Just before the 2004 election, Warren sent a politically inflammatory letter to apparently, thousands of pastors, as well as members of his own congregation that was probably a violation of his ministry's 501(c)(3) tax status as an obviously proscribed electoral intervention using church resources and his position as pastor. The simplest statement of the of the IRS rule is:

"...all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."

Here is part of what he wrote to members of Saddleback Church, in which he doesn't quite endorse Bush over Kerry, but makes his position crystal clear:

Presidents serve for only 4 years, so they can only make a limited impact. But Supreme Court Justices serve for life, and they are the ones who decide on issues like abortion, gay marriages, human cloning, harvesting babies for stem-cell research, revoking the tax exemption of churches, removing "under God" from the flag pledge, and "in God we trust" from our money. In most ways, the Supreme Court has far more influence and impact on our day-to-day lives. This extremely important fact has been overlooked in most of the campaigning.

President Bush and Senator Kerry have VERY different opinions about the type of people who should become Supreme Court Justices. They could not have more opposite views about these matters. Either man will shape the court in very different ways.

If the members of our congregation fail to vote on Tuesday, we are actually surrendering our responsibility to choose the direction of our country for the next 40 years. If we do not vote, we have no right to criticize or complain when unbiblical decisions are made by the court in the decades ahead.

Over the past several months at Saddleback, we've been urging our members each week to register to vote. We even arranged to have a voter registration booth set up on our church patio because we believe it's that important that every Christian citizen exercises his or her right to vote for those who will govern us.

But for those of us who accept the Bible as God's Word and know that God has a unique, sovereign purpose for every life, I believe there are 5 issues that are non-negotiable. To me, they're not even debatable because God's Word is clear on these issues.[emphasis added] In order to live a purpose-driven life - to affirm what God has clearly stated about his purpose for every person he creates - we must take a stand by finding out what the candidates believe about these five issues, and then vote accordingly.

Here are five questions to ask when considering who to vote for in this election:

1. What does each candidate believe about abortion and protecting the lives of unborn children?

2. What does each candidate believe about using unborn babies for stem-cell harvesting?

3. What does each candidate believe about homosexual marriage?

4. What does each candidate believe about human cloning?

5. What does each candidate believe about euthanasia - the killing of elderly and invalids?

By emphasizing these issues, and these alone, as the non-negotiable litmus test issues, he was clearly tilting his letter in favor of Bush over Kerry, whom he stressed have "VERY different" views, but that God is "clear" about them. It is worth noting that Warren has been an insider with the Bush White House, participating for example, in White House organized conference calls with Religious Right leaders, notably on the failed Harriet Miers nomination to the U.S.  Supreme Court.

In a recent panel at the Pew Forum, Amy Sullivan of Time magazine addressed the matter of Warren and politics:

There has also been a change going on at the same time in the evangelical community. Before the 2004 election, Rick Warren , who is really one of the rising leaders if not already a leader in the evangelical community, sent out a blast email to a couple hundred thousand pastors with his list of five non-negotiable issues for that election. They were abortion, human cloning, gay marriage, stem cell research and euthanasia.

I had a chance to ask him about this last fall, and I couldn't even finish my sentence before he said, that was wrong. That was absolutely wrong. It was wrong first to send out a message like that right before the election - he thought that was inappropriate. But second, it was very wrong, he thought, to imply that those were the only issues that mattered to evangelicals. He said, I'm still pro-life; I still care about all of those issues. But in the three and a half years since that election, he's now become a leader on everything from environmental causes to battling Third World poverty, AIDS in Africa, anti-torture, a number of different issues that have really broadened the plate of priorities among evangelicals.

I think it is worth noting, that every article for years about Warren notes that he is an evangelical leader who has mostly steered clear of politics. What should be underscored here is that what politics he has espoused is Republican; reactionary; and in the case of his somewhat famous letter, possibly illegal.

Other than articulating a "broader agenda" -- what is the nature of the leadership of Rick Warren and other immoderate evangelicals? What solutions do they advocate in response to the urgent issues? I think before anyone gets overly enthusiastic, it is worth taking a closer look at what refashioned Religious Right leaders, and the nouveaux moderate evangelicals, actually bring to the table.

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