Reply #168: "no incentive to change even if he were inclined"

[HamdenRice]

I understand your point of view, but disagree with this statement. Warren is not stupid (like Falwell) and his success at selling books shows that he has somehow managed to take his message outside the central core of the evangelical community.

It seems to me he has two incentives: (1) expanding his reach (and profits and influence) even further, to the Christian community that may not be comfortable with his more reactionary views and (2) being crowned by the media as the "new kind" of evangelical, and thereby supplanting the Falwells/Robertson/Dobson axis as the "face" of the evangelical movement. That means being the go to guy for politicians like Obama, but it also means rethinking his views on things like GLBT rights and abortion.

I suspect we're going to see the "Joel Osteenization" of Warren as the price of his getting these goodies.