[Marxism] Follow Jesus like Nazis followed Hitler, Rick Warren tells Stadium Crowd

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/follow-jesus-like-nazis- 
f_b_158295.html>


Bruce Wilson
Posted January 15, 2009 | 05:17 PM (EST)

Follow Jesus Like Nazis Followed Hitler, Rick Warren Tells Stadium Crowd

[source of Rick Warren speech audio clips used in video above:  
Saddleback Church website ]

On April 17, 2005, at the southern California Anaheim Angels sports  
stadium thirty thousand Saddleback Church members, more than ever  
gathered in one spot, assembled to celebrate Saddleback's 25th  
anniversary and listened as Rick Warren announced his vision for the  
next 25 years of the church: the P.E.A.C.E. Plan. [Digg this story]

Towards the close of his nearly one hour speech, Pastor Warren asked  
his followers to be as committed to Jesus as the young Nazi men and  
women who spelled out in mass formation with their bodies the words  
"Hitler, we are yours," in 1939 at the Munich Stadium, were committed  
to the Führer of the Third Reich, a major instigator of a World War  
that claimed 55 million lives. Rick Warren has exhorted Christians  
towards Nazi-like dedication in at least several public speeches and  
also during a one hour video recording of a talk by Warren,  
explaining his P.E.A.C.E. Plan, that is currently hosted on the  
official P.E.A.C.E. Plan website (see 'video page', "The Global  
P.E.A.C.E. Plan"). A version of the anecdote can also be found on  
page 357 of Rick Warren's 1995 book The Purpose Driven Church, which  
sold over one million copies.

During his Anaheim stadium speech Warren, sometimes called 'pastor  
Rick' talked about a number of visions and communications he had  
received from God. By calling on his church members to follow Jesus  
with the fanatical dedication with which the Nazis, or Hitler Youth,  
gave to Adolf Hitler, Rick Warren appeared to be in effect asking his  
Saddleback members to be fanatically dedicated to Warren's own  
leadership, given his role in divining God's intent for the  
Saddleback church flock. During his speech, Rick Warren also  
explained that God had personally instructed him to seek, for the  
good of the world, more influence, power and fame.

Warren moved on, from his celebration of Nazi dedication to purpose,  
and held up Lenin, and Chinese Red Guard efforts during the Cultural  
Revolution, as behavioral examples for his Saddleback flock, whom  
Warren called on to carry out a "revolution".

Concluding his motivational speech, the Saddleback Church founder  
instructed his ranks in the stadium to hold up signs, from their  
official programs, with the preprinted message "whatever it takes".  
Warren then introduced, as leader of the first nation on Earth in  
which the P.E.A.C.E. Plan would be implemented, Rwandan President  
Paul Kagame.

In 1998 under Kagame's leadership Rwanda, along with the now  
officially "Purpose Driven" nation of Uganda, invaded the Democratic  
Republic of The Congo, touching off a conflict that has claimed more  
civilian lives than any since World War Two. On December 12, 2008,  
the United Nations accused Rwanda of aiding Congolese warlord Laurent  
Nkunda, accused of massacres and human rights violations and whose  
recent offensive has created several hundred thousand Congolese  
refugees.

In March 2008, Rick Warren's Saddleback launched an official national  
"Purpose Driven Living" program in Uganda, a country which was  
indicted in 2005 by the International Criminal Court for perpetrating  
"massive" human rights violations by invading and looting the natural  
riches of the Congo. Uganda is know for brutalizing its own  
population too. In the late 1990s under president Yowerie Museveni,  
whose wife Janet Museveni has spoken at Saddleback Church  
conferences, the Ugandan military drove upwards of two million Acholi  
tribe members in Northern Uganda, through a terror campaign of  
massacres and bombing, into crowded concentration camps on the Congo- 
Uganda border where many languish to this day, in what one Former  
Undersecretary for the UN has described as an ongoing, slow genocide.

Mega-pastor Warren, who will give the opening prayer at the  
inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama on January 20, 2009,  
aspires to great moral and spiritual leadership. Rick Warren has  
called for a second Christian Reformation, and he has stated his  
intent of inspiring 'one billion' Christians, half of all Christians  
globally, to become personally and 'radically' committed to changing  
the world.

With his impressive managerial skills and through his global network  
of four hundred thousand Christian pastors who have been trained by  
Saddleback over the last two decades, Rick Warren might well be able  
to start such a movement.

"Stop dreaming and start doing," the Purpose Driven Life author told  
his Anaheim Stadium crowd. Warren described a global Christian  
movement to bring the message of Jesus Christ to every man, woman and  
child on Earth. "It's going to cover the planet," he proclaimed, "and  
then the end is going to come."

Calling for "total mobilization of this church" and "radical  
devotion" to the cause, Pastor Warren sketched out his vision, which  
he declared was from God, of a "revolution", launched through  
Warren's "Purpose Driven" network of hundreds of thousands as pastors  
globally, to create a Christian world regime.

Though Warren's speech was in the idiom of Christianity, he did not  
seek to inspire his Saddleback audience with examples of great  
religious leaders who have changed history through persuasion or  
other nonviolent approaches. Rick Warren looked to 20th century  
exemplars of vision and dedication but not to Mohatma Gandhi, Martin  
Luther King, or any other religious leaders.

With more than a hint of admiration in his voice, pastor Warren  
described how in 1939 in a packed Munich Stadium before the leader of  
the Third Reich, young brown-shirted men and women spelled out in  
formation, with their bodies, words in German which read "Hitler, we  
are yours."

"And they nearly took the world, " pastor Rick told the stadium  
crowd. He moved on to quote another inspirational example from the  
20th Century, Lenin, who said 'give me 100 committed, totally  
committed men and I'll change the world.' Once again Warren observed,  
"They nearly did."

Having cited dedication and zeal of young Nazis and the efficacy of  
Bolshevik Revolutionaries, Warren moved on to describe how the  
sayings of Chairman Mao, printed up in the "Little Red Book", had  
helped propel the revolutionary fervor of the Chinese Red Guard who  
had carried out the violent, anarchic revolutionary spasm known as  
the Cultural Revolution.

With those examples fresh in his audiences mind, Rick Warren  
instructed the crowd of his thirty thousand to hold up pre-printed  
signs, within their programs, white letters against a red background,  
that said "Whatever it takes."

Looking out at the crowd Warren enthused, "I'm looking at a stadium  
full of people who are saying, 'whatever it takes, God'....
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