New breed” evangelicals have been misunderstood by media, Rick Warren told the Wall Street Journal after the Aug. 16 forum Saddleback Church held with presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain.
“The leader of the fourth-largest church in the U.S. is supposed to be part of a ‘new breed’ of evangelicals, according to the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and dozens of other publications,” wrote Naomi Schaefer Riley in the Journal Aug. 23. “New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof paid him what Mr. Kristof might consider the ultimate compliment … referring to Mr. Warren as an ‘evangelical liberals can love.’”
Reporters, however, mistakenly assume that “new breed” Christians who care about the environment and poverty don’t care as much about traditional religious right issues such as abortion, Warren said.
“I don’t just care that the little girl is born,” Warren told Riley. “Is she going to be born in poverty? Is she going to be born with AIDS because her mom has AIDS? Is she going to never get an education?”
Warren also told the reporter that many evangelicals are tired of the “combativeness” associated with the religious right. “A lot of people hear [about a broader agenda] and they think, ‘Oh, evangelicals are giving up on believing that life begins at conception,’” he said. “They’re not giving up on that at all.”
Warren also said political significance of the “evangelical left” — which has been the focus of a lot of reporting in mainstream media — is minimal: “‘This big,’ he says, holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart,’”
according to the article. He also dismissed activist Jim Wallis, who calls himself a “progressive evangelical,” as “a spokesman for the Democratic Party.”
Riley’s commentary noted that many reporters mistakenly presume that concern about social issues automatically makes a person a political liberal. “The media assume that when religious people express interest in the problems of poverty and disease, they must have taken a left turn politically,” she wrote. “But one can be interested in solving such problems without believing that government is the solution.”
America needs leaders who generously use their influence to help others, Warren said.
“In November, we are going to vote for leaders at every level of government,” he said. “Look for leaders who say the purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence … (and) to be generous with what God has given us.” (BP)
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