The largest church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention ordained three women as ministers May 6, sending shock waves through the male-centric leadership of the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination. Saddleback Church, founded by Pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay,…
Rick Warren: Churches aren’t being persecuted by COVID restrictions
Christmas week brought more twists and turns to the legal battles in California over coronavirus-forced closures of in-person worship, while the spike in COVID infections, hospitalizations and deaths skyrocketed. In contrast to a few pastors and churches that have made…
Rick Warren’s conundrum: What’s the nature and extent of salvation?
What if more of us believed in and trusted in a more loving, gracious, inclusive God? What if more of us focused on this life rather than the afterlife and understood salvation in terms of healing, wholeness, reconciliation and liberation from the life diminishing forces that possess us and oppress us, so that we are free to truly love God and love others?
Soulforce asks Facebook to divest from National Religious Broadcasters
A Christian advocacy group for LGBT inclusion is trying to organize a Twitter storm to force a face-to-face meeting with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg calling on the company to divest from right-wing Christian media. Soulforce Executive Director Haven Herrin hopes…
Not all evangelicals afraid of dialogue, Muslims and Christians say
A new study illustrates in numbers what many already know intuitively: evangelicals aren’t big on dialoguing with anyone but themselves. “Evangelicals seem to have a particularly difficult time talking to those outside their group,” the Barna Group reported in a March…
Church on a tight budget? Renovate, don’t build
By Vicki Brown Some churches, it seems, are impervious to prevailing economic forces that have kept many congregations building for years. But not Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in California, which recently accounted a three-year, $71 million fundraising campaign to, in…
Saddleback Church raising $71 million in largest campaign
By Bob Allen Members of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church have pledged to give $71 million over the next three years in the most ambitious fundraising campaign in the Southern Baptist megachurch’s 35-year history. Warren, who started the Southern California congregation…
Rick Warren says church cannot compromise on sex
By Bob Allen Southern Baptist megachurch pastor and Purpose Driven Life author Rick Warren urged participants in a Vatican conference on marriage and the family “to never give up and to never give in” on the defense of sexual morality….
Clergy hopeful about ‘Daniel Plan’
By Jeff Brumley Ministers who specialize in health and spiritual formation are hopeful Rick Warren’s new food-and-faith program may boost ongoing efforts to link body and soul in the minds of Baptists and other Christians. The Daniel Plan: 40 Days to…
Rick Warren’s son dies
By Bob Allen Southern Baptist megachurch pastor and Purpose Driven Life author Rick Warren sent a letter April 6 informing church members his youngest son had committed suicide. The pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., said 27-year-old Matthew…
Saddleback civil forum called off
By Bob Allen Saddleback Church pastor and Purpose-Driven Life author Rick Warren announced Aug. 22 that a civil forum planned with President Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has been canceled. Warren, who held a similar event in…