Pastor Rick Warren under travels under 24/7 masturbation watch

Guess who's makin' a list and checkin' it twice....

Mega-church pastor and noted megalomaniac Rick Warren tells conservative writer Hugh Hewitt how he manages to avoid sin when he travels...by placing himself under 24-hour supervision:

HH: You have stayed above scandal. Thank you for that, because so many Christian pastors, you know what happens when this happens, and we could name 30 of them, the damage they do.

RW: Yeah, I keep a list.

HH: You keep a list?

RW: Actually, I have what, Hugh, I’ve had it for almost 40 years. I call it a warnings file. And every time I watch somebody, and Satan has no temptations that are new. It’s either money, sex or power. It’s lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, and you have to know the antidotes, and you have to set up the parameters that keep you from even being tempted in those areas, which means for instance, I’m never alone, ever, ever alone with a woman, or even my myself when I’m traveling.

Who watches Pastor Rick when his wife's not around? He says he won't be alone with a woman. That seems to imply that he travels with a male masturbation monitor, or at least two female supervisors, or maybe a man and a woman tasked with keeping the pastor from sin.

[HT: Jesse and Thers.]

Comments

[Steve M.]

Doesn't he know anyone in Opus Dei who could lend him a sparecilice?

[Alon Levy]

We don't yet know he's scandal-free, do we?

[TB]

What a surprise, a religious leader that can't deal with women as human beings, just as evil temptresses, tools of Satan and vice-dripping harlots.

Warren just becomes more and more ethically bankrupt every time he opens his mouth ... although this latest outburst could go a long way to explaining why his wife seems so tense.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Mary, your last comment about my father was totally out of line and I've deleted it. My mother and grandfather read this blog and they don't need to see that. You're banned, go away.

[Eric Jaffa]

Maybe he meant that if he traveled alone that would lead to his being alone with a woman who isn't his wife.

[Whispers]

I think it means he's always with at least three women when he travels.

More seriously, how are we supposed to read his comment about how he's unwilling to be alone when he travels?

[revenantive]

Warren has always smacked me as a little weird, but 24/7 monitors while traveling? Bizarre-o...

I know a lot of religious folks get fairly deep into their craft because it gives them a sense of self control in a world of confusion and misdirection, and that should be commended. The last thing we need is another religion that inspires acts of self-aggrandizement and belittles those who fall prey to perceived sin. Why would a pastor who professes confidence in his chosen religion and expects others to follow along need to be kept away from women or god-forbid a little hand lotion? Shouldn't Pastor Warren be full on god and able to cast thine wicked urges to the wayside? What happens when his monitors fail to show up as scheduled? Does Pastor Warren then go on a sex, booze, drugs & child molestation binge? It's almost serial.

[Cai]

Wow... this makes me feel a little sorry for Mr. Warren. Not only does he have no female friends, but he also is apparently severely mentally disturbed. He doesn't sound like he's very happy, or leading a particularly great life.

[sad]

Oh, I shouldn't but I have to ask: does he keep from playing with his tool by placing it in another man's hands when in his hotel room?

But on a (only more slightly) serious note: here's a guy who believes in the almighty all-seeing, all-knowing one. Said all-seeing and all-knowing all powerful deity actually cares what Rick Warren does - all the time - and will punish him brutally for transgressions in an afterlife. But Warren does not consider this all-seeing, all-knowing deity enough of a deterrent that he has to rely on mortal monitors? Anyone else see the contradiction here?

Just wondering.

[Ginger Mayerson]

Isn't...isn't deep religious conviction supposed to give you the moral and spiritual strength to overcome the kinds of temptations Rick Warren is worried about? Like, y'know, St. Anthony or somebody like that? Just wondering.

[Chris O.]

I definitely file this story under "TMI".

[386sx]

Rick Warren: "Yes, there are bad apples in any bunch, okay? But the presence of counterfeit always implies there must be a real thing. Nobody counterfeits a counterfeit. If there’s a counterfeit out there, it implies, nobody does a counterfeit $4 dollar bill."

Brilliant logic there. People could probably use logic like that to, oh, like, prove god and stuff like that. Good stuff.

[386sx]

Isn't...isn't deep religious conviction supposed to give you the moral and spiritual strength to overcome the kinds of temptations Rick Warren is worried about? Like, y'know, St. Anthony or somebody like that? Just wondering.

He could be paranoid or something. He might think someone might try to set him up or something like that. Sounds kinda plausible. Just sayin.

[(O)CT(O)PUS]

When he considers how his nights are spent,
(suppressed fantasies of busty midnight whores),
He wrings his hands with thoughts most foul
And sighs: “Waste, waste! Better spent now than later
Lost upon a dumb and thankless paper towel.”

[Chan]

I know a lot of religious folks get fairly deep into their craft because it gives them a sense of self control in a world of confusion and misdirection, and that should be commended. The last thing we need is another religion that inspires acts of self-aggrandizement and belittles those who fall prey to perceived sin.

[Eric Jaffa]

============================
Rick Warren: "Yes, there are bad apples in any bunch, okay? But the presence of counterfeit always implies there must be a real thing. Nobody counterfeits a counterfeit. If there’s a counterfeit out there, it implies, nobody does a counterfeit $4 dollar bill."

Brilliant logic there. People could probably use logic like that to, oh, like, prove god and stuff like that. Good stuff.
===============================

386sx -

Good point about the lack of logic.

A "psychic" shown to be cheating shows that other psychics have magical powers, according to Rick Warren's logic.

[Alon Levy]

Sad: punishments are most effective when they come immediately after the transgression. The threat of hell is incredibly long-term, which makes it weaker. It's analogous to my situation: I know that if I don't spend more time doing research and publishing papers I won't get a good job, and yet here I am, commenting on blogs. Does it mean the threat of joblessness is weak? No, it just means it is uncertain and at any rate won't take place until years from now.

[Thomas Paine]

Hmmm, it would seem that his only practical choice woud be to only travel in company with his wife, since being alone with another man would seem to risk an even greater sin (by his definition, of course) -- and he wouldn't be the first fundie preacher to do that!

I think the idea of always being in the company of at least two women has some possibilities -- if the idea is to rationalize it to his wife. "Honest, dear, these two hookers I spent the night with were there to assure I did not inadvertantly masturbate during the night!"

[dr2chase]

I think you're being a tad unfair. "Never alone" could mean that he is never placed in a he-said-she-said swearing contest -- how can you prove you were alone?

And it is his job to think about sin, right? :-)

Semi-seriously, sooner or later you will learn of friends, who you thought had a happy marriage, getting un-married, sometimes in spectacularly graceless ways, and you may think, "how the heck did that happen? Did he/she just go crazy? How do we know that won't happen to us?" So I can actually understand him keeping a list, and worrying about how a similar failure might happen to him, especially if he works from the assumption that guys like Swaggart and Bakker were not charlatans from the get-go.

[Josh Jasper]

Never "alone with a woman"? What, because they'd spread their legs and invite him in for a quick fuck if they weren't watched, and he'd have no willpower to resists? Or perhaps he'd rape them.

That reveals a lot about how he thinks of women, doesn't it?