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Obama Has Met Only Half of Rick Warren

Evangelical's split personality includes 'bland Pastor Rick' and arch conservative

By Ambreen Ali, Newser User

Posted Jan 19, 2009 1:51 AM CST

(Newser) – Evangelical Rick Warren has fooled many Americans, Barack Obama included, with his lifelong attempt at creating a double personality, Amy Sullivan writes in Time. There's Pastor Rick—the apparently progressive anti-poverty, concerned-about-AIDS persona Obama invited to deliver the inaugural invocation, and there's the divisive staunch conservative the president-elect should quickly get to know, she advises. "Warren himself encourages the confusion," Sullivan warns.

Warren claims he makes no secret of his conservative values on abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research. But Obama's staff wasn't aware of Warren's comparison of homosexuality to incest or his belief that Iran's president should be assassinated when they signed off on him, Sullivan notes. Fortunately for them, it's Pastor Rick who will likely be the persona who appears at the inauguration, delivering a "blandly optimistic prayer of the sort that has made him popular," she writes.

[Images (3)]

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Rick Warren hangs out with President Bush. The pastor harbors staunch conservative values beneath his affable exterior, Sullivan says. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Warren has maneuvered his public personality into two distinct people: a universally loved progressive, and a staunch conservative leader. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Obama upset many gay rights supporters with his selection of Evangelical Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

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Rick Warren discusses his views on gay rights in the face of criticism for equating homosexuality to bestiality. (PurposeDrivenNetwork)

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Obama Has Met Only Half of Rick Warren