Monday, August 25, 2008

Rick Warren on "Evangelical Politics"


I disagree with Rick Warren on some issues, but I just read a piece that the Wall Street Journal did on Warren's view of politics, and I think he said some pretty insightful things. He neither identifies with the Religious Right nor the "new" Evangelicals who seem to be pretty staunchly supportive of the Democratic party. While many accuse conservatives of "legislating" private morality -- things like gay marriage and abortion -- are the liberals really that different when they claim that the solution to poverty and other more corporate social ills are bigger government programs? Sounds like "legislating morality" to me, as well -- just a different set of moral beliefs (by the way, I think both sexual ethics and concern for the poor are biblical). Is it any wonder that both conservatives and liberals become very self-righteous when it comes to their "beliefs"? Perhaps the primary solution to both private and corporate moral problems is not legislation at all. Warren asserts that politics, in many ways, operates "downstream to culture." I agree.

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