MTP Transcript for Dec. 24

MR. MEACHAM: Right. And I think that’s exactly what people are looking for.  I think there is, there is a—overly cleverly, we’ve all just kind of called it the God gap. And I think that’s—that is overly clever because you don’t have to go back very far, you know this well, into Democratic language to find the language of faith. The—I...

DR. WARREN: Martin Luther King.

MR. MEACHAM: Well, Dr. King. The arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. President Kennedy.

MR. RUSSERT: Inaugural address.

MR. MEACHAM: On Earth, God’s...

MR. RUSSERT: Asking his blessing in health, but knowing that here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own.

MR. MEACHAM: Must truly be our own.

DR. WARREN: That’s right.

MR. MEACHAM: The fact that President Roosevelt—the prayer you played a moment ago, was the only thing Franklin Roosevelt said in public on D-Day. He didn’t address the country on military tactics. He didn’t say, “Here’s what we’re going to do with the hedge rows.” All he did—and he wrote that prayer himself the weekend before down at Charlottesville.

These, these were titanic figures in the Democratic tradition, I would argue both uppercase D and lowercase D. And they understood that they were speaking to a largely religious people and they had to show that they shared common values. And, you know, Franklin Roosevelt never went around talking about, “I’m an Episcopalian.” You know, President Kennedy didn’t particularly want to mention the Catholic issue very much.

So we have an interesting moment coming up in, in, in our world. We have a Mormon running for president, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. We have a Methodist, Senator Clinton. We have Senator Obama, who has written a book about some of these issues. And Senator Kerry and others are, are, are revisiting it. I think there’s a moment here, to go with what Rick was just saying, that’s very encouraging in a way, where we may be able to talk about American values, as opposed to religious values, as long as we understand that there is a religious element, a religious strain, in the American values. And no, no reading of American history, I defy anyone, no reading of American history could push religion out of the formation of the values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

MR. RUSSERT: As we speak on this Christmas Eve morning, tonight. many Americans will be surrounded by an abundance of gifts. I was quite taken by something that you said, Pastor Warren, and I’ll put it on the screen. “I don’t think it’s a sin to be rich. I think it’s a sin to die rich.”

DR. WARREN: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Explain that.

DR. WARREN: Well, in my own personal life, when “The Purpose Driven Life” came out and it became the best-selling book for a long, long time in the world...

MR. RUSSERT: Twenty-five million copies.

DR. WARREN: ...yeah, now 30. And it’s in 56 languages. Well, that brought in enormous amounts of money. And it also brought in a lot of attention. And I had to pray about what I call the stewardship of affluence and the stewardship of influence. And I began to go to Scripture, and I, I found a verse in the New Testament on what to do with the money, and a verse in the Old Testament on what to do with the, the fame. And on—in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul—Apostle Paul says, “Those who teach the gospel should make a living by the gospel.” In other words, “It’s OK to pay your priest or your pastor.” That’s a legitimate offer to society. But, Paul says, “I will not accept that right, because I want the freedom to serve God and be a slave to no man.” And I thought, “I want to do this.” And when, literally, when all this money started pouring in, Kay and I make five decisions on what to do with the money.

First, we said, we’re not going to spend it on ourselves. I still live in the same house I’ve lived in 15 years, I drive a six-year-old Ford truck. I don’t own a boat, I don’t own a house—a second house. I don’t own—I don’t own a plane. We just said we’re not going to—I’m not going to spend it on that. A second was I stopped taking a salary from Saddleback Church about four years ago. Third is, I added up all that the church had paid me in 24 years at that time and I gave it all back. And I did that because I knew that I was being put under the spotlight and I didn’t want anybody to question my motives of why I do what I do. And sure enough, the very next week I was interviewed by Time, that, that other magazine. Have you ever heard of it?

MR. MEACHAM: Do they publish weekly now?

DR. WARREN: Yeah, I think so.

MR. MEACHAM: Oh.

DR. WARREN: And the first question the author—the editor—the reporter asked was, “What’s your salary?” Which I thought, OK, here’s another fat cat megachurch pastor fleecing the flock. And I said, “Well, honestly, I’ve now served my church for free for 25 years.” Her face went white and I thought, it was worth every penny just to say that. You know, I had to repent of my pride, but I really felt good for about a minute. You know, and then I got real humble again. But I did that. Then we set up some charities, one’s called Acts of Mercy, which helps those with AIDS. And another on training leaders and another on this Global Peace Plan.

MR. RUSSERT: What did the New Testament tell you about celebrity?

DR. WARREN: The last thing I did is we became reverse tithers. When my wife and I got married 31 years ago, we started giving 10 percent of our income as a tithe to our church. And each year we would raise it at least 1 percent.  Now, we never told anybody for over 30 years--25, 28 years. We’ve been married 31 years and, and the first year of marriage we raised it to 11 percent. Second year to 12. Well, we’ve now been married 31 years, we give away 90 percent and we live on 10. And honestly, that’s quite fun. The joy of giving at Christmastime—I really do belive in the joy of giving. I’m probably the happiest person on the planet because we get to use money in so many great ways. You can’t outgive God.

On the, on the stewardship of affluence, I was reading Psalms 72 and it’s an interesting prayer, it’s Solomon’s prayer for more influence. When you read this prayer, it sounds like the most egotistical prayer because he says, “God, I want you to make me famous.” He says, “I want you to spread the fame of my name to many countries. I want you to give me power, give me blessing and make we well-known.” And it sounds pretty selfish till you read the, the motivation and he says, “So that king may support the widow and orphan, defend the defenseless, care for the sick, assist the poor, speak up for the oppressed, the immigrant, the foreigner,” things like that. The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence, and that changed my life. It turned my old—I had to repent and said I will spend the rest of my life using whatever influence I’ve got for those who have little influence.

MR. RUSSERT: Jon Meacham, we have 30 seconds. Do you have a final thought on Christmas Eve morning?

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