Warren the totalitarian

Monitor:

For anyone who bought into Rick Warren's "kinder, gentler" brand of know-nothing fundamentalism, I recommend you reflect on some truly disturbing comments he made in a recent sermon. In essence, Warren longingly describes the passionate fanaticism that such esteemed historical figures as Adolf Hitler, Lenin and Mao inspired in their followers:

"In 1939, in a stadium much like this, in Munich Germany, they packed it out with young men and women in brown shirts, for a fanatical man standing behind a podium named Adolf Hitler, the personification of evil.

And in that stadium, those in brown shirts formed with their bodies a sign that said, in the whole stadium, "Hitler, we are yours."

And they nearly took the world.

Lenin once said, "give me 100 committed, totally committed men and I'll change the world." And, he nearly did.

A few years ago, they took the sayings of Chairman Mao, in China, put them in a little red book, and a group of young people committed them to memory and put it in their minds and they took that nation, the largest nation in the world by storm because they committed to memory the sayings of the Chairman Mao.

When I hear those kinds of stories, I think 'what would happen if American Christians, if world Christians, if just the Christians in this stadium, followers of Christ, would say 'Jesus, we are yours' ?

What kind of spiritual awakening would we have ?

As David Neiwart opines:

It probably didn't cross Warren's mind, but the examples he cites are two of the world's most classic cases of totalitarianism. The products of their regimes -- beyond millions of people dead -- included the forced regimentation of thought and no press or free-speech protections whatsoever.

If that's the kind of fervent "radicalism" he admires, then we badly need to ought to take a long look at just what his agenda really is. And so ought Barack Obama.

In fairness to Warren, he's not saying "let's go kill a million people!". But he is telling his congregation to devote themselves to Christianity with the same totalitarian fervor. Yeesh.

The Nazis, Stalinists, and Mao were all fundamentalists, you see. Secular fundamentalists, yes. But the religious version is no less dangerous: look no further than the inquisition, crusades, and various other holy wars.

Many fervent Evangelicals, Mormons, and hardline Catholics today like to think: "no no, our aims are good! We're not evil like those people!". But in truth we are all capable of the same evil.

It's just that today we have the good fortune of living in western societies that value liberty and have the institutions to protect it.

Also, contra a common refrain from the religious right, the liberal institutions protected by things like the US Constitution which we cherish today did not originate in some "Judeo-Christian" tradition (there is no such thing) but are rather a product of the Age of Enlightenment, "in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority" above all else.