{"id":337,"date":"2008-12-19T11:36:14","date_gmt":"2008-12-19T11:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html"},"modified":"2008-12-19T11:36:14","modified_gmt":"2008-12-19T11:36:14","slug":"warren-cizik-obama-left-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html","title":{"rendered":"Warren, Cizik, Obama, left, right, pro, anti, etc."},"content":{"rendered":"

What a fascinating time to be alive. Here we are … about to celebrate the 2008th anniversary of Jesus’ birth, and a whole bunch of us are still squabbling like cats and dogs about what it means to be a follower of Jesus, proving – to a lot of people – that we haven’t got a clue.<\/p>\n

My friend Rick Warren<\/a> is in trouble with one set of critics for being too tough on gay folk.  And my friend Rich Cizik<\/a> is in trouble with another set of critics for being too soft on gay folk.<\/p>\n

President Obama is in trouble with one set of critics for being too soft on Rick Warren, and Rick Warren is in trouble with another set of critics for being too soft on President Obama.<\/p>\n

I know a little about being in trouble, as I am blessed with many passionate and loyal critics. So I’m sympathetic to everybody who is in trouble.<\/p>\n

What the people in trouble have in common is not agreement. Obama, Cizik, and Warren have widely differing views on the hot-button issues which energize critics. What they have in common, I think, is that they are seeking to create a new space that isn’t clearly defined as “left” or “right.” This is a space of civil disagreement, engaging with the other, crossing boundaries. Just yesterday, I heard somebody define this space as being homeless … ideologically homeless.<\/p>\n

If Rick were the right-wing nut-job that some of his hefty-lefty critics are painting him to be, he wouldn’t dare accept an invitation by a Democratic pro-choice pro-gay President. If the President-Elect were the left-wing nut job his tighty-righty critics paint him to be … he wouldn’t invite Prop-8-supporting Rick Warren to give the invocation. If Rick were the compromising apostate his tighty-righty critics claim him to be, he wouldn’t outspokenly disagree with the President-Elect on gay marriage and criminalizing abortion. And so on … you get the point. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, what the critics have in common is that they have a home. They know where they stand – left, far left, right, far right, etc. They know who’s in and who’s out, who’s orthodox and who’s not, whom they’re cold toward and whom they’re hot about.<\/p>\n

That’s why Rich Cizik is such an interesting person to me. For his “soft and maybe still softening” stance on gay civil unions and maybe gay marriage, he “got resigned” … from the same organization, by the way, that had to release its previous president (who held the hard line on homosexuality) for indulging in secret indiscretions of a homosexual nature<\/a>. If he had kept quiet about his changing views (as a lot of people do), he could have kept his job … but he decided to gently tell the truth: that his mind is changing, that he’s still in process. He was moving out of his old comfortable “home” on the right, and now he is homeless.<\/p>\n

Homeless folks wander around. They’re in motion. And that, it seems to me, is fascinating and hopeful. If we dig in our heels and stand firm in our warring camps – left and right, pro-choice and pro-life, blah blah blah – we’re insane if we expect to get different results from the ones we’ve been getting. Nothing will change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what might happen if we begin to reach out … seeking the common good … seeking to build bridges rather than bombs … seeking to throw out invitations rather than insults … making friends of former enemies … admitting we’re rethinking and changing rather than defending the orthodox no-rethinking-zones in which we’ve been raised?<\/p>\n

If you step out and extend hospitality to one of “them,” as the President-Elect did … if you expose your heart and admit you’re rethinking, as Rich Cizik did … if you accept a gracious invitation by someone with whom you disagree, as Rick Warren did … yes, you’ll get criticized and maybe worse. But you’ll also be opening up new possibilities, putting a crack in the insane polarization we’ve been stuck in for too long. So … those who want to criticize, feel free: you’ve got some good things to say. But at the same time, give the homeless guys a chance. They may be your best friend in disguise.<\/p>\n

I’m thinking about … not committing yet, just thinking about it … making a New Year resolution – to try to drop polarizing words from my vocabulary in 2009 – including words I’ve used in this short piece: left, right, liberal, conservative, pro-life, pro-choice, and so on. I wonder what would happen if a bunch of us tried it … as a way of breaking with the insanity of always doing what you’ve always done while expecting to get otherwise than what you’ve already got. Hmm.<\/p>\n

As we near Christmas, let’s remember that the one whose birthday we’re celebrating was homeless, wandered around,<\/a> couldn’t be tamed or contained by conventional categories, accepted and extended invitations to the wrong people, and had a boatload of critics. We won’t be celebrating the critics’ birthdays, you know? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a fascinating time to be alive. Here we are … about to celebrate the 2008th anniversary of Jesus’ birth, and a whole bunch of us are still squabbling like cats and dogs about what it means to be a follower of Jesus, proving – to a lot of people – that we haven’t got…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12,32,36,13,20,14,51,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-catholics","category-christians","category-defining-progressive","category-evangelicals","category-homosexuality","category-mainline-protestants","category-media","category-religion-in-the-public-square"],"yoast_head":"\nWarren, Cizik, Obama, left, right, pro, anti, etc. - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Warren, Cizik, Obama, left, right, pro, anti, etc. - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What a fascinating time to be alive. Here we are … about to celebrate the 2008th anniversary of Jesus’ birth, and a whole bunch of us are still squabbling like cats and dogs about what it means to be a follower of Jesus, proving – to a lot of people – that we haven’t got…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-19T11:36:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brian McLaren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Warren, Cizik, Obama, left, right, pro, anti, etc. - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Warren, Cizik, Obama, left, right, pro, anti, etc. - Progressive Revival","og_description":"What a fascinating time to be alive. Here we are … about to celebrate the 2008th anniversary of Jesus’ birth, and a whole bunch of us are still squabbling like cats and dogs about what it means to be a follower of Jesus, proving – to a lot of people – that we haven’t got…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2008-12-19T11:36:14+00:00","author":"Brian McLaren","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html","name":"Warren, Cizik, Obama, left, right, pro, anti, etc. - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-19T11:36:14+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-19T11:36:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/309668a5d8353af009f7c0a7617de823"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/warren-cizik-obama-left-right.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Warren, Cizik, Obama, left, right, pro, anti, etc."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/309668a5d8353af009f7c0a7617de823","name":"Brian McLaren","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/92b\/92bd0e1883a28abe1deefa581e91be63x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/92b\/92bd0e1883a28abe1deefa581e91be63x96.jpg","caption":"Brian McLaren"},"description":"Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists. He is a frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs. He has appeared on many broadcasts including Larry King Live, Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and Nightline. His work has also been covered in Time (where he was listed as one of American's 25 most influential evangelicals), Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, and many other print media. Born in 1956, he graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, in 1981). His academic interests included Medieval drama, Romantic poets, modern philosophical literature, and the novels of Dr. Walker Percy. In 2004, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree (honoris causa) from Carey Theological Seminary in Vancouver, BC, Canada. From 1978 to 1986, McLaren taught college English, and in 1982, he helped form Cedar Ridge Community Church, an innovative, nondenominational church in the Baltimore-Washington region (crcc.org). He left higher education in 1986 to serve as the church's founding pastor and served in that capacity until 2006. During that time, Cedar Ridge earned a reputation as a leader among emerging missional congregations. Brian has been active in networking and mentoring church planters and pastors since the mid 1980's, and has assisted in the development of several new churches. He is a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer at seminaries and denominational gatherings,nationally and internationally. His public speaking covers a broad range of topics including postmodern thought and culture, Biblical studies, evangelism, leadership, global mission, spiritual formation, worship, pastoral survival and burnout, inter-religious dialogue, ecology, and social justice. McLaren's first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, (Zondervan, 1998, rev. ed. 2000) has been recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about postmodern ministry. His second book, Finding Faith (Zondervan, 1999), is a contemporary apologetic, written for thoughtful seekers and skeptics. His third book, A New Kind of Christian (Jossey-Bass\/Leadership Network, 2001) further explores issues of Christian faith and postmodernity, and won Christianity Today's \"Award of Merit\" in 2002. His fourth, More Ready Than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix (2002) presents a refreshing approach to spiritual friendship. A is for Abductive (coauthored with Dr. Leonard Sweet, Zondervan, 2002) and Adventures in Missing the Point (coauthored with Dr. Anthony Campolo, Emergent\/YS, 2003) explore theological reform in a postmodern context, and a sequel to A New Kind of Christian, entitled The Story We Find Ourselves In (Jossey-Bass, 2003), seeks to tell the Biblical story in a new context. He is one of five co-authors of Church in the Emerging Culture (Emergent\/YS, 2003). His 2004 release, \"A Generous Orthodoxy\" (Emergent\/YS\/Zondervan), is a personal confession and has been called a \"manifesto\" of the emerging church conversation. The conclusion to the A New Kind of Christian trilogy was released in 2005, entitled \"The Last Word and the Word After That\" (Jossey-Bass). \"The Secret Message of Jesus\" (W, April 2006), explores the theme of the kingdom of God in the teachings of Jesus. \"This book was written for a broad audience,\" he explains, \"from the spiritual-but-not-religious to Christian pastors and leaders. Everything I've written to this point has been a preparation for this book.\" He serves as a board chair for Sojourners\/Call to Renewal (sojo.net), and is a founding member of Red Letter Christians, a group of communicators seeking to broaden and deepen the dialogue about faith and public life. He is also a board member for \"Orientacion Cristiana,\" and formerly served on the boards of International Teams (www.iteams.org) in Chicago, Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle (mhgs.edu), and Off The Map (off-the-map.org). He has taught or lectured at several seminaries in the U.S. and abroad. Brian is married to Grace, and they have four young adult children. He has traveled extensively in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, and his personal interests include ecology, fishing, hiking, music, art, and literature.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/bmclaren"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}