Overheard

Kay Warren (via Sojourners Magazine) who with her husband Rick Warren, recently hosted an HIV/Aids conference at Saddleback Church in California.

Jesus never asked anyone how he or she got sick--only the Pharisees did ... If your compassion level goes up when you know it wasn't someone's fault, then there is something wrong.

I imagine that Kay says this from personal experience, I know that it is something with which I struggle. It is so much easier to feel sympathy with someone who is where they are "through no fault of their own." The problem is that all of us have done wrong, some of us are paying fearful costs for our mistakes and other's are not, but at any rate, as Kay says, Jesus never asked that question.

As some of you know from a previous newsletter article, I was not a big fan of the Purpose Driven Life. I have, however been very much encouraged by the above quote and by another excerpted quote in Sojourners Magazine (ultimately from The New Yorker), this one from Rick himself in the context of explaining why he is giving away 90% of the royalties from The Purpose Driven Life:

How did I miss the two thousand verses on the poor in the Bible?

I think these new quotes from Warrens are signs of a large, significant move in American Christianity, it is a move that I hope continues.