Via Pandagon, this bit of crazy from Rick Warren:
RW: Actually, I have what, Hugh, I’ve had it for almost 40 years. I call it a warnings file. And every time I watch somebody, and Satan has no temptations that are new. It’s either money, sex or power. It’s lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, and you have to know the antidotes, and you have to set up the parameters that keep you from even being tempted in those areas, which means for instance, I’m never alone, ever, ever alone with a woman, or even my myself when I’m traveling.
I suppose covering all women from head to toe in Burkha’s Saddleback Chastitywear might be another idea. I guess if this keeps him from breaking down and having an affair, well, ok, but how little impulse control must you have that you can’t be around members of the opposite sex or you might cheat on your wife? And don’t the women have any say in this, or is it just a given that once they get the Rick alone, it is just going to happen?
*** Update ***
Several of you have stated he may do this to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and not just because he has temptations he can not handle. That would make complete sense, considering how important appearances are in his line of work. That isn’t, however, what he seems to be saying, but if it is, I can understand it. This may be a case in which it was much clearer that he was talking about the appearance of impropriety if you heard him speaking rather than just read a transcript of it.
*** Update #2 ***
Commenter AnneLaurie brings it home for us dim bulbs:
I’m amused that nobody seems to have noticed Pastor Warren palming the pea in his shell game. He explicitly mentions three, count ‘em three, varieties of Eternal Sinfulness—and then reassures his audience that he makes sure he can never be busted for Sin Category Two. So while y’all are sniffing around checking his underwear for unauthorized emissions, Pastor Warren’s free to steal with both hands and to enforce his wildest dreams of authoritarianism. Like any good magician, he’s got the audience focused on the cheap, shiny “sex” props to distract them from the “money” and “power” manipulations that are the real prizes (temptations) in the Public Sanctimony magic show!
Got me.
Tom65
I’m still trying to flush the image of Warren jerking himself to death if left to travel alone.
retr2327
You may be underestimating how weird this is. Note the last part "I’m never alone, ever, ever alone . . . or even [b]y myself when I’m traveling."
Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
Bill H
He should try a twelve step program of some sort. They work better than his fucking religion apparently does. I can be alone in a room with a bottle of beer and not drink it just fine.
More seriously, if a group of friends is meeting at a bar I do not need to exclude myself from the group.
Comrade Dread
I don’t know.
Personally, I’m just happy that a very public pastor is going out of his way to not give even an appearance of impropriety rather than tearfully apologizing for some gay hooker scandal or for sleeping with his secretary.
garyb50
Yeah, I’ve always thought of Warren as being a real chick magnet.
scarpy
To be fair . . . if he takes seriously the Gospel bit about adulterous thoughts being morally the same as adulterous deeds, then I can see where being alone with a woman-not-his-wife could pose a real danger.
BC
As a woman in a male-dominated field who traveled and worked long hours with male colleagues, I’m so glad that Warren decided to be a minister and not an engineer!!
Shade Tail
Extremist right-wing religions have terrible effects on people. The kind of sexual repression they push simply drives people batty. You can’t stop sex any more than you can stop breathing, and when you try, you end up with results like this. I actually pity this man, that he simply can not be a normal human being who accepts himself for what he is.
How many times must crap like this happen before people finally understand that the wingnuts are wrong about sex?
Bill
You do note, don’t you, that he makes no mention about being alone with another man. Heh, heh.
Tom65
My impression of evangelicals is that they’re all 12-Steppers on the verge of a complete meltdown
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
"…I’m never alone, ever, ever alone with a woman, or even by myself when I’m traveling."
Rick, by "a woman" do you mean "a man?"
BC
Why oh why did they invent chastity belts for women and not for men? Then Warren could have one of those and be easy no matter where he was!
John Cole
@retr2327: Yes, he is saying what you think. He can’t travel with women OR be alone because the urge to masturbate will overtake him.
Crusty Dem
I totally get it, it’s just like David Koresh, he’d always have 2 or 3 young women/girls with him at all times.
Punchy
WTF is that last part supposed to mean? He’s not ever alone with himself while traveling? Huh? I believe this clown may be speaking in tongues. Exorcism, bitches.
smiley
They have a word for that — narcissist.
Just Some Fuckhead
In fairness to Rick Warren, it’s prolly a good idea. For us regular folks, the occasional fallen-into-temptation discreet indiscretion results in little or no fallout. But such a thing could destroy Warren’s entire career and life and the lives of a lot of other people as well.
NonyNony
@retr2327:
Well, given the context, I’d say it could mean a couple of things.
The least charitable and funniest one is that one Tom65 suggests. Slightly more charitably is that if he were by himself in a hotel room in a strange city he might go out to find where he could get some hookers and some blow. Or even just a strip club and a drink. By traveling with someone he blocks those temptations.
Without the context I might assume he meant "for the sake of propriety" – no one can accuse him of doing something illegal or unseemly because he always has someone around to vouch for him. But with the context? It really sounds like the man has terrible impulse control and knows it, so he sets himself up in situations to keep it in check. I’m glad he knows it, but it really isn’t natural and if that really is what’s going on he should get some psychiatric counseling to help him out. (I guess I’m also glad he has religion, because if his religion is the only thing that gets him to keep his poor impulses in check, it’s probably better for all of us that he has it.)
Crusty Dem
How can someone never be alone by themselves while traveling? Does he have a chaperone in the bathroom, an attendant of some kind? Does he wipe himself? Who watches him in the shower? That’s insane..
Interrobang
Speaking as someone who grew up among them, the reason so many of these dudes are so fucking twisted is that they’ve been raised from birth to believe that being alone automatically equals sinning, so aside from anxiously sleeping with their hands outside the covers (because their parents checked, you know), they’ve never actually spent any significant time by themselves. Consequently, they’re crazy as overcrowded rats, largely because they’ve been trained to hate and fear their own interior monologue (aka the Voice of Satan).
A male friend of mine mentioned last night that the male children of conservatively religious parents are also the ones most likely to engage in group masturbation, again because they’re never allowed to be alone. I’d lay you long odds that Warren did something like that when he was twelve, and has never forgiven himself since.
These people’s mindset put the "WTF" into "creepy."
Bill H
@Just Some Fuckhead:
But he’s not talking about appearance here, he’s talking about the avoidance of temptation. Being "good" is no virtue if you’ve never had the opportunity to be "bad." He is talking about deliberately cultivating a complete lack of moral character.
Mazacote Yorquest
"Can you hear me now?"
"Yes, Pastor Rick– I can hear you through the bathroom door. And don’t worry– I’ve had all lotion removed from the bathroom as well. Do your dirty business."
anonocrat
I think the thinking is not that Warren will inevitably get it on whenever he is alone with a woman. I think it is more that, if he is never alone with a woman-not-his-wife, he will never have the opportunity to commit adultery and will therefore be safe from that sin.
Extreme? Sure. Will this keep a man from developing important platonic friendships with women that might enlighten his outlook on gender relations? Absolutely. But, it makes a certain amount of sense if you assign a very high negative value to adultery compared to the positive value of one-on-one (platonic) interactions with members of the opposite sex.
Okay, so maybe it’s a little misogynistic.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bill H: That’s what I’m talkin about too, Bill. If the man has no willpower, and it looks like the fat fucker may have a problem at teh buffet, then he needs the system he’s set up for himself.
used to be disgusted
Okay, I think Rick Warren is a dweeb, but I have to say I have a bit more sympathy for him than y’all in this case.
First of all, alone when traveling — I doubt it’s a death-by-masturbation thing; surely it’s just another form of temptation to adultery.
Or — just a little more charitably — one might say that it poses the risk of the *appearance* of infidelity. Which someone in the public eye has to worry about as well. And honestly, this is a realm where it’s often hard to draw the line between risky appearances and real risks. By avoiding one you sometimes avoid the other.
E.g., as a prof, I make a policy of keeping my office door open when I talk to students, unless there’s a special situation that requires privacy. Lots of reasons — I like to be sociable; I like people to see I’m working. But the fact that it negates any appearance of sexual impropriety is not irrelevant either. Not that I’d be tempted. Steak at home, etc. But it just makes everyone more comfortable.
All that said, it does sound to me like Warren is turning reasonable prudence into a form of Christian paranoia.
schrodinger's cat
How is this thinking different from the mullahs of Iran or Taliban?
NonyNony
@Bill H:
JSF is also talking about avoidance of temptation, if I understand him correctly. He’s saying that if random guy travels off to Chicago on business and has a night out with an escort, the fallout is relatively localized to random guy’s relationship with his wife and family. If Rick Warren travels off to Chicago on business and has a night out with an escort, once it gets discovered (and it will) his entire livelihood is destroyed and he has to start from square one.
Missing in that, of course, is that most guys seem to be perfectly capable of traveling off to Chicago and not cheating on their wives despite not having a chaperone. And that’s the critical element – Warren doesn’t trust himself to be alone unsupervised. And that’s the weird part in my opinion.
Bill H
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Then where does he get off preaching to others about… Oh, shit. I get it now. Lost my head there for a moment.
Comrade Darkness
They aren’t authoritarian because they need to control others nearly as much as because they can’t control themselves. Which is far scarier for the rest of us.
Can we start a Export These Weak-kneed Wingnut Boys to a Country with Sharia Law Fund? Honestly, they would be far far happier there.
caminovereda
I have images of him thanking God for his male ‘traveling partner’ every night, in between meth hits, of course.
All joking aside, though, coming from the perspective of a teacher, his policy is pretty sound. Especially considering that he is at near-Kobe levels of sue-ability.
Jack T.
Does "Saddleback Chastitywear" = The Snuggie?
Just Some Fuckhead
You just keep thinking that. Your average man is only as loyal as his options.
Krista
These people crack me up. They claim that God put dinosaur bones in the ground in order to "test their faith", and yet they get royally pissy if anybody questions their faith, and would have women covered head-to-to so as not to test their resistance to the temptation to sin.
So, Rick, which is it? Is your faith that strong that fossils are just one of God’s neat party tricks? Or is it that weak that it doesn’t give you the moral fortitude to resist temptation?
Seems to me that if faith was all that and a bag of chips, that Rick could walk right into the fanciest of brothels and use his faith to withstand that temptation and walk out with his virtue intact. But if his faith is that weak that he doesn’t dare subject himself to even the most innocuous kind of temptation in the first place, out of fear of being unable to control himself — well, that says a lot more about him than it does about Satan and sin, doesn’t it?
Anton Sirius
@scarpy:
You may not be familiar with how the male brain works, but I can assure you I don’t have to be alone with a woman to have impure thoughts about her.
Or, for that matter, in the same room with her.
toujoursdan
Maybe this is another generational issue like the acceptance of gay marriage, but many younger people seem completely comfortable being with a member of the opposite sex (or same sex if they are gay) without objectifying them as sex objects and worrying about losing their self control. They seem better able to make a distinction between a love interest and friends; gender has little to do with it.
Good grief, as a gay man I have shared the same bed with several friends over the years without any sexual overtones whatsoever. We just don’t have that kind of effect on each other. We’re friends.
The Other Steve
Bill Clinton should have followed his advice.
Dan
He means that he is afraid any woman alone with him will be overcome with lust. He is just trying to protect the women from temptation. ‘Cause … look at him.
Grumpy Code Monkey
As a tangent, this is why I find the "she dressed provocatively, she was asking for it" defense for rape so despicable, and the fact that people buy into it as much as they do so depressing. Most of us are quite capable of not cheating on our wives or mauling the nearest thing in a miniskirt.
MBunge
"Being "good" is no virtue if you’ve never had the opportunity to be "bad.""
That’s ridiculous. The stuff about him never being alone by himself is definitely weird, but never being alone with a woman who is not his wife isn’t the worst policy in the world for a guy like Warren.
Frankly, limiting your level of emotional intimacy with people of the opposite sex who are not your spouse is a good policy for everyone. And no, that doesn’t mean you can’t have friends of the opposite sex. It means that the way you relate and interact with Suzy or Bobby needs to be fundamentally different than the way you share with your wife or husband.
Mike
The Other Steve
It’s easier for gay men to be with women while not feeling that adulterous urge.
The Other Steve
That was a joke, BTW. :-)
John S.
Perhaps. Or maybe every man is simply as loyal as his conscience permits him to be.
When I was in college, one of my roommates – who was friends with my girlfriend (now my wife) – got drunk one night and snuck into my bed naked. She was a very attractive girl, and I suppose I could have just slept with her (as was her intention), but I had strong enough feelings for my girlfriend and enough respect for her and myself NOT to. Nobody would have known one way or the other, and I certainly could have gotten away with it. The only trouble is that I would have known, and that wasn’t something I was willing to live with.
It’s one of the proudest moments in my life, and I am thankful that I made the right choice because I would have forsaken the wife and child I now have. Perhaps I’m not the average man, but I would like to have more faith in my brethren than that.
BenA
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m must be some sort of moral superman then. I’d like to think there’s a little more to it than that… like having empathy for my wife. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s that hot women aren’t trying to break down my door when my wife visits her family or I’m away for business.
MBunge
"Maybe this is another generational issue like the acceptance of gay marriage, but many younger people seem completely comfortable being with a member of the opposite sex (or same sex if they are gay) without objectifying them as sex objects and worrying about losing their self control."
Ha! I’m delighted to learn that young people don’t cheat on their significant others or fall in love with one person while they’re still with another or do any of the other romatically stupid things human being have been doing since the dawn of time. All hail the new generation of emotionally neutered overlords.
Mike
lovethebomb
I grew up in a religious cult which preached and practiced this very thing. As a male, you can never trust yourself to be alone with a woman. It is neo-Calvanism on steroids which insists that man is pure sin and given the slightest opportunity, he will engage in sin. Darby called man a "5 foot worm." This is the view they have of themselves, and just as importantly, of everyone else. No one is good, therefore all humanistic attempts at self betterment is a laughable absurdity.
Hearing the idea repeated over and over that you can’t be alone with a woman or else you will begin f-cking like rabbits caused a lot of repression in me. Naturally, when I was 17, and had the opportunity to get a girl alone in the back of a camper shell, we f-cked like rabbits. It was rather self fulfilling. That is simply what you do. It’s a Bristol Palin kinda thing.
When you hate yourself this much, you also hate everyone else, more specifically, all "others" who do not tow along to this line of prison thinking. You are hard on yourself, you deny yourself, you are stoic and have eliminated fun from your life. You then tend to be rather dismissive and contemptuous of people in real need and real suffering.
You really want other people to suffer as much deprivation as you have inflicted on yourself. The idea that someone somewhere might be happy or having fun fills you with rage.
This is a very old teaching and concept. I am surprised many of you think Rick came up with this nonesense. It is all about demonizing your self and your own nature. It keeps the faithful in line. Biology be damned, your naughty bits are there to tempt you into sin. It is a horrific self oppositional state of psychosis. Been there, got out.
MBunge
John S. – "It’s one of my proudest moments in my life"
Not to rain on your parade, buddy, but that’s the sort of temptation almost everyone can resist. The real temptation is that guy or girl in the office who’s funny, smart, cute, "gets you" and is there when you’ve had a fight with your significant other or too much to drink and one thing leads to another. Resisting THAT temptation is something to be proud of, but it’s also something to avoid as much as possible.
Mike
Just Some Fuckhead
Some of you may confuse your lack of options with moral fortitude or uncanny empathy. Others may invent stories about one’s willpower in the face of naked hussies. I’ll just point out that your experience would have torpedoed the career of Rick Warren, John S. He’d be comment-blogging right now swearing nothing happened just like you. On the other hand, if he had someone traveling with him the situation might have been averted in the first place.
gex
By deductive reasoning, it appears that Rick Warren always eats, sleeps, and showers with a male companion while traveling. How gay.
NonyNony
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Really? Yeesh – I never thought of myself as "above average" in that respect before. I’ve had plenty of options to cheat on my wife over the years and I’ve never done it. Never really been tempted except as a fantasy (so I’m a horrible sinner by evangelical Christian standards, but whatever). Don’t know why, but I really find it hard to believe that I’m some kind of "moral superman" by any measure.
toujoursdan
Ha! I’m delighted to learn that young people don’t cheat on their significant others or fall in love with one person while they’re still with another or do any of the other romatically stupid things human being have been doing since the dawn of time. All hail the new generation of emotionally neutered overlords.
Mike
Right.. because that is what I meant.
My point is that it seems to be much less tension between the sexes than in the previous generation.
Jon H
@Punchy: "He’s not ever alone with himself while traveling? "
He’s saying he has someone around to keep him from masturbating.
Karen
I guess my husband & I are wingnuts then. We’ve been married almost 30 years, both of us have been alone with members of the opposite sex, we can both appreciate beauty when we see it, & neither of us has cheated on the other. And yes, I’m as sure of him as he is of me.
I’ve read Warren’s book in church, but we don’t go to the extremes he or any of the other evangelicals do. We both believe we married in the eyes of God & took our vows seriously. But we aren’t afraid to be alone with someone who isn’t our spouse. That’s where love & self-control comes in.
I know, hell of a thing to be posted on a liberal blog, but there it is.
Tsulagi
Jesus Christ, I’m wondering if this dipshit can even take a piss alone. Even if so, I’m guessing each time is a real event for him.
Shinobi
toujoursdan is right on. I think it must be generational.
I’ve had a total of 4 male roommates, never slept with any of them and we all often had successful monogamous relationships with other people while living with eachother. None of our SO’s were threatened. We had good times sharing space, and were quite often alone together without fucking.
Now that doesn’t mean that ALL male/female friends never hook up, but it is not inevitable either. Everyone in the scenario makes choices.
Frankly the whole not being alone with people of the opposite gender is downright insulting. The underlying assumption that there is nothing that a man could possibly have to do with someone who has a vagina that isn’t fucking her? I mean really.
It turns out that people of the opposite gender are PEOPLE, and you can have the same types of interactions with them as you have with people of the same gender.
Krista
JSF: It’s hard to say if Warren is talking about appearances or actions, though. I read more of that interview to try to gain a bit of context, and the lead-in was:
So, is Warren saying that he doesn’t dare be alone with a woman (or with himself) because he wants to ensure that there is never any opportunity for a breath of scandal to be associated with his name?
Or is he saying that he doesn’t dare be alone with a woman (or with himself) because he genuinely thinks that given that opportunity, he’s certain to sin (and therefore get caught and create a scandal)?
If it’s the former, I think we can all sympathize. If it’s the latter, then dude is seriously fucked up. And this IS Rick Warren we’re talking about, so it’s pretty easy to assume the latter, no?
Just Some Fuckhead
Why does it have to be one or the other, Krista? The guy has got a system to stay out of trouble and it’s obviously working for him. I don’t really understand the outrage or criticism. Every guy should be as smart.
gbear
Rick Warren is a lying sexophobic sack of shit.
MBunge
"My point is that it seems to be much less tension between the sexes than in the previous generation."
I honestly don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Is there less cheating? Less betrayal? Fewer games being played? Let’s quanify this, please.
And what do you mean by "previous generation"? The baby boomers? The generation that went through the free love of the 60s and the one-night-stand’s of the 70s? That’s what you’re measuring against?
Mike
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
Warren: "I’m never alone, ever, ever alone with a woman, or even my myself when I’m traveling."
Quite right. You can then tell them to get you a meth dealing ghey hooker without having to leave the jacuzzi in your hotel room.
Mo
This is also one-up-manship. "Satan tempts me more than he tempts you. Look at all the precautions I have to take in life to avoid falling into Satan’s clutches."
It’s like an anti-crush.
MBunge
"Frankly the whole not being alone with people of the opposite gender is downright insulting. The underlying assumption that there is nothing that a man could possibly have to do with someone who has a vagina that isn’t fucking her?"
No, the point is that all those other things you can do with a man or woman can lead to fucking.
Good grief. How do you people think cheating or affairs begin? Do you think you just bump into someone on the street, think "I want to fuck them" and then grab a hotel room? Well, okay, there are some people who do that, just as there are some people who would never cheat under any circumstances. For most folks, however, sexual betrayal starts with seemingly normal relationships with folks of the opposite (or same) sex that develop into something inappropriate. The challenge is recognizing that danger zone and staying out of it.
Mike
Shinobi
Mike,
Maybe it just means there is less treating of people of the opposite sex as "other." Does that translate to less cheating? I don’t know. But it means women can have men friends, men can have women friends and no one really cares. Just because there are two people of different genders hanging out does not follow that secksytime is inevitable. I think that’s the point he’s trying to make.
People do cheat, and play games, and blah blah blah, but they also work together, network, and hang out based on similar interest and skills, as opposed to similar genetalia.
schrodinger's cat
Does Saddleback design these too?
http://www.wholesomewear.com/page-4.html
Scott H
People like Rick Warren, that whole industry really, just creep me out. They seem completely oblivious to the idea that what they say amounts to self-exposure of their own pathologies.
Shinobi
As you pointed out anything can lead to fucking. If I wanted to find someone to have sex with I wouldn’t even have to bother to get to know them, spend time alone with them, so on and so forth. I bet if I wanted I could find someone on this very blog comment thread to have sex with me. (I don’t want, just to be clear.) I don’t even have to LIKE a person to cheat on my boyfriend with them if I want to.
The thing that keeps people from cheating, or forming intimate relationships with other people, isn’t some false distance between members of the opposite sex. It’s their individual choices to be faithful to their partners no matter what. Sure you might still meet people you like or have a crush on, but you’ve made a commitment, and whether you choose to honor that commitment is entirely in your hands.
Cris
Not every guy needs a strict system to stay out of trouble. Some of us like our marriages and don’t need to be physically restrained to keep from wrecking them.
The criticism is coming from the idea that Warren, as a public figure who preaches Christianity, should be one of those guys. I actually would disagree with that objection; one of the messages of Christianity is that you can be saved without being perfect. It’s just kind of notable how often the loudest evangelists seem to have the most glaring imperfections.
Jason
Ah, Rick Warren has a file. Don’t think he’s not keeping score, brother! I am so sick of Jesus’s Chicago politics.
If professional sports has taught me anything, it’s that you can alienate your audience as often as you’d like and they’ll gladly buy next year’s season tix. I say Rick should go for it and hire Eliot Spitzer’s handlers.
Corner Stone
@John Cole
Geez…whoever thought I’d have so much in common with Rick Warren?
Just Some Fuckhead
I’d have to see some evidence Rick Warren’s traveling partner is physically restraining him before accepting your characterization.
Corner Stone
@Shinobi
I’ll be right ther…oh. Drat.
Krista
I guess because if it’s the latter (he genuinely doesn’t trust himself to resist even the weakest of temptations), then as in my earlier post, it says a lot about the weakness of his character and his faith. And this is a man who is trying to push his faith on others, while asserting repeatedly about the ills of atheism. So it just grates, that once again, we have the religious going on about how they are morally superior to us, yet I, an atheist, am not afraid to be alone with a man who is not my husband because I trust my own morals and values.
Cris
I have photos
Corner Stone
@John S
Stop fucking kidding yourself buddy. She would’ve ratted your ass out in a heartbeat. Do you think she wanted *you*?
Doubtful. It’s much more likely she wanted to ratfuck her friend then have actual intercourse with you.
She would’ve got all teary one night after a convenient glass of wine or two and just "had" to confess to her bestest friend. And some part of you (not the penis) knew damn well what she was doing. *That’s* why you didn’t do it, not because you’re better than me. You’re not better than me! You’re not!
Corner Stone
Socialism! Socialism! Cialis! Cialis!
Figured if I’m in moderation hell for something it may as well be the real deal. No clue what triggered the previous moderation.
Mike
I’m always amazed at how little tolerance there is for religion or religious people on the left. I know that there is equal if not moreso disdain that comes from the religious to the nonreligious, but as a Christian who is decidedly left-of-center, it’s sometimes difficult to defend the notion that the left is anti-religious. Reading through this thread is an instructive example.
Regardless of your personal opinion of Rick Warren (or Christianity as a whole), why on earth should he be derided for this? He is acting in a way which is entirely consistent with his faith. The Bible says Christians should "flee from temptation," and that seems to be exactly what RW is trying to do. It’s not a question of "if he’s alone with a woman he won’t be able to control himself" … it’s a question of not putting himself in a position where he is even tempted. Sometimes that is not an option, but in cases where it is, why not?
This is not to say that RW is above criticism (as I have been critical of him on a number of things) but this in particular just seems petty to me, and I would hope that regardless of your faith (or lack thereof) we don’t need to criticize someone over something as trivial as this.
scarshapedstar
He’s never alone with a woman, or by himself. So he refuses to travel without the company of another man.
Well, that doesn’t sound gay at all. (NTTAWWT)
Tsulagi
I’d go with that.
Don’t get me wrong, I live in a perpetual state of horniness. And I’ve had opportunities. And not to get all holier than thou especially since I’m agnostic, but I always remember something my retired CSM grandfather told me as his time was nearing: Only two things you can take to your grave that no one can take from you before or after: Your word and your character; keep them good.
My word is more important to me than a quick fuck. Or an ongoing series in a discreet FWB situation that was offered. Even more important than if *weeping* pre-Brad Angelina Jolie offered to get kinky.
But then again, maybe it’s just I know my latina SO would go all Terminator on my ass if she knew I’d done her wrong. She may only be 5’3”, 120lbs. soaking wet, but she can be scary.
jake 4 that 1
So: RW + 1 woman = Bad.
But: RW + 2 Women = OK.
I guess RW + 1 Woman + Any Number of Men = PARTAY.
This stupid SOB stole this schtick from Falwell, who made a big deal about never being alone with a woman lest he try to schlong her to death, or be accused of schlonging. Funny, I thought teh gheys were the mad shag beasts.
Corner Stone
Your grandfather never met the modern GOP. They can destroy both either while you’re here, or after you’re gone. Or in cases like FDR they can both slime you and try to appropriate you as one of their own, depending on their needs.
Ahhh, the Mighty Wurlitzer. Tis a thing O beauty.
Just Some Fuckhead
I don’t think one is an indicator of the other. I’d also wager that Rick Warren doesn’t think giving in to temptation is illustrative of weakness of character or faith. I think in their worldview, kickass temptations are the price one pays for being so godly and whatever we gotta do to avoid them, do it.
I think he’s just being smart. I know that isn’t popular with the hysterical anti-Warren crowd. Shrug.
Incidentally, a traveling companion isn’t a guarantor of fidelity. IIRC, James Bakker and his traveling companion just turned it into a threeway..
John S.
@MBunge:
Not to rain on YOUR parade, buddy, but if that were the case the amount of marriages ending in divorce resulting from infidelity wouldn’t be what they are.
@Corner Stone:
Wow, that’s some handy piece of armchair psychoanalysis. I’ll assume this is meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
Here’s the thing – I’m not a fucking mind reader, so I don’t go through life seeking to ascribe motives to people that would require me to be one. And I don’t presume to base my behavior on any failed attempt to do so. I am responsible for my own actions, and I live my life accordingly.
schrodinger's cat
What is this wurlitzer that everyone seems to be referring to?
Krista
I’m sorry — at what point have atheists declared that they would never vote for a Christian for President? At what point have atheists asked Christians how on earth Christian children can be expected to grow up with any morals or values? At what point have atheists gone door-to-fucking-door with pamphlets, trying to convert people to atheism? At what point have atheists made Christian kids cry by telling them that their parents are going to burn in a lake of fire for all eternity? At what point have atheists disowned their own children for not sharing their belief system?
This isn’t intolerance. This is backlash. This is atheists (and agnostics) being pretty fucking sick of all of that shit that I just listed above.
I have a friend who is a very devout Christian, but she uses it as a guideline for her own life, and doesn’t assume that her way is superior to mine. And I’m happy for her that she has found a faith that brings her joy and spiritual guidance. If Christians (and especially their leaders) as a whole were like that, you’d see a LOT less backlash.
wasabi gasp
I applaud Rick’s ability to juggle the passion of the Christ with his passion for perky nips and to do it without dropping a ball.
Mike
Call it backlash, call it any name you want, but all you’re doing is parroting the same type of behavior you dislike on the other side and perpetuating a cycle of intolerance — intolerance from the religious to nonreligious and then back the other way.
There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize about the behaviors of both camps. My point is that spending your energy getting worked up about something like this particular issue (RW choosing not to spend time alone with the opposite sex) doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than to ridicule someone that you don’t like very much. And in the end I don’t see how you criticizing him for his lifestyle choice is all that different from some of the behavior of Christians you seem to dislike so much.
Corner Stone
Not really. She wanted to hand your girlfriend (her friend) her ass to her on a plate. And you would’ve just been the vehicle for it.
But hey, wevs.
Krista
You must be new here. :)
West of the Cascades
John is wrong on this one – Warren seems to be speaking only about his own state of mind and impulses, and steps he takes personally to control that — not what he expects other people to do (e.g. he does NOT say that others need to cover with burkhas, stop driving huge fancy cars, etc. so that HE is not tempted). If Warren has a sex addiction (a real condition, btw – just google it – it got some publicity when David Duchovny checked into rehab a few years ago) or just impulses to covet his neighbor’s wife and cattle, and these ways of dealing help him control it, more power to him — so long as he does not start expecting the world around him to change just to make his coping easier.
Brad
Billy Graham did this, as well. I don’t think it’s unusual in the least. Say what you want about will power, but some women tend to throw themselves at celebrity. Adultery has been the downfall of many prominent leaders, most of whom probably felt they had the will power to avoid temptation to which they ultimately succumbed.
Just Some Fuckhead
FYI, Krista, I didn’t mean to insinuate you are being hysterical. I think yer making very good points.
bago
Yeah… A big WTF on this one. I fuck the shit out of my girlfriends, but can sleep in bed with my stripper friends, and I can tell that they are separate people who I will treat differently. My brain does not turn entirely off when I see tits. I am not a teenager. I grew up.
Perhaps mister rapey temptation should do the same.
bago
@Mike: I am mocking him for being a pussy. Jesus spent 40 days of temptation and resisted. Rick Warren is all about making sure he can’t even be tempted. What kind of spiritual resilience does that represent? A Very Childish Spirit.
He’s older than 40, he should know how to handle chicks without a goddamned chaperon.
Seriously.
Mazacote Yorquest
@Mike: Mike, with all due respect, I think a lot of the thread is not anti-religious– it’s anti-sanctimony. For a lot of religious liberals like myself, sanctimony is more dangerous than mockery (a theological point I take from Exodus and the destruction of idols, Job, Christ coming in on a donkey, and many, many other instance where reverence for something greater is opened up by showing the absurdity of what is being presented as holy). I respect Warren for "fleeing temptation" in accord with his beliefs, but I believe his obsession with strict sexual morality, to the point of not even being alone, is fairly ludicrous in the context of morality as a whole. I know he donates profits from his books, but what about the practices of his publishers? I wish he’d be as fastidious about social and economic oppression as he is about whether he rubs one out in a Hampton Inn one lonely night. As it is he’s a deeply comic figure, as we all are, and given his position that comic side should be pointed out. He’s sincere, but he’s also sincerely Pharasaic about that stuff.
So, you see, mocking sanctimony is very pro-religious, in that it protects religious values from cheap adulteration.
Ricky Bobby
I have this great vision of Rick Warren behind closed doors ripping off his clothes and we all find out that he is actually Rick James circa 1982.
Bow chica bow wow..
John S.
Wow, you seem to know so much about someone you don’t know regarding a situation that happened 11 years ago! You’re not just a mind reader, you’re a time traveler!
Are you really Dr. Who?
Mike
Mazacote, where is the sanctimony in this particular action by Warren? As I said, there are plenty of legitimate issues to criticize the man over (and you named a few), but I fail to see how him saying he will not be alone with a woman is sanctimonious in the least. As another poster pointed out, at no time did he say that everyone needs to do this. He implicitly acknowledged an area that he struggles with, and said what he does to avoid temptation.
I have no compunction about exposing hypocrisy or sanctimony and mocking it roundly; I am just not seeing it in this particular case.
gex
Just a thought. We wouldn’t all need to be so paranoid about the appearance of impropriety if we didn’t have a bunch of busy-body moral scolds – like Warren – judging us.
HyperIon
@schrodinger’s cat:
THEY want to control you; he wants to control himself.
As least so far.
Krista
Hey, what’s a little disagreement between friends, right? It’s been a long time since I’ve had a rousing debate – this is quite refreshing, frankly.
gex
@HyperIon: Correction. He wants to control himself and gay people.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Krista: I’m honored you consider me a friend.
Comrade Darkness
@toujoursdan: My point is that it seems to be much less tension between the sexes than in the previous generation.
That’s because blow jobs don’t count. Or, so I hear.
/tongue back in cheek (heh)
Nick
"That would make complete sense [never being alone with a woman], considering how important appearances are in his line of work."
That seems to assume:
1. That people are going to assume a pastor cannot be trusted to be alone with a woman without all sorts of fornication breaking out (balls across the nose, etc.); and
2. That he doesn’t know any women who can be trusted not to make false allegations about him (no trustworthy Christian women?).
That’s a hell of a flock he’s got.
jake 4 that 1
Yes. And?
We need to find the factory that’s spending energy to produce people who spend their energy wringing their hands over how other people spend their energy on fricking blogs and throw the switch.
Seriously, they’re every where and they’re very, very, boring.
jake 4 that 1
Pandagon also had this bit of bald-faced lying from Rabbit Warren yesterday (ht Betty Cracker).
Hypocrisy much?
It should not be any wonder people pull out the nail studded 2×4 when this wank’s name comes up
Stefan
I bet if I wanted I could find someone on this very blog comment thread to have sex with me.
*throat clearing* Ahem.
(I don’t want, just to be clear.)
Oh, uh, sorry. Should have read further. Well, if sometime in the future….you know….no pressure.
Comrade Darkness
Pointing out that this guy (a leader, no less) takes a developmental problem spawned from his twisted upbringing and his simplistic worldview and casts it as a grand, honorable battle between Satan and himself when it is actually a psychological problem that is treatable, is useful ridicule. Society uses ridicule to point out and repair absurdities of power before they do more damage. He suffers here mostly from being clumped in easily with one of the ilk that wants to imposed these idiot and damaging rules on the rest of us. Damn well he deserves mockery. It’s the best weapon against it. And like Krista, I agree, we’ve taken well enough.
Christians and religious folk who go through their lives leading by living their faith … God love ’em and I wish them the best. They fill our charities here with diligent patient workers and I wouldn’t trade them for anyone. But those who preach and politic as loud as possible that they are morally and spiritually superior when it is clear that their schtick has left them this damaged? Yeesh . . . they get the works. It’s the best defense the reality based community has, IMHO.
Corner Stone
@John S
I don’t need to know her, nor do I need to have been there. You said everything I needed to know about what allegedly happened.
If she was your roommate then she could have had you any time she wanted you pre girlfriend. If you and your girlfriend were together before you and she were roommates then it’s natural to assume you would’ve had you girlfriend as your roommate if you needed one, or at the least not decided to be roommates with another attractive girl.
You also went out of your way to include the fact that your roommate was a friend of your girlfriends – an unnecessary piece of info if all we were proving was your faithfulness.
If the roommate didn’t know or care about your girlfriend then the case would’ve been different. If it was a little tipsy no risk hookup on her part but you cared too much for your girlfriend that’s one thing. However, she *was* a friend of your girlfriend according to your own statement.
Therefore the conclusion to be reached is she wanted to rub it in your girlfriends face. And by including the extra description I firmly believe you knew she’d bust you as well.
So, if you’re happy now then you made the right decision to not sleep with her. Congrats.
Mike
@Comrade Darkness:
Do you find it at all ironic that in a post where you criticize a Christian leader for acting superior to the masses (which, by the way, I’m not sure how admitting weakness is an act of narcissism), you cast yourself as being above the "simplistic" Christian worldview?
In the end, doesn’t everyone pretty much think they’re right?
Michael D.
I work with men, dozens of men.
I have male friends – dozens of them.
I walk down the street and see hundreds of men. If I need directions, I might even ask one of them.
I am in a committed relationship with a man. It has never OCCURRED to me to take advantage of one of the above situations to hook up with someone.
NEVER.
I will always have male friends. I will always work with other men. And I will always see men on the street.
It will NEVER occur to me to stay away from any of them.
I guess I am more secure in my HOMOSEXUAL relationship than Rick Warren is in his HETEROSEXUAL one.
I’m dumbfounded that he chooses to stay away from women. Really flabbergasted.
Shorter Rick Warren: “Unlike some homesuxuals, I don’t trust myself. I have no self control”
Comrade Darkness
@Mike, I wouldn’t be arguing if I didn’t think I was right. That would be weird. Or trolling I suppose. But the left backing down in the face of exactly your argument is what filled the DOJ with Regent university flunkies, rewrote science policy into kindergarten quality output at the federal level, gave us faith-based initiatives, and cut funding for desperately poor women in need of fistula corrective surgery.
So, sure. I’ll agree completely with you that I’m doing the same thing they do, just arguing the other side.
Btw, admitting weakness is fine. Glorifying it is clinical. Working yourself into a position of power based on your glorified weakness is group psychosis. Pointing out all of the above, is apparently ironic.
MBunge
"I will always have male friends. I will always work with other men. And I will always see men on the street.
It will NEVER occur to me to stay away from any of them.
I guess I am more secure in my HOMOSEXUAL relationship than Rick Warren is in his HETEROSEXUAL one."
Statistically speaking, isn’t infidelity much more common amongst gay men than straight couples? I think lesbians were the most faithful in the study I saw.
Mike
Mazacote Yorquest
@Mike: It’s not the being alone with a woman part, Mike. Maybe I misread things, but I thought he said he couldn’t be alone with himself while travelling. I’m sorry– I just think that ratchets things up to a whole different level. Again, I think he’s sincere. But it seems to me comic to exclude from your life the experience of being alone, especially given the importance of prayer (see Garden of Gethsemane). Sanctimony isn’t just about "I’m righteous," but also grandly invoking Satan on matters that are not nearly as important as other moral challenges. It’s like saying "Satan might tempt me to show off while singing hymns." Really? That’s what you’re worried about?
I don’t mock his sincerity– I mock him for being sincere about this to the exclusion of other things.
MBunge
John S. – "Not to rain on YOUR parade, buddy, but if that were the case the amount of marriages ending in divorce resulting from infidelity wouldn’t be what they are."
Jumping back in here to ask, are you kidding me? Do you really think any significant number of infidelity results from naked people sliding into bed with people who are involved with someone else? Do you really think that sort of extreme act is really how most affairs get going? Newsflash – life is not like those late night movies on Cinemax.
Mike
agum
Warren should take a page from the NBA playbook and have a camera running whenever he’s alone in a room with a woman. Or by himself.
Surely he’s important enough in his own mind to leave us that kind of legacy.
AnneLaurie
I’m amused that nobody seems to have noticed Pastor Warren palming the pea in his shell game. He explicitly mentions three, count ’em *three*, varieties of Eternal Sinfulness — and then reassures his audience that he makes sure he can never be busted for Sin Category Two. So while y’all are sniffing around checking his underwear for unauthorized emissions, Pastor Warren’s free to steal with both hands and to enforce his wildest dreams of authoritarianism. Like any good magician, he’s got the audience focused on the cheap, shiny "sex" props to distract them from the "money" and "power" manipulations that are the real prizes (temptations) in the Public Sanctimony magic show!
Hana
I have no particular affection for Rick Warren, but I can get this, at least to the degree that it doesn’t especially freak me out. He’s acknowledging that he’s in a position in which a lot of temptations are available to him– and I don’t think he has to be too vain in thinking that there are lots of women around him who would be struck by his star power (he’s why they’re working around him in the first place, right?)– and saying that he doesn’t even put himself in the position to evaluate particular situations involving abuse of his power through sex– he just stays way the heck away from them. Maybe it’s different from the way a lot of us would handle it, but I can respect it.
Actually, come to think of it, I am very rarely in a room alone with a man not my husband or family. I’m neither super hot nor a celebrity, but I do think a certain degree of temptation to something on the spectrum of infidelity almost always exists between men and women. I guess I don’t want to go anywhere near flirting or having a sexualised vibe with anyone but my husband. I can, however, be alone with myself!
lovethebomb
@Mazacote Yorquest:
Just Brilliant. Right on. I’ve got too much anger to express things as beautifully as you just did. Right on about sanctimony and Phariseeism. There is a surprising amount of warnings by Jesus about those who pray on the corners in long robes (bragging about your purity policies) and put burdens on men too heavy to bear. He called them vipers.
Also excellent points about how telling his priorities are such that economic and social issues take a back seat to his trouser issues. AnneLaurie noticed that by waving the shiny baton of his sex life, no one notices how much he operates in the realm of his other 2 big no no’s. Mega-pastor’s power and wealth makes Herod look retiring in comparison. Classic authoritarian narcissism. You are right to call them comic. They deserve of as much ridicule and mockery one one can spare.
I loved the example of Jesus riding the donkey. He was such an anti-hero. I think all these mega-ministries are about as offensive one can get to the Xian faith. The biggest idol they should be worried about is their own "ministries."
jake 4 that 1
He is? I admit he can rip off his flock by passing the basket 5 times a service, insist that they go out and buy a copy of The Porpoise Driven Life every day, but that doesn’t count as stealing if none of the participants are unwilling.
As for enforcing his wildest dreams of authoritarianism, we’ve got his firing off his mouth about Prop 8 (which he’s now lying about for some reason) and getting up to who knows what in his church. I’m sure I’ve missed something else. However, no one can do anything about what he gets up to in his church (except stay away). I think it should be obvious that one of the reasons everyone is mocking him here is because he’s attempted to inflict his belly-button’s eye view of the world on the rest of us.
Corner Stone
Maybe to give RW the benefit of the doubt here – maybe if he’s out of someone’s sight for a period of time, then some hottie says "Hey everybody! Ricky just banged me like a drum / Ricky just teabagged me like his middle name was Lipton!"
Then he couldn’t defend himself properly. Maybe this isn’t about his inability to control himself, maybe it’s more about his inability to control his paranoia.
Hmmm..nah, probably not.
Marshall
When I was in college there were a couple of people in my dorm who wouldn’t sit in their room with their girl friend without the door open. It was creepy to walk past their door and see them staring at each other with such fierce lust that I would have rather them just go at each other.
Everytime I’d walk by I’d have to stop myself from yelling "just f*ck already."
Darkrose
I find this mockworthy because it assumes that Rick Warren = Babe Magnet. While I’m sure there are women who would do him, he’d send me straight to the Lesbian Place even if I weren’t a Kinsey 4. I have to wonder if he had his chaperone around when he met Melissa Etheridge.
guest omen
rich warren somehow has this rep for being a "moderate" partly based on his aids work in africa, but look at what he was involved with:
But since the Warren inauguration controversy erupted, the nature of his work against AIDS in Africa has gone unexamined. Warren has not been particularly forthcoming to those who have attempted to look into it. His Web site contains scant information about the results of his program. However, an investigation into Warren’s involvement in Africa reveals a web of alliances with right-wing clergymen who have sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education. More disturbingly, Warren’s allies have rolled back key elements of one of the continent’s most successful initiative, the so-called ABC program in Uganda. Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told the New York Times their activism is "resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred."
Warren’s man in Uganda is a charismatic pastor named Martin Ssempa. The head of the Makerere Community Church, a rapidly growing congregation, Ssempa enjoys close ties to his country’s first lady, Janet Museveni, and is a favorite of the Bush White House. In the capitol of Kampala, Ssempa is known for his boisterous crusading. Ssempa’s stunts have included burning condoms in the name of Jesus and arranging the publication of names of homosexuals in cooperative local newspapers while lobbying for criminal penalties to imprison them.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/118125/
zoe kentucky from pittsburgh
Gary Bauer claims that he put a glass door on his office when he was the head of the Family Research Council– otherwise apparently he couldn’t have any female employees.
lovethebomb
Sick fucks all. Gary Bauer. Jerry Fallwell. James Dobson. Rick Warren.
Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, BTK, Son of Sam.
They kinda go together. One set kills bodies, another kills the spirit.
asiangrrlMN
@Marshall: You just creeped me out with this image. Thanks, thanks a lot.
@guest omen: ‘Tis true. You can read about it all on pamshouseblend.com, too. His man in Uganda wants to criminalize teh gay as well. It’s pretty horrific. I don’t care how much Rick Warren portrays himself as ‘moderate’. He’s not.
Just for giggles:
http://saddlebacking.com/
Coined by the readers of Dan Savage’s Savage Love column.
Here is some backstory links:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Search?cx=018412283168992679552:yvxwdz723au&cof=FORID:9&q=saddlebacking&sa=Search
Marshall
@asiangrrIMN
Your welcome, I am to please.
scarshapedstar
@zoe kentucky from pittsburgh:
So, presumably, he once had a wooden door. Here’s a riddle for y’all.
What can a man do behind a solid door — not a glass one — while visualizing female employees, such that any female employee who walked in would quit in a hurry?
I hope he doesn’t have carpet in there.
DMD
I’m never alone, ever, ever alone with a woman, or even my myself when I’m traveling.
I totally get this. It’s because in the evangelical worldview, watching Skinemax is as bad as hooking up with your secretary.