Warren Derangement Syndrome
I mentioned the lefty blogosphere's outrage at the invitation Pastor Rick Warren received from Barack Obama to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration. But it wasn't just the lefty blogosphere, the Christian left also decided to weigh in. Courtesy of Christopher Johnson over at the Midwest Conservative Journal, we have Episcopal Bishop John Chane.
I am profoundly disappointed by President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to invite Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to offer the invocation at his inauguration. The president-elect has bestowed a great honor on a man whose recent comments suggest he is both homophobic, xenophobic, and willing to use the machinery of the state to enforce his prejudices—even going so far as to support the assassination of foreign leaders.
In his home state of California, Mr. Warren’s campaigned aggressively to deny gay and lesbian couples equal rights under the law, relying on arguments that are both morally offensive and theologically crude. Christian leaders differ passionately with one another over the morality of same-sex relationships, but only the most extreme liken the loving, lifelong partnerships of their fellow citizens to incest and pedophilia, as Mr. Warren has done. The president-elect’s willingness to associate himself with a man who espouses these views as a means of reaching out to religious conservatives suggests a willingness to use the aspirations of gay and lesbian Americans as bargaining chips, and I find this deeply troubling.
Fine. This is what the post-Christian "church" believes. The apostle Paul was wrong about that whole unnatural relations thing because homosexuals back in the first century didn't love each other like homosexuals now do. It's convenient. It's popular with the secular left which has all the great dinner parties. Fine.
But after attacking Obama for associating with the likes of Rick Warren, Chane decides to pat himself on the back in the most ironic way.
I have worked with former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami to improve the relationship between our two countries as hawkish members of the Bush administration pushed for another war. He has spoken at the National Cathedral, which will host the president-elect’s inaugural prayer service, and I have visited with him several times in Iran and elsewhere. Iranian clerics are intensely interested in the religious attitudes of America’s leaders. In choosing Mr. Warren to offer the invocation at his inauguration, the president-elect has sent the chilling, and, I feel certain, unintended message that he is comfortable with Christians who can justify lethal violence against Muslims.
So, just two paragraphs after condemning Obama for associating with a man whose "sin" is defending the biblical view of sex and marriage, Chane praises himself for associating with a man who advocates the death penalty for homosexuals.
Chane doesn't apologize for any whiplash the readers of his missive experienced.
I encourage Bishop Chane to work on that log-speck problem he's got going on.
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I worked with extremely liberal Christians for several years. I can say with confidence that they are not hypocrites. They really believe this stuff.
What Chane actually "believes" that makes this apparent hypocrisy actually congruent to him is probably the granitic belief that anything he thinks is and must be correct and the more people try to explain the faults of reasoning, the closer he is to being a martyr--the virtual kind.
If you tried to explain the logical difficulties with his position, you'd get nowhere. But you'd hear a great deal of meaningless obfuscation.