to get into a debate over the non-essentials. I won't try to change other denominations. Why be divisive?" he asks, citing as his model Billy Graham, "a statesman for Christ ministering across barriers."
Of course, what this implies is that he will get in a debate about the essentials, which were listed, pretty much, in this post on specific topics, but this USA article, above, pretty much shows the context of everything he believes in: "Warren is part of the ultra-conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and all his senior staff sign on to the SBC's doctrines, such as the literal and infallible Bible and exclusion of women as senior pastors." [emphasis mine]
From this standpoint, it is pretty easy to see how he was matched up with CCP and its affiliates. Of course it does not address the lgbt issue in a straightforward way other than the issue of same gender marriage, but he pretty much wrapped that up here in speaking to The Monitor in Kampala, late March of 2008.
The bottom line is this: Warren is locked in-step with the most fundamentalist leaders in TEC and is helping to drive their division from TEC. That much is quite obvious. If you are planning on any "purpose driven" book work, please do not contribute to Warren by buying new books. find them at used book stores. Believe me, there they are aplenty. And remember this:
Thee Anglican Communion Network promised to make the road to the 2008 Lambeth Conference of bishops an increasingly problematic one unless the Episcopal Church starts paying more attention to the recommendations contained in the Windsor Report. (as reported by The Living Church.)It is these folks--those that work to threaten TEC--that Warren has attached himself to.
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