The following is an interview with Rick Warren after he accepted the invitation to pray at the President Obama's inauguration. Personally I find that people - out of their respect to this leader of a great church - tend to get offended when someone criticises him. And then there are those who don't particularly like him because of their perception that he represents the megachurches. I tend to think that we should not hesitate to critique his teaching in light of the Scripture (something that I guess he would welcome), but at the same time listen to him and show him the respect due to him. This interview is full of interesting stuff for discussion. Feel free to start the conversation.
Click here for the interview.
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Interesting interview. I agree that Christians should be willing to work with anyone regardless of belief if the work is furthering God's kingdom. And by that I don't just mean gospel related furthering but also the furthering of justice and peace to all of God's creation. Funnily enough I heard RW interviewed for an hour on ABC 774 one Sunday night as part of Radio National's Religion Report. It was after he had been announced as the prayer giver at the inauguration and maybe his media embargo didn't extend to us in the colonies!
He came across very well I have to say. He is obviously very intelligent and he handled the trickier questions with grace. I was impressed.
Indeed, Fiona, one aspect of the extension of God's kingdom is the furthering of justice and peace. Paul does not mention the kingdom of God a lot, but when he does it's quite profound. In Romans 14:17 he says that the kingdom of God is about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (and see how 15:13 echoes 14:17 to some extent). If we take into Paul's Old Testament background seriously, we'll probably hear that he is referring to the righteousness-justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit. This is because in the Old Testament righteousness and justice often come together in the same verse (Isaiah being a good example, and Romans cites Isaiah a lot!). And of course peace is not so much about "inner peace" (although there is an element of that), but shalom in the Jewish Scripture.
Siu Fung
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