Rick Warren on the Colbert Report, Purpose, & the Chief End of Man

Today I came across a video of Rick Warren (Pastor of Saddleback Church) being interviewed by Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report”. The interview was around five minutes long and it was a complete tragedy to watch. One of the many depressing things about it was that Stephen Colbert seemed to display more Biblical knowledge than Rick Warren did during this interview.

Here is my personal transcript of the majority of the interview (I left out a few irrelevant caveats):

Colbert: Now before we go any further, the purpose of life does derive you’re basing this on biblical truths, right?
Warren: Absolutely.
Colbert: Ok, let’s explain to the kids out there that God does exist, that God does love you. Because their image of God from the MTVs and the Nintendos is like some vengeful monkey who’s throwing barrels at Super Mario.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: They don’t know who God is. Who is God Rick?
Warren: “God is creator, and He created the entire universe just so that He could create this galaxy, just so that He could create this planet, just so it tilted at the right axis so that it wouldn’t burn up or freeze up, to sustain human life, because He wanted to create human beings. He wanted to create you to love you. He loves even Stephen Colbert.
Colbert: Oh, I believe that.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: He created me in His image, and I sure love me.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: Now but that galaxy earth thing, that sounds like the gospel according to Carl Sagan.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: I mean, are you a fundamentalist preacher?
Warren: No.

Colbert: You’re not.
Warren: No. A fundamentalist is somebody who stops listening. There are fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheist, and secularists. It’s an attitude that doesn’t listen to anyone else.
Colbert: Well I don’t want to hear any of that. What I want to hear is that you say every word of the bible is inerrant.
Warren: I do believe that
Colbert: So we should stone gay people?
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: It says so in Leviticus, we should do that.
Warren: Who are your writers?
Colbert: Uh…. Who are my writers? I’ve got none tonight except the inerrant word of God. I mean, you’ve got a very friendly God, don’t get me wrong. The God you describe very friendly, very casual, probably doesn’t wear a tie either,
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: Your God is a lot like Jimmy Buffett.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: He’s very, very…He’s low key. Paradise is Margaritaville.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: Why do you think people respond? Is it because the god you describe is not vengeful?
Warren: No. There’s nothing in [The Purpose Driven Life] that historic Christianity hasn’t said for the past 2,000 years. I just said it in a very simple way. It took me, actually, 7 months, about 12 hours a day, to write the book, and I spent about half the day just trying to make the sentences shorter. So if it was a 17 word sentence, how could I say it in 9? If it was a 9 word sentence, how can I say it in 5? Einstein once said that if you can’t say something in a simple way, you don’t really understand it.

Colbert: The sub-question of [The Purpose Driven Life], is “what on earth am I here for?” What do you think the purpose of life is? Is it individual, or do you believe in something like the Baltimore catechism where we’re here to know God, to love God, to serve God?
Warren: Well I do believe that. One of the things that the Bible teaches is that this life’s not all there is. You’re going to spend more time on that side of eternity than on this side. You get 60, 80, maybe 100 years on this side, you’re gonna get trillions of years on that side. This side is preparation for the next. And there are things that we’re going to do in heaven that God says, “I want you to practice here so that you’re not a dufus when you get there.”

Colbert: What is the purpose of every day? Can I say what my purpose is? “My purpose is to shout at people that I disagree with.” Am I living my purpose, Rick?
Warren: You know, when you be who God made you to be, that makes God smile. I used to think that God only smiles when we’re doing, like, spiritual stuff: confessing, going to church, reading the Bible, things like that. But actually God gets enjoyment out of watching you be you. When my kids were little, I used to watch them sleep at night. And their little chests would rise and lower, rise and lower, and I got so much pleasure out of that, ‘cause I made ‘em. I’m their daddy. And when you be who God made you to be, a dufus…. When you be you, God looks down and goes, “that’s my boy.”

Colbert: Let me ask you something. If you ask Jesus to come into your life, will He?
Warren: Absolutely.
Colbert: If you ask Jesus to come onto your show, will He do that too?
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: Because I’m having a hard time booking guests right now.
Warren: I have connections.

I have some major concerns with this five minute interview and what Rick Warren said (or didn’t say) about himself and about God during it. The first thing that was very concerning to me was how Rick Warren painted God’s reason for creation. Basically, as I understand it, Rick believes that God created everything just so that he could create you in order to love you and me because we’re so loveable. How else can you interpret his comments about creation and God’s pleasure out of watching “you be you.”

It is providential that I saw this video today because I have been thinking a lot about what various protestant catechisms state is the chief end of man. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But if, according to Warren’s comments, God created everything with loving His creation as His primary goal as they are, or “you being you”, what does that say about God’s glory, his hatred of sin, his demand for righteousness, and the need of grace? Some may argue that Warren’s statements reflect the essence of the message of unconditional divine love that was manifest in Christ during His incarnational mission. To that end, I would flatly disagree. His statements do the exact opposite. If God loves me for being me, and He’s proud of me for doing what I’m programmed to do, then why the cross? What’s the need to have God Himself beaten, spit on, mocked, unjustly tried, viciously executed, and for Him to bear the eternal wrath of God on His own for all of those who would follow Him?

God doesn’t love me for being me. He hates me for being me. He despises sinful men in their natural condition. Does He desire to have mercy on us and command all men everywhere to repent? Yes, but that doesn’t translate into an “’at-a-boy” attitude. Furthermore, Warren’s example of watching his own children sleep is such a distorted analogy of God looking at us, and I can’t stand it. Let me put forth an analogy that is closer to reality from a Biblical standpoint.

A father is sitting in the bedroom of one of his children watching him sleep. Earlier that same day, that child had murdered all of his siblings, raped his own mother, did various other wicked things to other people, and only fell asleep because of exhaustion. And when that child wakes up, if he has enough strength, he’ll kill his father. Does this father love his child for being who he is? Does watching this slumbering murderous and hateful little monster fill him with the same type of joy and pleasure that Rick Warren described? Make no mistake; our sinful condition is more heinous in God’s sight that this man’s son would be in his own. It is from this point, and only this point, of understanding our wretchedness that we can ever hope to understand the cross of Jesus Christ and what that means about God’s grace and the nature of man.

The second thing that was fairly frustrating to me was how Rick Warren defined fundamentalists and fundamentalism. According to Warren, fundamentalism is a bad thing because those who follow this type of a system don’t listen to others and their opinions. I’m not sure how much I would need to listen to and interact with those who disagree with me in order to not be guilty of this sin in his eyes, but I have to point something out to Mr. Warren. He’s guilty of the exact same thing that he is accusing fundamentalists of. Namely, he’s not listening to them. This is the same type of foolish and self-defeating argument that people have use frequently. One familiar incarnation of this type of logic is when the idea of absolute truth is being attacked. The objection used is, “there is no such thing as absolute truth.” And the problem with that statement is that the statement itself is a statement of absolute truth. I’m sorry, Mr. Warren, but your presentation of fundamentalism is not only untrue, but it’s also unfair and it makes you a type of fundamentalist because you won’t listen to what people like me have to say.

This type of foolishness is exasperating. He could have sad that fundamentalist Christians want to understand the Bible in a more plain and literal way, and they disagree with his church model and watered down gospel message (that ends up being so diluted that it is impossible to be certain that he preaches or believes the true gospel of Jesus Christ). He could have said that fundamentalists see Church primarily as a place for believers in Christ, whereas he sees church as a place to draw in unbelievers and effectively starve any believers of solid Biblical food. But he said neither of those things.

Thirdly, Mr. Warren was repeatedly asked direct questions about the Bible and about life that he completely ignored, shrugged off, or didn’t really answer. I couldn’t believe that someone who professes to be a Christian, when asked directly who God is, doesn’t immediately mention the name of Jesus Christ. But Rick Warren is not merely a professing Christian, he holds the position of an elder and that leaves him even less of an excuse for not being forthright and clear with matters relating to the gospel and Jesus Christ. If Warren’s lack of clarity wasn’t bad enough, it was the host of the program, Stephen Colbert, and not Pastor Rick Warren who was the only one to use Jesus’ name.

A little while later, on the heals of Warren’s assertion of his belief in the inerrancy of the Scriptures, Colbert asks if we should stone homosexuals based on the book of Leviticus. There are many different ways that a pastor could have addressed this issue that would have both been glorifying to God and edifying to those who were listening, but Warren opted for a different type of response. Warren’s response of “who are your writers?” neither is glorifying to God or edifying or instructional to his hearers. Furthermore, this response shows his complete unwillingness or inability to address the larger issue of homosexuality. A pastor should be willing and able to deal with this issue, even if he is uncomfortable or nervous when he does it.
With all of the concerns that I have noted here, I must say that the majority of my frustration with this interview was not with what Rick said or didn’t say. Even though his performance was tragic, it was with the way that he showed, or didn’t show, his reverence for God that was most concerning to me. There were at least five different occasions where Rick Warren laughed at or encouraged blasphemous talk. When speaking about God – who is the creator of the Heavens and the earth, the One who holds all things together by His own power, the One who is a consuming fire, the One who holds the heavens in the span of His hand, the One who sought to satisfy His own justice and display His own grace by suffering to be a man and dying for those who hate Him – Colbert compared Him to a Donkey Kong-like figure and Jimmy Buffet. Colbert also compared Heaven to Margaretville, and he mocked Jesus by talking about how to get him on the program. Now, I don’t know if Colbert claims to be a Christian, so I don’t expect him to hold the name of God in honor; but Warren claims to be a Christian and an elder and he ought to hold God’s name in honor. To every one of Colbert’s blasphemous comparisons of God and to his horribly sickened way of joking about heaven, Pastor Rick Warren sat there and laughed. He sat there and laughed. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he even joked along with Colbert’s comment about getting Jesus onto his program by saying, “I’ve got connections.” I’m sorry, Pastor Warren, but that is not funny and it seems to be apparent to me that your “connections” that you have with Christ may not be what you seem to think.

This despicable lack of reverence for God and reluctance to be bold about the proclamation of the gospel should cause me to be upset and offended for the sake of my God, His son, and His church. But it should also cause me to be ready to answer questions about God and proclaim the gospel whenever I might get the chance. Now, it is very unlikely that I will ever have the platform that Rick Warren has every week or that I would be on the Colbert Report to talk about Christ and Christianity. But if that should ever happen I need to be ready to answer the questions and do a better job of defending my Lord than Rick Warren did.

Pastor Warren, you should be ashamed of yourself.