A Random Thought

Two thousand evangelicals show at at an event this past weekend in Washington, where Jerry Falwell reportedly said that Christians voters prefer Satan to Hillary Clinton, and it's headline news, at least in the LA Times The site of that many evangelicals in one place--something that happens at more than 1,000 evangelical megachurches each weekend--was enough to attract the Times and a bevy of would-be presidential candidates: Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Senators George Allen of Virginia and Sam Brownback of Kansas--to the Values Voter Summit.

But the Times and the would-be presidents might have seen a different set of values in action had they bothered to attend the Willow Creek Leadership Summit this past summer, which drew more than 7,000 to Willow Creek's sanctuary in South Barrington, Illinois, and more than 70,000 at satellite sites where the conference was beamed into. All of those people, btw, paid a couple hundred dollars each to attend the summit, which focused on how to grow congregations, how to serve the poor, and fighting AIDS. The only enemies addressed in that conference were the enemies of a growing church. According to James Meeks of Salem Baptist Church, those enemies are mainly a lack of faith and poor leadership--apparently this one problem is caused by the Senator from New York.

But the headline of the Leadership Summit would have come Bono: "Love thy neighbor is not advice, it's a command," he told participants via video. Or perhaps this: Stop looking for God to bless what you are doing, and look instead for what God is doing--and find a blessing there. And the best place to find God is among the poor. That's another Bono-ism. Or perhaps this line from Bill Hybels would be better--When church leaders fail, people die. (He was speaking about vulnerable people living in the third world--who die when pastors from rich nations fail to teach and lead their people to live out compassion and justice.)

Ask anyone who knows anything about evangelicals and they'll tell you that in terms of real power to influence churches and people, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson can't hold a candle to Hybels or Rick Warren, or even Bono.

But apparently the LA Times missed the memo.