Patrick Butler: Another Look

Truly, all politics aside, a sobering picture presented itself on the cover of Time magazine last week. The "Purpose Driven Pastor," Rick Warren was perhaps presented to his greatest audience as "America's most powerful religious leader." Those very words were emblazoned next to Warren's purposeful-looking cover portrait.

Time's cover story precedes the arrival of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama at Warren's Saddleback Church tonight for a "civil forum" evidently moderated and paneled by a single person -- Rick Warren.

The cover also guarantees the world's next American megachurch pop-star is "Pastor Rick" from the "O.C." Orange County, California, as millions who've never heard of him, now have.

Warren did not employ the heady description of "powerful" himself. It was said for him, and the garland-like words wreathed his close-up, face-only photo. Hopefully, Warren's head stays glued to his shoulders as unprecedented attention, even for him, comes cascading down.

But recent history has shown that those who have been where Warren now is and spiritually survived can be counted on a single hand.

The religious test of fame and power has been building for Warren for a few years, perhaps most notable after authoring "The Purpose Driven Life." His book included a companion 40-day study plan called "The 40 Days of Purpose" that many churches nationwide, including several in Tyler, participated in with glowing results.

But the Rev. Gary Brandenburg, former pastor of Tyler's Grace Community Church, was a bit reserved in the praise-heaping, even though his church successfully went through "40 Days."

"I hope," he said in an interview with the Tyler paper before leaving to take a position in Dallas, "this doesn't turn into a culture of '40-days of this or that mania' complete with merchandise. When Christians find a good thing, we often don't know when to stop."

But stopping is simply not in Warren's mindset. He has taken the work of evangelical trailblazers who have spent years in community development and relief missions around the globe and popularized it through his "purpose" platform to millions of late-adapters in the conservative church. Those missionaries who have worked so long in the "trenches" are experiencing unprecedented attention as the sleeping church wakes up to a world that has been literally left behind.

The same thing happened on a smaller scale when the Rev. Jimmy Swaggert used his immense popularity years ago to champion global missionary work. When Swaggert "fell," one missionary worker opined it would "set back missions in South America 20 years."

Now the international media machine is in full-gear as millions tune in to Pastor Rick's brand of Bible informality on CNN tonight.

But fame and influence is a test where many spectacular crashes occur. And obviously not just for religious leaders. Sen. John Edwards has been busy confessing on national television how he "increasingly became egotistical and narcissistic" feeling "invulnerable" because of the national adoration he received.

The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, had a "world vision" where the Christian world-view would sway policy and people's lives. He was caught in lies, gay sex and amphetamines just a few years after the oracles of conservative Christianity proclaimed him the leader who would bring their flock into the 21st century.

Haggard, Edwards and others -- too many others -- have heavily damaged themselves, their families and their causes by the weaknesses of their all-too-normal lives. The pressure to be above the constant drumbeat of fame is simply too much for mortal men to endure. Christian leaders worldwide are correct to hold their collective breaths while they witness how Warren will handle the onslaught of adoration, animosity and massive media attention surely on its way. You ain't seen nothing yet.

"But," many will contend, "it's all to spread 'the message.' Isn't that a good thing?"

What messages are being spread? Time's designation, consolidating power into the hands of a single man, is a sobering spectacle. Surely -- hopefully -- the decision Warren made. allowing himself to be put into secular media's most potent idolmakers was weightily considered. Hopefully he devised a strict strategy for spiritual survival. Anything less would be hopelessly naive.

But all this is old news for the religious inner circle. Time's cover is really for the masses who've yet to understand Warren for who he has become -- "America's most powerful religious leader."

Patrick Butler
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