San Diego Christian Leader Pays Steep Price For Speaking Out Against Rick Warren's Unethical Use of Saddleback Church Pulpit:
Christian Activist James Hartline Loses Well-Known Media Support After Signing Published Letter That Calls On Rick Warren To Stop Allowing
Pro-Abortion & Pro-Homosexual Speakers In His Pulpit
(JHReport) A nationally recognized Christian activist has learned firsthand that there is a steep price to pay for speaking out against the moral corruption of one of America's most powerful Protestant ministers. Despite the high cost to himself personally, James Hartline has been willing to expose, what he says, is a disturbing trend of theological and moral compromise coming from
the pulpit of Rick Warren, pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church.
Hartline, who publishes a number of Christian news websites, says that he does not take any pleasure in speaking out against Warren. He simply does not want his fellow Christian believers to be taken advantage of by Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren's unbiblical activism. It has been painful for Hartline to stand up to Rick Warren -- In the process of reporting on Warren's moral compromises in the pulpit, Hartline has had a number of well-known Christian friends turn on him and abandon support for his ministry.
Several months ago, the San Diego-based Christian activist could tell that something was just not right in his relationship with two close friends who work in the Christian media. Warm and welcoming conversations had abruptly turned into brief, cold and uncaring responses to his telephone calls and emails. For Hartline, he had a hard time understanding how close friends could so quickly become "spiritually schizophrenic." Eventually, he began to see a pattern evolve. What James Hartline was about to learn in the midst of this trying time would cause him to understand how treacherous the religious waters in America have become in the 21st century: "Taking on Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren is the religious equivalent of taking on a mob boss in the Italian Mafia," says Hartline.
Among the many things that the coalition saw happening with Pastor Warren's AIDS Summit event that they had outlined in the document was his inviting of pro-abortion and pro-homosexual activists to speak at Saddleback Church.
Peter LaBarbera, a leading figure in America's evangelical pro-family movement, called on Warren to address the leading cause of HIV transmission in the United States: gay promiscuity in gay sex clubs. LaBarbera pointed out in the AIDS Truth Coalition press release that Pastor Warren had invited Mark Dybul, a practicing homosexual, to speak at Saddleback Church.
The evangelical document was a major embarrassment for Rick Warren. The document, issued as a press release, confronted Warren for allowing pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama to speak at Saddleback Church during Warren's AIDS Summit. The document pressed Pastor Warren to speak out against homosexual promiscuity, a leading cause of AIDS -- something members of the AIDS Truth Coalition did not see Rick Warren mention during his AIDS Summit at Saddleback in 2006.
James Hartline was not the only prominent figure to speak out against Rick Warren for allowing Barak Obama to speak in his church.
Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, called on Warren to rescind his invitation to Obama due to the liberal Democrat's rabid support for the murderous practice of partial birth abortion. Partial birth abortion is a procedure that abortion doctors use to bring unborn babies out of the birth canal except for the infant's head. The baby's skull is then crushed while still lodged in the mother's womb, thus executing the infant. Barak Obama has voted repeatedly to support this procedure. Pro-life activists like James Hartline and Troy Newman were especially outraged that Rick Warren booked Obama to speak at Saddleback Church during the 2006 AIDS Summit.
"While Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church is doing a noble service for the people of Africa by holding a global summit on AIDS, I must ponder in my mind where pastors like Rick Warren were those many years when I was struggling to get out of homosexuality. For thirty years, I struggled with homosexuality and it was not until I was finally infected with AIDS at a homosexual bathhouse in San Diego, California that the physical consequences of that sin finally began to lead me away from that destructive lifestyle.
"Like me, hundreds of thousands of young men have been infected in the death chambers of the gay bathhouses in California and across America. Sadly, most of them are now dead from the HIV that they caught in these establishments. … It is noble that Rick Warren cares so much for the Africans living 10,000 miles away from his church who are infected with AIDS. It is tragic, though, that he and others like him have not spoken out forcefully against the holocaust of homosexuality and the dozens of bathhouses in California where so many men are getting sick and dying. Not to mention the millions of families that are forced to pay for the financial costs of caring for all of those sick and dying from homosexuality and the gay bathhouses where they were infected with AIDS."
Shortly after the ministry coalition letter against Rick Warren was published throughout America, Hartline received a disturbing email from the sales manager of KBRT, the Christian radio station in Southern California that is home to the Paul McGuire Show. What was disturbing about the email from
Sarah Davis, were her attempts to manipulate Hartline into not sending out information which reflected negatively on Rick Warren. Sarah Davis' email had been preceded by an email from Hartline where he had sought to inform the staff of KBRT about Rick Warren allowing a homosexual activist to speak at his church. Hartline's email to Paul McGuire and the KBRT staff stated:
Dear Paul (McGuire):
"Rick Warren is having a homosexual US AIDS "ambassador" (appointed by Pres. Bush), who has a homosexual lover, speak at his church today. His name is Mark Dybul. The pulpit is supposed to be holy, no matter what the reason. In Christianity, the ends cannot justify the means." James Hartline. KBRT sales manager Sarah Davis wrote an email back to Hartline in response which read:
"I have to ask you to pray about the below letter before you send it out. It is not my job to defend Rick Warren and that is not my total purpose in writing you. Yet I want you to ask yourself if what you are about to put out to the masses is the whole truth. I have personally heard, with my own ears, Rick Warren speak out against homosexuality on national television just last Sunday on a Fox News special. The church and Rick personally do not take any of those issues lightly nor do they overlook them. The media will choose to publish what it wants and unfortunately that’s the picture that stays in our mind."
Not contemplating the idea that there was something sinister behind the email written by KBRT employee Sarah Davis, James Hartline just assumed that his relationship with KBRT radio personality Paul McGuire was still the way it has always been, cordial and warm. That was an assumption which James Hartline was about to learn was a big mistake.
Just three months prior to the AIDS Truth Coalition document that Hartline signed onto, Paul McGuire had sent an email to James reminding him of their close friendship. McGuire's August 21, 2006 email to Hartline said:
James,
"You are a good friend and often have profound things to say. Please do not be so easily offended. My producer/engineer has to sift through many calls at once to keep the show moving. I need you to be a little more patient and flexible. You know I believe in your ministry and try to support you on the air."
I remain your friend in Christ, Paul McGuire.
In early 2004, Paul McGuire had invited James Hartline to appear on his radio program. That interview lasted for 90 minutes and launched a three-year friendship between McGuire and Hartline. Over the three years, Hartline had repeatedly called McGuire's show and was always immediately put on the air to talk about issues related to the culture war, spiritual battles and San Diego politics.
In the battle to stop the San Diego City Council from issuing a legal brief in support of same-sex marriage, Hartline contacted Paul McGuire to ask if he could come on the air to get Christians to turn out for the city council hearing. McGuire's reply to Hartline turned out to be one of the nastiest emails that Hartline had ever received in his many years of ministry.
James,
"I don't mind helping your cause on a very selective basis. However, San Diego is a small part of our audience, and management is not thrilled with doing small San Diego issues because the larger audience is not interested.
Also, I am not blaming you, but the last time we had you on there was a tiny turn out at the Mayor thing. This is not good for our station, because it reflects on us negatively.
Essentially, these events are tiny events ( athough they are important ), but I cannot justify to management giving time to small local events where a handful of people show up like the Mayor thing, That was not planned and it discredits our station.
A word of personal advice, you are not going to succeed at your goals until you begin to network with and build alliances with the big churches in your area. That requires diplomacy and networking. In order for you to win you are going to have to get these people on your side. In other words you are going to have to build alliances.
Also, please do not be offended but we have completely changed our caller policy which means we want new callers as much as possible who have something new to say. When you call up and essentially give the same message in slightly different forms people tune out. We want a fresh rotation of callers, and not the same callers who say basically the same thing."
Paul McGuire
Paul McGuire's degrading response of calling the Christians of San Diego and their battle against same-sex marriage a "tiny" thing reveals a deceitful side to McGuire that most of his listeners will be shocked to hear about. The idea that McGuire conveys that his Christian radio station's management is not supportive of the horrific battle San Diegans are facing against the homosexual movement is simply reprehensible. Particularly, since it has been the San Diego listerners which have built up a large portion of KBRT's supporting community base. McGuire's instruction to Hartline to place his focus on "building" large numbers through "networking" smacks of Saddleback Church Rick Warren's propaganda.
Sadly, the betrayal of James Hartline by Paul McGuire was not the end of the matter. It was to get much worse for Hartline. Within a few days of the McGuire email, one of Hartline's closest friends was also about to dump him as well.
It is hard for James Hartline to believe that Christians who earn incomes off of their Christianity, and claim to be representing God to the Christian community, would then turn out to be so loyal to someone like Rick Warren. There is no doubt that Rick Warren is compromising his alledged loyalty to Biblical Christianity. Warren has hosted events that feature politicians who approve of the heinous act of partial birth abortion. Warren has hosted politicians who support homosexuality and he has allowed them to speak from his pulpit. And the idea that KBRT radio personality Paul McGuire honors Rick Warren while condemning those who criticize Warren places McGuire in the lower echolons of cultural vulgarity.
