Rick and Kay Warren gave an excellent interview to Krista Tippett, on the On Being radio show almost 20 years ago, on Dec. 6, 2007. In it, Pastor Rick says this:
The reason there are hungry people in the world, there are suffering people in the world is because of our own selfishness. What do I say to a woman in Sudan holding a baby who’s dying of lack of water? The only thing I can say is I’m sorry. I am sorry. Why did I not get here sooner? It is our own selfishness. There’s plenty of food in the world. There’s plenty of water in the world. When I say, ‘God, why don’t you do something about this?’ God is saying to you, ‘Well, I’m asking you the same question.’
By way of introduction to what Tippett notes “some are calling the ‘post Religious Right era’” — oh, if only! — she describes her guests as conservative evangelicals who want to move beyond the partisan and cultural divides of “recent years” to fight poverty, AIDS and homelessness.
Kay and Rick Warren in an earlier publicity photo for the HIV/AIDS ministry.
At the time, Rick Warren was still pastor at Saddleback Church in Southern California, a church he and Kay Warren founded. The Warrens explain to Tippett Saddleback’s PEACE Plan, including Kay’s HIV/AIDS initiative to help African orphans whose parents were dying in the multimillions from this dreaded disease. Read or listen to the interview in its entirety here.
Tippett is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and New York Times best-selling author who studied history at Brown University and earned a master of divinity degree from Yale University. She grew up in First Baptist Church of Shawnee, Okla., a Southern Baptist church.
Fast forward to today, and Saddleback’s current pastor, Andy Wood, is taking a more political stand than the Warrens did, supporting a president who effectively killed a life-saving global HIV-prevention program.
Prior to Election Day, as BNG reported, he preached about abortion and children with gender ideology issues being taken away from their parents. There was zero focus on the need for a peaceful transfer of power. Or the beauty of diversity. And not even a whisper about sexual assault.
Then on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Wood posted on social media that he found Donald Trump’s inauguration “incredible” and “a moment in history that will mark a different era.”
This post was published about the same time the newly sworn-in president was attending balls and issuing numerous executive orders, gleefully signed during a parade just for him, that included an order to immediately freeze American foreign aid to PEPFAR.
PEPFAR is the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Its mission sounds a lot like the mission of Saddleback’s PEACE Plan. And they have had miraculous results. Since 2004, PEPFAR helped reduce AIDS-related deaths by 45% and made more than 1.5 million babies AIDS free. Kay Warren’s ministry was an integral part of it all.
Three days later, on Jan. 23, Wood edited his post to sound less Christian nationalisty, removing his emphasis on just “our nation” and adding the words “and in our world” to more adequately describe “the harvest” as it is defined in the first sentence of Jesus’ Great Commission, and he also (thankfully) added a phrase reminding the reader not to worship a human leader. That along with Wood’s removal of his original hardy “Congratulations @realDonaldTrump!” completely changed the original narrative to a prayer.
Then last Saturday night, just prior to his sermon aired on YouTube, Wood further reframed the meaning behind his inauguration post to explain he was overwhelmed by the beauty of the peaceful transfer of power and the diversity of Vice President JD Vance’s family. Things that were not in his inauguration post whatsoever. He now used the word “globally” a lot.
In the first sentence of his blockbuster, best-selling nonfiction book of all times second to the Bible, Rick Warren wrote “It is not about you.”
I could write my own book on what has transpired over the past 20 years, but let’s just sum it up to say, “Now we have Donald Trump.” The biggest narcissist on the planet supported by 80% of white evangelicals going on 10 years now. What happened?
Krista Tippett
Over at On Being, Tippett is still going strong after 20 years. She was just featured in Christianity Today’s January/February 2025 issue and spoke with Mike Cosper on CT’s podcast “The Bulletin” about “the fraught political climate in the U.S., the individualism corroding American culture, and how hope and community can offer a pathway to healing.”
I’ve complained a lot to BNG Editor Mark Wingfield that Pastor Rick has not spoken out publicly in opposition to the MAGA movement. It could have been, and should have been, over in October 2016 when Trump’s own words sent shudders down my and all my evangelical women friends’ spines, while the fellas scrambled to come up with “locker room talk” to explain away a man bragging about his right to commit sexual assault. Not just any man. By their presidential (“not my pastor”) nominee. Bless you, Beth Moore and Russell Moore, by the way.
I want to know: Where are our pastors and former pastors in all of this now? Andy Wood has started a new series encouraging prayer, fasting and Bible reading and opens each sermon referring to an “awakening” we see going on in America that we can all be a part of. He gave a sermon called “A Place for Mercy” last week after explaining why he was keeping his inauguration post up on social media.
Kay Warren’s HIV/AIDS ministry operated through a nonprofit called Acts of Mercy. Acts, not talk. Talk about that.
Trump supporters are all about going back. Making things great again. So. Let’s look back.
As a devout Dane, admirer of Søren Kierkegaard and a believer in his quote “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward,” I ask Pastor Rick, “Will you do another interview with Krista Tippett and update us on the progress of the PEACE Plan?”
Kirsten Christensen Roberts
Kirsten Christensen Roberts graduated from Biola University in 1987 and had a long career as a CPA in banking and finance. She lives in Dana Point, Calif., with her husband of 36 years and her favorite pastime is lunching with old-old ladies who have stories to tell.
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