Mega-church pastor Rick Warren brought the Christian-Zionist media and the Anti-Defamation League front groups upon himself
By Charles E. Carlson
David Horowitz is Editor of FrontPageMagazine.com, and from our own experience he is a fast ally of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). He provides instant hit pieces on those who come in conflict with the Anti-defamation League’s Israeli policy. Horowitz and Joseph Farah founder of World Net Daily are leading an attack on Pastor Rick Warren, founder of the 30,000 member Saddleback church in Orange County CA, and author of the mega-best seller, “The Purpose Driven Life,” and a host of related books. The attack is designed to punish the mighty evangelical for straying from the Israel’s line.
At the request of a trusted (Muslim) friend it appears Warren visited Syria, met with its President, and dared say something nice about ordinary Syrian Arabs. It should be noted that Palestine used to be part of Syria, and was therefore in all likelihood the first Christian country on earth, but Christians friendly to Israel are never supposed to acknowledge that there is a Christian culture in most Arab countries, especially Syria where the Church of Antioch was Apostle Paul’s first Christian outpost.
Horowitz is quick to swing the sword for of the Anti-Defamation League against anyone who looms as a threat to Israel’s image. Especially dangerous are, it seems, any evangelical celebrity who strays from the official Christian Zionist line which is: “Israel is good; Arabs are evil.” Warren obviously strayed, at least a little. After all, why would he even have a Muslim friend? There is much we can learn from his experience, which in some respects parallels this author’s own experience with the ADL and Horowitz.
FrontPage called upon Reverend Mark Tooly, of the Methodist denomination, to denounce Pastor Warren for holding an intercession meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus; much worse, Pastor Rick seemed to be comfortable with President Bashar al-Assad and spoke kind words about his efforts; even more damming from Israel’s point of view, Warren spoke to and showed compassion for the ordinary people of Syria. It seems Warren took the trouble to meet some of them, and from his words, it would seem Pastor Warren not only considered the Syrians to be human, but he actually considered them gentle people who might rate the right to exist.
No friend of Israel, especially an influential evangelical Christian, is supposed to visit any Arab states unless chaperoned by an Israelis. Our new Congressmen’s junkets to Israel (which they are taking as we speak) are controlled shows. Never are the Congressmen afforded communications with ordinary Arab citizens in the West Bank and Gaza, unless chaperoned by Israelis who speak Arabic. Our Congressmen go to see one side! What they learn about the other side comes exclusively from their Israeli briefer.
Evangelical pastors like Rick Warren are support to make their decisions about Arabs based on what Israel show them and tells them about Gazans, Philistines, Lebanese, Iraqis and Syrians. Never can they visit an Arab home, play with Arab children, or go to an Arab school or mosque or, perish the thought, an Arab Christian Church. Few break this code, but Rick Warren’s did.
I had my own experience I will never forget, with an Israeli cab driver who called the Gazans “animals,” and the IDF gate guard who tried to talk me into turning around at the checkpoint and the Israeli businessman who attempted to talk me out of entering Gaza because it is “disgusting”. A common trick was to tell me the Arabs would kill me if I go into Gaza alone. Congressmen usually see Arab territory through two inches of titanium wrapped around an armored personnel carrier. That how my former Congressman told me he toured the Arab territory in Israel. You just don’t see much that way, “but you’re safe from the Arabs.”
I went in to Gaza and the Arabs did not kill me, and many clearly could have. I frequently walked around inside the Gaza “gulag” all by myself, going to Internet cafés alone, to schools and businesses. Contrary to what I was told about the “animals” inside the gulag, I felt like some of them loved me just for showing up and listening to them. I also found out I love them, especially their children, and I can not imagin how an Israeli solder could pull the trigger on them.
Another attack dog who has sunk his canines into Pastor Rick Warren is Joseph Farah, of World Net Daily, an ADL-pet, token Arab American, Farah has launched at least two full editorials against Pastor Rick stating:
“Rick Warren, the superstar mega-church pastor and best-selling author of ‘The Purpose Driven Life,’ had a Damascus Road experience last week – and like Saul of Tarsus, one of the after-effects appears to be blindness.”
Farah went on to accused Rick Warren privately of “betraying his country,” and assailed him for being big, powerful and influential. This is pretty funny in that Farah has come from nowhere to become big, powerful and influential by being a token Arab-Zionist who panders to the Israeli patriot movement at every turn. What Farah really means is that Warrens has “betrayed” not his country but Christian-Zionism, which cannot stand even a slight light of exposure of its ugly face.
Farah can be fairly described as a radical Christian-Zionist, who proves the point by endorsing and supporting failed prophet Hal Lindsey, one of the most notorious Christian-Zionist quacks. Lindsey has peddled books predicting the end of the world about every ten years since his first bestseller, The Late Great Planet Earth, predicted the “rapture” would happen in 1981. His latest end time sequel is aimed at his great human enemy, Islam, and is entitled: Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad. Lindsey says these loving words about Joseph Farah:
“I would like to thank my friend, Joe Farah, CEO of the internationally acclaimed news website, www.worldnetdaily.com, for his indispensable help in researching this book. He is a brilliant reporter and writer and he helped me in many ways during the course of this work.”
Farah like Lindsay is an Israeli patriot and an end-times buff. He is also an Islam hating Arab who appearenlty traded his charactor for fame and success.
Horowitz’s FrontPage had this to say about Rick Warren:
“Big-name U.S. preachers, often otherwise sensible and orthodox in their faith, visit despotic regimes and naively curry favor with police state thugs”… and “The preachers supinely believe that their cozy ties with the dictatorship will facilitate greater preaching access to the oppressed populations. But the end result more usually is a propaganda bonanza for the tyrants, and a population that is left to feel forgotten by the outside world.”
What was the terrible thing that Mr. Warren said to make the Israeli patriots fear him, challenge his patriotism, and condemn him as unpatriotic? Farah quotes Warren:
“I call on the Americans to visit Syria and meet its beautiful people. I will tell the Americans that their idea about Syria does not reflect the truth.”
Farah further quote Warren:
“In his official statement released on Thursday afternoon (November 16), Warren says many Americans do not realize that both Christianity and Judaism are legal in Syria. Among other things, he says the Syrian government provides free electricity and water to all churches and allows Christians to create their own civil law instead of having to follow Muslim law’…and…’the Syrian government has long had a bad reputation in America, but if one considers a positive action like welcoming in thousands of Christian refugees from Iraq, or the protection of freedom to worship for Christians and Jews in Syria, it should not be ignored.’ Warren says in fact, when it comes to religious freedom, Syria is far more tolerant than places like Cuba and Iraq and other nations identified in the U.S. Commission Report on International Religious Freedom.”
Rick Warren’s words, fully informed or not fully informed, are part of a necessary “turning” of the Christian evangelicals, a turning toward peace. Anyone with a fair mind can see he did not endorse every act of Syria as noble and good. I have not been to Syria, but I have been to Gaza and the West Bank.
No president greeted me, I walked in quite alone, and I did talk to many “beautiful people” as Rick Warren put it. we are not supposed to know there are “beautiful” human people inside Syria and Gaza, for if we start believing that we might just want to save their lives, and that is not in the Warmakers’ serial war plan. These peoples’ lives are expendable in the world plan, which includes Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, and which has already written off Gaza.
One beautiful Arab man brewed coffee for me over a Bunsen burner in a work shack on a lovely hill in Gaza. He had never seen me before, and it was probably his last coffee. As we sipped it he told me he might not like America because he has heard that large families were forbidden in the US (he had eight children).
I explained that big families are legal in the US and I told him about abortion and the declining families here. I could see it hurt him to hear it. This middle aged man had never been told of abortion as practiced in the USA, nor in Israel only one mile away across a retaining fence. He was horrified by my account of child extermination in America, and could not conceive of 40 million dead children, and may have doubting me for the fist time, though he was too polite to say so. He tried to pass on my explanation to his friend, Omar, in Arabic with gestures. He was pained, and I believe it increased his fear of America to learn we kill our own children. He did not dream we could be that callous, even though Israel dropped American bombs on Gaza the prevous night killing four!
Omar, another beautiful Arab proudly told me that his family was no less than 23 children, and two wives. I did not ask why two wives. To prove the point he summoned a procession of assorted sized children playing near by to come into the shake and shake my hand each naming himself. I lost count. I will never forget these two gentle Arab men, their kindness to me and innocence.
I think I may understand why Rick Warrens was moved to say what he did. Whatever he does, or whatever his core beliefs, he is right in this one thing he said for which he will bring condemnation upon himself from his own evangelical crowd. It is my prayer he will stick to it, and will not be cornered or intimidated into more fashionable lies to be like the others.
The Zionists at FrontPage, the ADL and World Net Daily, and the shabby character assassin, Farah, loves this celebrity “preacher” when he fawns over the assassins. They turn on him and call him unpatriotic when he happens to learn about the Arab side and starts to see them as humans. Hal Lindsey’s book, clearly shows the race hatred that abounds in its topic headings:
Why do so many Muslims hate Jews?
Why do Islamic fundamentalists hate the United States and call it “The Great Satan?”
Why did Islamic terrorists sacrifice their own lives to kill Americans?
Do Islamic fundamentalists have access to weapons of mass destruction?
Could Islamic terrorists imperil the survival of the United States?
What light does Bible prophecy shed on this?
Perhaps Rick Warren had a similar experience to mine, talking to the ordinary Arabs in Syria, and perhaps he could not help but say some nice things about them. Now he is paying the price. He will be regarded as a turncoat by every Christian-Zionist. The ADL is likely behind the FrontPage’s attack; I say this because I found it to be behind and attack on me that also came from David Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine in 2004.
My experience began when the ADL got wind of my name on the speaker’s invitation at a Palestinian student conference at Duke University sponsored unfortunately by Palestine Solidarity Movement, though I was invited by a Duke University student. My talk, as always, was to be why the evangelical-Christian supports the warmaking of Israel. I was the only speaker on Christian-Zionism at the largely Muslim conference, but when I was discovered, a black cloud of pressure descended on the student leaders at Duke University.
It was one thing to favor Palestine and criticize Israel, but do not expose the role of the evangelicals. The ADL and its agents, including Horowitz leveled a barrage on me over “anti-Semitism.” FrontPage was quick to follow the ADL lead. The ADL organized pressure through Palestine Solidarity movement to pressure the students to drop Carlson from the speaking agenda. Sadly it works because of nature of PSM.(Endnote1)
The entire Israeli-patriot structure, from the ADL to AIPAC, trembles at the thought of evangelical Christianity turning away from them. We Hold These Truths program drives a wedge that cannot be removed. Zionism fears a “turning” within the Christian movement more than they fear homemade bombs and rockets. They even fear me. How much more are they are horrified over powerful and influential Rick Warren.
On November 21, Pierre Gemayel, a Lebanese industry minister and a leader in the Maronite-dominated Phalangist party was assassinated. Syria was, as usual, being accused in the US and Israeli press. It is much more likely that it was an Israeli, false flag hit, meant to embarrass anyone who has ever said a good word about an Arab state, especially Syria. It will be used to embarrass Mr. Warren. There is no reason Syria would choose this time to do a stupid, self destructive, and unnecessary act; there is every reason Israel would do it right after Warren’s visit to defuse the impact of Rick Warren’s very important public testimony. Israelis kill Gaza children for throwing a rock, or for less. Executions are an every day act for them; they would do it, though I do not know of a fact they did.
Rick Warren has stepped over the line and he can count on getting dozens of personal phone calls from some of the biggest names in evangelical “Christendom” to suggest he mend his ways.
It is my prayer that Warren, like former President Jimmy Carter who has become a leader for peace, will not turn his back on what he has learned. From the glimmer of understanding which he seems to have discovered, as I once discovered it, and as many have before us, let there finally be justice for the Palestinians.
You can reach pastor Rick Warren at PastorRick@saddleback.com.
You can call the Church at 949-609-8000.
(Endnote1) ADL Attacks Charles Carlson and Duke U. Conference
Charles E. Carlson Oct 09, 2004
How the Anti Defamation League Controls its Opposition
Charles E. Carlson Oct 22, 2004
Christian-Zonism’s Roots, Audio/Video (whtt.org/show)
