Subject: Rick Warren

• Jerry Falwell's OC Connections

  Noted evangelical windbag Jerry Falwell was raptured today, and we're sure God strained his back from carrying that hefty sack into the sky. In honor of his death, we submit some of Falwell's brushes with our sordid county: • Back in the early 1990s, Orange County-based Citizens for Honest government paid individuals upward of $200,000 to come out with lurid accusations against then-President Bill Clinton. A Salon.com exclusive tied the group to Falwell; the group denied they took orders f

  May 15, 2007

• Will Rick Warren Save the Jews?

  Sorry for the tardiness of this post--have been on the road... The New York Times recently published a fascinating piece on how Saddleback Church mega-pastor Rick Warren is teaching Jews how to invigorate their congregations. The story reveals that Warren has lectured before Conservative congregations in Los Angeles and that an observant Jew, Mel Malkoff of the Orange-based Malkoff & Associates, handles most of the land acquisition and property development issues for the Lake Forest-based megac

  November 14, 2007

• Rick Warren: World's Sexiest Preacher?

  That's the opinion of The Wittenburg Door, the online newsletter of the legendary prosperity-preacher exposers the Trinity Foundation. "Don't let Rick Warren's disheveled Hawaiian shirt and receding hairline fool you," writes one Skippy R. "Although he says his idea of fashion is wearing "clothes that don't itch," Warren is a style-conscious clothes horse in his off hours. He can often be seen dressed to the nines, dazzling the ladies all over Saddleback Valley and on any Thursday night at the

  November 21, 2007

• Stint in OC inspired Obama to run?

  Last month's edition of The Atlantic profiles Barack Obama in several articles. One of them, "Teacher and Apprentice," a must-read piece on the Obama-Clinton relationship by Marc Ambinder, contains a couple of theories about what lit a fire under the man's ass and made him decide to seek presidency. One such theory involves our fair county: Many Obama friends and advisers believe that the realization he actually could be president first hit Obama on December 1, 2006, which happened to be W

  January 7, 2008

• Romney Drops Out, Cites Rick Warren Badly; Baby Hewie Cries

  In Mitt Romney's rambling, scary speech announcing he's dropping out of the Republican presidential campaign, the flip-flopper uttered this curious line: Americans love God, and those who don’t have faith, typically believe in something greater than themselves—a “Purpose Driven Life.” Wait a minute, Mitt: your deliberate use of the term "Purpose Driven Life" is a specific reference to Saddleback Church's money cow, the multi-million-selling book of head pastor Rick Warren. Last I check

  February 7, 2008

• Rev. Schuller Spins Orange Coast Magazine

  Like Rich, we're excited to see the "new" Orange Coast, and wish it the best even though it's now technically a competitor. I've yet to see the issue that Rich dissected but did catch the one before, one that already had hints of the literary journalism and well-written analysis readers can expect under newish editor Marty Smith. One article stuck out in particular: Matthew Heller's contention that Orange County Christian pastors try not to mix politics with their faith. "If the GOP has realize

  June 30, 2008

• Warren Ain't no Schuller

  The eyes of America fall upon Saddleback Church tomorrow, where recent Time cover boy Rick Warren plays Tim Russert while he interviews presidential nominees John McCain and Barack Obama. There is a lot of grousing amongst people for the outlandish admission fees Warren is charging, monies he claims will go to one of his many charitable (read: evangelizing) efforts. Which reminds us: why can't Warren be more like the Crystal Cathedral's Robert Schuller in this regard? Schuller, of course, revol

  August 15, 2008

• Riding Low in the Saddleback

  By Eleanor Carmichael It was hotter than Hell when I arrived at Saddleback Church (my former parish—no, seriously) for the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency. Unfortunately, I couldn’t look forward to sitting in the main worship center near Rick Warren, Barack Obama or John McCain. OC Weekly usually gets identified as “alternative” media. At Saddleback, we earned another A-word: “auxiliary,” which meant I was bound for room 404, the auxiliary press room—along with the likes

  August 16, 2008

• Rick Warren Superstar

  Just about everything that can be said has been said about pastor Rick Warren's performance this past weekend with underlings John McCain and Barack Obama. Except this: by getting all moving cameras in the Free World fixed on his Saddleback Church, Warren officially propelled himself past two other evangelicals with a long history of publicity mongering around these parts. You knew the granddaddy of 'em all, Robert H. Schuller, who has since handed the Crystal Cathedral's reins to his lifelong

  August 19, 2008

• The Mexican invades . . . Signal Hill?

  September 21, 2008

• Less Christ, More Right

  August 25, 2005

• God Punks Rick Warren!

  Saddleback Church head Rick Warren was on Hannity & Colmes last night giving non-answers to whether he supports domestic partnerships instead of gay marriage and continuing his ahistorical analysis of marriage through history. But I could only pay so much attention to the Purpose-Driven Man before I was blinded with tears of laughter. Warren was doing a live-remote, probably from somewhere in Orange County, and whoever was the genius who picked a background for Warren chose a shot of San Francis

  November 12, 2008

• The Purpose Driven Knife in the Back of Obama's Gay Supporters

  Perhaps for not going so hard on Barack Obama in last summer's Saddleback presidential forum, the Lake Forest mega-church's pastor, Rick Warren (right), will deliver the invocation at the president-elect's swearing-in ceremony Jan. 20, reports CNN. Warren did not make a public endorsement in the race, but his past views (and forum questions) were certainly slanted more toward  John McCain. And Warren did publicly support California's Proposition 8, commenting in Saddleback's October newslet

  December 17, 2008

• Has Orange County Christianity Jumped the Shark?

  The country is abuzz with President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Saddleback Church's Rick "Purpose-Driven Life" Warren to offer the invocation at next month's presidential inauguration. Let others debate the merits of the choice--I personally think Warren's beginning to wade into the political waters he long swore to forsake--but what interests me is that Warren is assuming this spotlight treatment at a time when his home base is increasingly losing its influence over American Christianity.I d

  December 18, 2008

• Is Rick Warren Outing His Tolerant Self of Just Bluffing?

  UPDATED WITH PASTOR WILEY DRAKE SAYING GOD WILL PUNISH RICK WARREN FOR PARTICIPATING IN OBAMA INAUGURATION (SEE THE VERY END).The choice of Rick Warren as Barack Obama's inaugural invocation giver has apparently so touched the leader of Lake Forest's Saddleback Church that he has become The Most Tolerant Pastor Ever!!!He posed for a photo that has his arm around an openly gay guy at the Out of the Closet thrift store in West Hollywood. He met with Melissa Etheridge, apologizing for the way

  December 23, 2008

• When the Going Gets Tough, the Rick Warren Scandal Gets Weird

  MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has today's best assessment of the Rick Warren-Barack Obama invocation dust up: "Not only is it getting worse, it's getting weirder."Yesterday, there was Pastor Wiley Drake of First Baptist Church in Buena Park demonizing Warren's participation in the Jan. 20 inauguration of our "evil illegal alien" president-elect, saying God will punish Drake's fellow Southern Baptist preacher Warren.Wacky fundies who have been critical of Warren's social agendizing Christianity for years

  December 24, 2008

• Looking Back at 2008: The Ecstasy and the Irony

  This is not a look back at disgraced Sheriff Mike Carona, the Little Sheriff, the Debs, the Little Debbie Snack, the Freeway Complex Fire, Rick Warren, Wiley Drake, any lantern-jawed preacher with the last name of Schuller, pedo-priests, the 241 toll road extension, Proposition 8, fluctuating gasoline prices, the mortgage meltdown or the havoc that phenomenon wreaked. No, these are 15 stories from 2008 that may have fallen through the cracks were it not for the wonders of online archives and sl

  December 31, 2008

• Why Isn't Wiley Drake Suing God Over Inauguration?

  We've previously told you about Buena Park pastor Wiley Drake suing to prevent Barack Obama from being inaugurated as president of the United States on Jan. 20 and, if that fails, suing to stop U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts from delivering the oath of office to Obama. For good measure, Drake has tried to prevent Rick Warren from giving Obama's invocation by warning the wrath of God will strike his fellow Orange County pastor.But one even higher authority somehow escaped Drake and

  January 5, 2009

• Rick Warren Offers to Save Homo-Hating St. James Anglican Church, But Where's Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr?

  Rick Warren has finally crossed the Rubicon of homo-hating with his invitation to St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach to set up camp at Saddleback Church because the California State Supreme Court recently ruled they can't stay on their Balboa Peninsula property. A quick primer: St. James split with its Episcopal diocese in 2004 because they didn't like the idea of a gay man getting ordained as a bishop and began taking its orders from a homo-hater in Uganda. So this isn't even a gay-marr

  January 13, 2009

• 'American Idol' 'Bikini Girl' From Not Too Far From Here

  The star of tonight's American Idol eighth (I know, only eight?) season premiere of American Idol is surely Katrina Darrell, already known the world over as "Bikini Girl." That clever nickname is derived from the fact that she wore a bikini to the audition, which seems to be the only reason she made it through despite a subpar version of Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love."Anyway, even though the auditions shown were shot in Phoenix, she's actually from Chino Hills (according to no less a source tha

  January 13, 2009

• Sign From God? Rick Warren Shouted Down at MLK Service

  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that protesters interrupted pastor Rick Warren's speech to a packed house for the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta today--one day before the leader of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest is to deliver a controversy-seeped invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration in D.C.Several dozen gay activists critical of Warren's opposition to same-sex marriage had gathered outside Ebenezer before the service. Some hoisted

  January 19, 2009

• Pastor Rick Finds It Chilly in D.C.

  UPDATED... Following up on Gustavo's thoughts here: CNN pundit Roland Martin (loved his show, Laugh-In) had this to say about Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren: "There were not many people clapping when his name was announced." That was right after another CNN pundit observed that those waving goodbye to the helicopter carrying Dubya were not so much saying goodbye as, "See ya." The reporter probably would have added "Don't let the White House door hit you in the ass" if he&

  January 20, 2009

• Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. Responds to Weekly Query

  Over the weekend, Christian philanthropist extraordinaire and Weekly reader Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. responded to my post asking whether he'd buy a new property for Newport Beach's St. James Episcopal Church because they're currently homeless for casting their theological lot with a homo-hating Ugandan. His email is below. Dear Gustavo, I am not going to answer any questions on Capistrano, because I don't really understand the situation there. I did that on the recommendation of my chief of staff

  January 26, 2009

• Gay Marriage Rally in Front of OC Church Has a Twist This Time

  Ho-hum, supporters of marriage equality are planning a big rally outside yet another Orange County church. Tell it to Rick Warren. Or Ted Haggard. Or Mormony McMormon. Maybe they'll get all fired up by signs stating, "No on Hate--No on Prop 8," "I Want to See My Daddies MARRIED!" and "Jesus Loves Everyone." The rest of us need naps. Well, as it turns out, the March 5 rally at Church of the Foothills in Santa Ana is church-sanctioned, as opposed to those outside Warren's Saddleback

  February 10, 2009

• Rick Warren is a Big, Fat Coward

  So Purpose Driven® Rick Warren is blaming his no-show on the ABC news program This Week because he sniffed too many fumes at the pulpit? Is this the beginning to a bad Catholic joke? And Warren is still insisting that every culture in human history has defined marriage as between a man and a woman, despite the big, glaring local example? Too funny. Hey, Purpose Driven® Rick: your short tenure as America's Pastor has produced nothing but hilarity, one that makes Bill Graham's anti-Semitic ravin

  April 13, 2009

• Recession-Friendly Strippers

  February 12, 2009

• Tastes Like Progress

  January 15, 2009

• When Mariners Church Fired Choir Director Bob Gunn for Being Gay, It Sparked a Six-Year Legal Battle

  December 18, 2008

• This Is Your Life: A Companion Guide/Shameless Propaganda for 'Orange County: A Personal History'

  September 11, 2008

• [Moxley Confidential] The Strange Case of the Deputy-Confiscated Videotape

  September 11, 2008

• A Former Saddleback Congregant-Turned-Cub Reporter Purposely Drives to Rick Warren's Candidate Forum

  August 21, 2008

• Avian Feuds

  January 10, 2008

• You're On With Jesus

  Neil Saavedra brings God down to Earth

  March 22, 2007

• Godsmack

  Orange County authors try to bring unity to people of different religious faiths. For this they will face the wrath of believers. Again.

  March 1, 2007

• Commie Girl

  Everyone Has AIDS! (AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS, AIDS!)

  December 7, 2006

• Commie Girl

  Pots of Gold: At the end, theres the Rainbow

  November 30, 2006

• The Purpose Driven Life

  October 19, 2006

• 'Entertaining Lucifer'

  September 14, 2006

• Jesus Kills

  February 23, 2006

• Lake Forest

  October 20, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  October 6, 2005

• Navel Gazing: The Avis of Journalistic Blogs in the West

  Dear readers, prepare to withstand some navel gazing about Navel Gazing, the OC Weekly staff news blog: It has won second-place honors from Best of the West, which was founded in 1987 to promote freedom of information and reward journalistic excellence, mainly through its contest for newspapers and newspaper-run websites in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.2009 Best of the West Journalism Contest judges waded

  April 29, 2009

• Harvest Dates Announced. Consider Yourself Warned. Sinner!

  Greg Laurie, working it.He may not have the press agent of your Rick Warren or healing touch of your Benny Hinn or out-of-control wig of your Jan Crouch, but Greg Laurie does attract a similarly large following, as will be evidenced at Angel Stadium Aug. 14-16 during the 20th anniversary Harvest Crusade. The senior pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside began these Southern California roadshows in 1990 and since then have drawn more than 3.8 million people to arenas and stadium

  June 23, 2009

• Wiley Drake Gets the Keith Olbermann Stamp of Disapproval

  Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Pastor Wiley Drake of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park has been previously recognized for interfaith gestures, helping the less fortunate and sheltering the homeless on church property despite threats from lawsuits, neighboring residents and city code enforcement.He's also lashed out against gays, Disneyland, gays, the Clintons, gays, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, gays and, of course, homeless gays wearing mouse ears,

  July 15, 2009

• Wiley Speaks! On Keith Olbermann Naming Him "World's Worst Person"

  Pastor Wiley DrakeWell, guessed who showed up in the ol' email inbox, responding to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann naming him the "World's Worst Person"? It's First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park pastor Wiley Drake, who drew the dubious distinction for saying he's prayed for the deaths of President Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and fellow pastor Rick Warren.  Alas, the good reverend's reaction is short and, uh, brief: "Olbermann is my new press secretary," types Drake

  July 16, 2009

• Chatting With Bill Maher About Rick Warren And Orly Taitz

  From Religulous: Bill Maher on the left, Jesus on the right.​Comedian, talk show host and atheist evangelical Bill Maher will perform at the Grove of Anaheim on Sunday, Sept. 13. We got a chance to chat with him on the phone last week, mainly to ask him for his thoughts on all things Orange County and right-wing. Maher hosts HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, and produced and starred in the 2008 anti-religion documentary Religulous. If you think he's a jerk for saying Saddleback Church pastor Ri

  September 9, 2009

• North Carolina Pastor to Burn Books of Local "Heretics" Rick Warren, Robert Schuller, and Benny Hinn

  I thought book burnings in the South went with the way of the Beatles, but this shows how much I know: to celebrate Halloween, Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina will host an ol'-fashioned Scripture bonfire complete with "Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides," according to their website (click on the link, if only to hear a funny 1930s-era song about a boy who bought a Bible--yee-haw!). Among the literature the church claims constitute "Satan's popular books" i

  October 14, 2009

• Updated: DUI Crackdown In OC's Three Biggest Party Towns Tonight

  ​Watch out, sinning citizens of OC's sinningest towns. The OC Sheriff's Department will be on the streets tonight looking for drunk drivers as part of a federal anti-DUI program that targets "areas that have a high incidence of DUI related arrests and collisions."So, naturally, they're headed for the county's three biggest party zones: Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Magarita.That's right. Those of you drinking Patron with your pies at Cocos off Crown Valley, beware. Think twice be

  October 16, 2009

• Rick Warren Likes Farrell's--Does Farrell's Really Want that Endorsement?

  Will Farrell's soon seel a Purpose-Driven Sundae?​Apparently, Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour was a pretty big deal in its day, but I wouldn't know--the only ice cream we could afford when I was a kiddie was Otter Pops. But some Orange Countians have been eagerly anticipating its return at the Shops of Mission Viejo, one being Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren. He was at its opening, wanting to meet owner Bob Farrell because the first date Purpose-Driven® Rick ever went on with his wife was at

  November 9, 2009

• Calvary Chapel to Crucify Darwin this Weekend!

  ​While Rick Warren goes around eating ice cream, the mothership Calvary Chapel campus will host a two-day conference starting Friday on the evils of Charles Darwin. Titled, appropriately enough, "Darwin was Wrong," a press release promises many lectures on the subject by scientists who "will present overwhelming scientific evidence against Darwin's speculations." But these aren't just any unbiased scientists--nearly all are affiliated with Logos Research Associates, an offshoot of Calvary Chap

  November 9, 2009