Last week, we commented on the firestorm that Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church and best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life made on the CNN show Larry King Live. Here is the link to that blog-http://rockymountainfamilycouncil.blogspot.com/2009/04/rick-warren-needs-to-resign.html

In fairness to Pastor Warren, his folks released the following statement, clarifying what Warren said. Here it is:

Throughout his pastoral ministry spanning nearly 30 years, Dr. Warren has remained committed to the biblical definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, for life — a position held by most fellow Evangelical pastors. He has further stressed that for 5,000 years, EVERY culture and EVERY religion has maintained this worldview.

When Dr. Warren told Larry King that he never campaigned for California’s Proposition 8, he was referring to not participating in the official two-year organized advocacy effort specific to the ballot initiative in that state, based on his focus and leadership on other compassion issues. Because he’s a pastor, not an activist, in response to inquiries from church members, he issued an email and video message to his congregation days before the election confirming where he and Saddleback Church stood on this issue.

During the King interview, Dr. Warren also referenced a letter of apology that he sent to gay leaders whom he knew personally. However, that mea culpa was not with respect to his statements or position on Proposition 8 nor the biblical worldview on marriage. Rather, he apologized for his comments in an earlier Beliefnet interview expressing his concern about expanding or redefining the definition of marriage beyond a husband-wife relationship, during which he unintentionally and regrettably gave the impression that consensual adult same sex relationships were equivalent to incest or pedophilia.

Okay. I say that in light of this information, Pastor Warren needs to be exonerated. We need to take his word that his apology to gay leaders was not a mea culpa for traditional marriage. However, engaging the secular media can be a quagmire and I think that's what happened here. All of us who have done this kind of work with the secular media can relate to Warren's experience.