Rick Warren on Fox News

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I recorded Rick Warren's Christmas service that was broadcast on Fox News last night and I just finished watching it. Tell you what, I am impressed.

First, I am impressed that Fox News televised it. Wow! It is so neat that this message was shown on a news channel.

Second, I am impressed with his sermon. It was a simple presentation of the gospel, centered on God's love and his desire to be in fellowship with us. Warren ended with the sinner's prayer. Really, was reminded of some of Billy Graham's finest moments.

I haven't bought into the Purpose Driven stuff, but I have to say "Amen" to what I just watched.

[Gord Evans]

I recorded Rick Warren's Christmas service that was broadcast on Fox News last night and I just finished watching it. Tell you what, I am impressed.

First, I am impressed that Fox News televised it. Wow! It is so neat that this message was shown on a news channel.

Second, I am impressed with his sermon. It was a simple presentation of the gospel, centered on God's love and his desire to be in fellowship with us. Warren ended with the sinner's prayer. Really, was reminded of some of Billy Graham's finest moments.

I haven't bought into the Purpose Driven stuff, but I have to say "Amen" to what I just watched.


I believe this is the FOX show (http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/svcc/christmas2006/gods_vision_hi.wvx) isn't it, Scott?

[Billie Goodson]

Favorite quote from Warren's "Purpose Driven Church" is when he says something along the line of "We aren't in the business of corralling goats." This was his response to the church "building" method of getting the list of names of all the malcontents over the years that have left, and trying to beg them back into fellowship.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I believe this is the FOX show (http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/svcc/christmas2006/gods_vision_hi.wvx) isn't it, Scott?

No, that wasn't it -- this was "The Purpose of Christmas." They followed up with another program, "Can Rick Warren Change the World." I haven't seen the second one yet.

They played both hour long shows three times each. So there was 6 hours aired on Christmas eve.

[Billy Cox]

Perhaps we are finally overcoming our infatuation with political power and our obsession with other people's sexual misbehavior.

I just wonder if Warren and others of like-mind are heralding the beginning of the end for the 'radical Christian right', or whether it is just the end of the beginning.

[BobHunt]

I do admire his stewardship, I know some dont agree with him, but I cant say much after learning how much he gives away.

[Andrew Henck]

I cringed when I first read that Fox was airing Warren's program multiple times throughout the Christmas weekend.

Could the sermon have been aired on CBN or a similar TV channel? I think the current Christian TV programming paints a pretty inaccurate picture of what a majority of Christians are really like. A culturally relevant message like Warren's could have a more suitable home on a channel like that.


First, I am impressed that Fox News televised it. Wow! It is so neat that this message was shown on a news channel.



Sure, many non-believers were able to view Warren's sermon, but "on a news channel?" I guess this just further adds to my increasing doubt in Fox News as "fair and balanced," let alone as a legitimate source of journalism at all.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

When I first read that Fox was airing Warren's program multiple times throughout the Christmas weekend, I cringed.

I cringed primarily because of the outlet in which the program was being seen. Maybe the current lackluster Christian TV programming that portrays a pretty pitiful picture of cliche Bible thumpers could be improved by airing more sermons like this one from Rick Warren.

If you were unhappy with the program I guess that is your right, and I certainly appreciate your perspective. However, as a people of God I think we should cheer and applaud when the message of redemption is proclaimed to as wide an audience as possible. It is my belief that people will be in heaven who would not have made it otherwise because that sermon was aired on that network.

If that is true, and if there is rejoicing in heaven over one lost person who is found, I think we believers ought to be rejoicing too.

Sure, I bet it was seen by many who should have seen it, but "on a news channel." I guess this just further adds to my increasing doubt in Fox News as "fair and balanced," let alone journalism at all.

It may say more about us than it does Fox News. I say that the message of the Incarnation is big news that should have the headlines of every newscast and every newspaper. I say that for any news outlet to ignore such a message shows a very unbalanced view of reality.

The sermon blessed my heart and the second program in which Warren presents his case for the Church uniting to change the world, specifically Uganda was a welcome change so far as I am concerned.

[Brad Mercer]

I guess this just further adds to my increasing doubt in Fox News as "fair and balanced," let alone as a legitimate source of journalism at all.

McCain and Obama, leading candidates for the GOP and Dem presidential nominations, were just at his church recently, probably because they both thought that public identification with him would help their political prospects. For better or worse, his "Purpose-Driven Life" book is one of bestselling books in recent decades. Four years after publication it still ranks #28 on Amazon in hardcover.

When I was working on my master's thesis in history I spent a lot of time reading newspapers from 100 years ago. One of the things that struck me was how much of their space was devoted to actually printing, say, the president's State of the Union address in full. Today that would never happen. You'd get a phrase quoted here or there, but most of the newspaper print space would be devoted to telling you what to think about the speech. It struck me then that the actual words of the movers, shakers and decision makers is the real news. The reporter's opinion of the speech is not really as newsworthy.

I think religion and the bestselling Christian nonfiction authors have more direct, immediate impact on more people than the average politician. I've never read "Purpose-Driven Life" myself (nor seen the Fox News programs that prompted this thread), but hundreds of Nazarene churches have build Bible studies around it and gone through the related "40 Days of Purpose". Whatever the long term effect, it has engaged their time, thought and energy in ways that many of them believed to be positive and significant.

I consider newsworthy whatever or whoever has a significant, direct impact on a large number of people.

Mainstream media clearly does not in its assessment of what things are or are not newsworthy adequately reflect the extend of impact that religion and religious events, books and personalities have on a huge percentage of Americans. A network that actually lets you hear what Rick Warren is saying is, in my opinion, reporting something newsworthy which is typically excluded by a more secular bias about what ought to be considered news.

In short, I don't see anything in what's being said about the Fox program that would in and of itself lead me to question the legitimacy of their claim to be a fair and balanced news network.

Brad

[Andrew Henck]

One of the things that struck me was how much of their space was devoted to actually printing, say, the president's State of the Union address in full. Today that would never happen. You'd get a phrase quoted here or there, but most of the newspaper print space would be devoted to telling you what to think about the speech. It struck me then that the actual words of the movers, shakers and decision makers is the real news. The reporter's opinion of the speech is not really as newsworthy.

In today's context, solely printing the text of a presidential speech or something in similar form would not be considered "journalism." If there is nothing to correlate the speech to as to who it affects, why it was given, etc., there's next to nothing to gain from it. If the reporter was to give their "opinion" of the speech, then this in its entirety would belong on an Op-Ed page of a newspaper and wouldn't be written by a reporter, rather by a columnist.


I consider newsworthy whatever or whoever has a significant, direct impact on a large number of people.

I would tend to agree with this statement most of the time. However, with your rationale of what is considered "newsworthy," let's look at this hypothetical...

A prominent Jewish rabbi (or lets insert any religious figure from a non-evangelical Christian perspective here) gives a sermon and because of the "significant and direct" impact on American Jews, CNN (or insert any other "news organization" other than Fox News) decides to air the sermon in its entirety, not once, but multiple times.

I'm afraid that if this one hypothetical out of several others was to take place, those who have no objections to the airing of Rick Warren's sermon on Fox News, would suddenly be raising concerns about the media's bias and support of Judaism or Islam or whatever faith may be represented in the situation.

Do I appreciate the fact that non-believers were given an outlet to hear the Gospel through this sermon? Yes. I probably explained my intentions and opinion unclearly in my previous post. However, this was not the appropriate outlet for which to air Warren's remarks if Fox News continues to insist on being a fair and balanced network and reputable news organization.

[Brad Mercer]

In today's context, solely printing the text of a presidential speech or something in similar form would not be considered "journalism." If there is nothing to correlate the speech to as to who it affects, why it was given, etc., there's next to nothing to gain from it.

On the contrary, if the reader is presumed to be reasonably intelligent, the primary news, what he doesn't have at his disposal until it's reported somewhere, is the speech. Giving it context has value in good reporting, but that's secondary to the thing to which we're giving context. And I'm more likely to be able to give it context for myself than I am to divine the speech for myself.

However, with your rationale of what is considered "newsworthy," let's look at this hypothetical...

A prominent Jewish rabbi....

Jews make up 2-3% of the population of the United States. Evangelical Protestants make up by some surveys 30-40%. My argument for the newsworthiness of Warren is based on the number of Americans impacted, as well as the depth of the impact. Fair and balanced news would feature far more coverage of religious news than it does, and more coverage of Christian news than Jewish news.

Fair, balanced, real news, it seems to me, would devote time to stories based roughly on the breadth and depth of impact of the reported events in the real lives of the audience. In general it seems to me, we have a massive, monolithic orthodoxy in the media, including Fox, about what kinds of things represent news. I find it fairly remarkable, with 6 billion people on earth doing and saying things and responding to things every day, how often Time, Newsweek, National Review, the Drudge Report, Fox, CNN, the New York Times all agree on the most newsworthy story of the day or week.

Someone with a little imagination ought to be able to think through those apparently universal underlying assumptions about what makes things important or unimportant and lead with a different story, instead of just attaching different adjectives to report it negatively or positively.

Real fairness, real balance, real news, might be something dramatically, almost unrecognizably different from the universal, unprocessed lens through which journalists and most of their audience apparently view the world. That's one of C.S. Lewis's arguments in favor of the reading of old books.

Brad