Rick Warren Redux

And Redux...And Redux...And Redux -
Until We find Out What's Going On!

O.K., I'm beating something to death (maybe myself), but notice that I placed it after the initial post so you don't have to read this if you don't want to.

A skateboard park?!! How much money was needed to build the 120-acre-rich-as Creosus-Riverside-California "campus"? A lot of ink was spent on how Saddleback was made up of tents for such a long time. So who (or what) gave Saddleback all the money? Joel Osteen? Nah, his church only rakes in $79 million a year; certainly not enough to help out Rick Warren in a pinch. I'm going to MinistryWatch right now. Wait...

Couldn't come up with anything, but I'll give Warren and his flock a chance and continue to see how much accountability and transparency there is to the ministry. Warren's ministry gives other pastors seminars and how-to books on how to enrich their ministries and truly become "fishers of men." (Maybe the books come with cost estimates on the skateboard park?)

Meanwhile, I noticed a lot of criticism and a whole world of nit-picking coming from grumbling and possibly jealous preachers: Warren doesn't fit this or that doctrine, he's so very "untraditional" and even (gasp!) secular in some sort of way. To his credit, Warren has proven that the unorthodox works just as well. But let's look at the BIG picture: 2,000 years after the birth of a religion, 30,000 denominations later, enough ideologies (and bombastic pharisees) to sink a battleship even if they were written on thin parchment - and "Christians" still can't seem to get it right. "We're the way to do it!" "No! We're the way!" "Wait! We have the truth! Don't believe those other fakes!" It's true: the United States of America leads the world in the number of Elmer Gantrys it houses.

And is all that back-biting and bickering for the "Love of God?" Would Rick Warren welcome another 120-acre "Purpose Driven" church next door? Not unless it was built according to his rules, I'll bet. From the looks of it (and I'm being judgmental here), Warren wants it all: money, fame, glory and, most of all - POWER!

HE's the one giving a party/forum for McCain and Obama, not anyone else. Rick Warren wants to hurry the coming of Christ by evangelizing the entire world. His forum today is just the beginning.

Just a thought.