The blind leading the blind

Nicole Russell has an essay on The American Thinker about Barack Obama's courting of evangelical Christians:

. . .Senator Barack Obama has begun courting the evangelical right, and some are already waltzing along in perfect time.

With his attendance at Rick Warren‘s church, Saddleback Valley Community, a mega-church in California for a large conference about AIDS, Obama has begun to align himself with an important base of voters to gain what conservatives lost this last year. Already lauded by some prominent evangelical publications for his outstanding "Christian faith" and a person Rick Warren called a "good friend" and a someone he'd like to work with on important issues, Obama is in perfect position, if he can keep the momentum, to use an unusual strategy for political gain.

I believe that Ms. Russell errs in an important point. While Rick Warren calls himself an evangelical and pastors a large church he does not speak for or represent the great majority of evangelicals.

Rich Warren is the inventor and chief proponent of the "seeker friendly" church movement. In a nutshell what this comprises is redesigning the "church experience" in such a way that it will be enjoyable to people who do not like church.

If this causes you to stop and picture what Carmen would look like if it were rewritten for people who prefer DMX to Bizet you have the gist of it.

Taken to its inevitable end this philosophy winds up breeding "churches" which have been described as "christian nightclubs".

The bottom line is that Rick Warren is no more an indication of what evangelicals think than Tony Campolo (you know Bill Clinton's theological enabler).

Rick Warren's association with Barack Obama will do nothing more than hasten Warren's slide into irrevelance. And it won't come a minute too soon.