Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren To Host Forum With Obama And Romney

UPDATE: The Obama campaign said today that the president will NOT appear at the Saddleback event.

Pastor Rick Warren, whose 2008 inauguration invocation for President Obama caused great anger among progressives, will next month host a forum with the president and Mitt Romney.

The forum would be similar to one he hosted four years ago with Obama and then-GOP presidential nominee McCain. In 2008, Warren interviewed the candidates separately -- with Obama going first, followed by McCain. The Arizona senator was sequestered in a room, unable to watch or listen until it was his turn on stage. Most of Warren's questions focused on broad themes. For instance, he asked Obama to define marriage. "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman," Obama said at the time -- though he has since said he believes same-sex couples should be allowed to wed. The format for this year's event is expected to mirror what took place four years ago and will again take place on the Saddleback campus in Lake Forest, Calif.

Warren plans to use a lottery to distribute 5000 tickets to attend in person. He claims his 2008 event drew one of the largest television audiences of that campaign.

Caption This

(Tipped by JMG reader James)

Caption This

(Photo via Towleroad)

Rick Warren's Money Plea Nets $2.4M

In response to his "desperation" end-of-2009 plea, the mindless pensioners under Rick Warren's spell dug deep into their piggy banks and forked over $2.4M in under 24 hours.

The Rev. Rick Warrren, who campaigned for the passage of California's antigay Proposition 8, has received $2.4 million in donations after making an end-of-the year plea to parishioners to help fill a gap in his southern California megachurch's budget. On Saturday, Warren announced at his Saddleback Church that all the money had come from individual donations of less than $100. "We're starting the new decade with a surplus," he said. "It came from thousands of ordinary people. This was not one big fat cat."

Whee! Another $2.4M for Jeebus' BFF! What to buy, what to buy? Another mansion? Another campaign to kill homos?

Rick Warren Needs Money!!!

Rick Warren has sent an emergency email to his followers, claiming that unless his Saddleback megachurch gets $900,000 by the end of today, something terrrrrrrible will happen!

“Dear Saddleback Family,” begins today’s missive from Warren. “THIS IS AN URGENT LETTER unlike any I’ve written in 30 years. Please read all of it and get back to me in the next 48 hours. “I have thrilling news to share with you below but first some seriously bad news: With 10% of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our income stagnated. Still, with wise management, we’ve stayed close to our budget all year. Then… this last weekend the bottom dropped out.

“On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of what we normally receive - leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year, unless you help make up the difference today and tomorrow.” The church does not make its financial information public, so it’s impossible to tell just how big of a hole in the boat this $900,000 represents. A spokeswoman for Warren said the church does not release detail on its finances, so it’s hard to put the shortfall in context. (Suffice to say it may not represent a terribly significant portion of Saddleback’s annual budget, and that his personal appeal may well close the hole, and then some.)

Rick Warren Sends Open Letter To Uganda Denouncing "Kill Gays" Bill

After weeks of media criticism, Rick Warren has at last specifically denounced Uganda's now-dismantled "kill gays" bill. Previously Warren had said it was not his business to "interfere with sovereign nations," despite his years-long championing of the bill's chief proponent, Martin Ssempa. The text of the below video is here. An excerpt:

We are all familiar with Edmund Burke’s insight, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” That is why I’m sharing my heart with you today. As an American pastor, it is not my role to interfere with the politics of other nations, but it IS my role to speak out on moral issues. It is my role to shepherd other pastors who look to me for guidance, and it is my role to correct lies, errors and false reports when others associate my name with a law that I had nothing to do with, completely oppose and vigorously condemn. I am referring to the pending law under consideration by the Ugandan Parliament, known as the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. As a pastor, I’ve found the most effective way to build consensus for social change is usually through direct quiet diplomacy and behind-the-scenes dialogue, rather than through media. But because I didn’t rush to make a public statement, some erroneously concluded that I supported this terrible bill, and some even claimed I was a sponsor of the bill. You in Uganda know that is untrue. I am releasing this video to you and your congregations to correct these untruths and to urge you to make a positive difference at this critical point in your nation.

Saddlebacking

The results are in.

Redefining Saddleback

You probably fondly recall Dan Savage's successful redefinition of former Sen. Rick Santorum's last name, a legacy that will follow Santorum as long as teh interwebs exists. Now Savage is looking to give Rick Warren's Saddleback Church the same treatment. Here are Savage's suggestions; email your vote to him at saddleback@savagelove.net.

(1) "Logically, if 'barebacking' means having butt sex with no condom, then 'saddlebacking' should mean having butt sex with a condom."

(2) "Saddleback (verb): to submit someone to any kind of humiliating, unreciprocal sex act, either literally or metaphorically, consented to by passive partner due to submissive/masochistic tendencies, desire for approval, or other darker motive. E.g., 'I don't know why Obama is letting Rick Warren saddleback him into presiding over his inauguration.'"

(3) "The saddleback position involves placing your lubed dick between the butt cheeks of your partner. This position can be performed on your sides or on top of a facedown partner (maybe with a pillow under his or her hips). My favorite way of finishing up the saddlebacking is to lift up and come on my wife's sweaty back. The saddleback is a nice compromise position when your partner won't allow anal entry."

(4) "To saddleback is to rail against gay sex in public while secretly indulging in the same in private. Ted Haggard? Total saddlebacker. Larry Craig? Saddlebacker. Rick Warren? Probably a saddlebacker."

(5) "'Saddlebacking' should be the term for the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex in order to preserve their virginities. 'After attending the Purity Ball, Heather and Bill saddlebacked all night because she's saving herself for marriage.' Please, please adopt this definition!"

(6) "Saddleback (verb): to ejaculate on the back of a partner at the culmination of doggy-style anal sex."

(7) "Before being invited to give the invocation, Mr. Warren was most noted for his book The Purpose Driven Life. Therefore, 'to saddleback' is to fuck with a purpose, i.e., to procreate. A heterosexual couple asked if they're trying to have children could reply, 'No, we're not ready for kids yet, but we'll probably start saddlebacking next year.'"

I'm leaning towards #5, but I also like #1 and #4.

Rick Warren Pulls Anti-Gay Message From His Church's Site

Rick Warren's Saddleback Church has just scrubbed its site of the above message announcing that unrepentant gays were unwelcome. John Aravosis wonders why:

So does Rick Warren now welcome gays, all gays, as members of his church? Or is he simply embarrassed of his views - embarrassed of God's views, per Warren's own admission? And if Warren is embarrassed of God's views, then what is he doing as a public spokesman on religion? And whose idea was it to remove the anti-gay language? Warren's, or Obama's?