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Rick Warren’s Job, and Other Highlights from the Beliefnet Interview

posted by Patton Dodd | 12:29pm Monday December 15, 2008

During Steve Waldman’s interview with Rick Warren last week, Waldman mentioned Beliefnet’s survey of voters after the election. Among other findings, says Waldman, we learned that when asked to rank issues of concern, evangelicals who voted John McCain listed “reducing poverty” as 13th out of 14 in order of importance. 

“So what’s your message to [those evangelicals]?” Waldman asks. 
“Well,” Warren responds, “that’s my whole job.” 
Watch his whole response. Warren sees himself as working in the tradition of the 19th-century evangelicals who fought to abolish slavery, advocated for women’s suffrage, argued for strict child labor laws, and cared for the poor. He mourns the historical split between mainline Protestants and evangelicals, and presents a vision for reunification. This, he explains, is his life’s work.
Warren gets into some dicey historical territory, he generalizes about the meanings of terms like “evangelical” and “fundamentalist,” and he says that mainline Protestantism is no more (“There are more Muslims in America than there are Episcopalians.”). I imagine people who watch this closely will quibble over those issues, and not without reason. But I just wish he’d explained more precisely what he meant by “that’s my whole job.” A lot of folks believe that an awakening of social consciousness is underway within American evangelicalism, and I’d like to know how Warren understands his role in that movement. 
Other moments I’d like to hear him unpack more:
Warren on why the idea of abortion reduction is a political charade. (Warren strikes a Ross Douthat-ian note here, saying that fighting abortion is something he wants to deal with on an individual basis, rationally and civilly; he says you don’t “protest out on the street.”)
See and/or read the interview in its entirety at Steve Waldman’s blog.


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