John Piper has invited Rick Warren to speak at the 2010 Desiring God National Conference. Like many, I am a bit concerned by this. I am not overly fond of Rick Warren. But here’s the thing – I trust John Piper. His preaching is solid, his mastery of Scripture is solid, his devotional life seems solid, his walk seems solid, etc. He is not a perfect man. He makes mistakes. Inviting Rick Warren could prove to be one of those mistakes. But I trust John Piper and if Piper decides to invite Warren, I may not like it, but I will trust Piper’s choice and will be interested to hear what Warren says.

Update:
Here is Piper explaining why he invited Warren. I may be re-evaluating my view of Warren.

A few years ago I went through a gospel Harmony and put together a list of biblical events from the Passover observance to the ascension of Christ. Events take place in three “chapters”: From the Table to the Cross; The Crucifixion of Jesus; and The Resurrection of Jesus. It is a useful guide to see the events and related Scripture from each of the gospels pertaining to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

Events of the Cross

Today, I’ve put together a briefer guide giving an overview of the events of Holy Week. This is highly summarized in order to fit everything on one page, but can provide a good, quick reference point.

Events of Holy Week

From the introduction to two sermons in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 2. The attribution is given to T. Prince and W. Cooper, written in 1731.

…it is the very soul of piety, to apprehend and own that all our springs are in him; the springs of our present grace and comfort, and of our future glory and blessedness; and that they all entirely flow through Christ, by the efficacious influence of the Holy Spirit. By these things saints live, and in all these things is the life of our spirits.

Such doctrines as these, which, by humbling the minds of men, prepare them for the exaltations of God, he has signally owned and prospered in the reformed world, and in our land especially, in the days of our forefathers; and we hope they will never grow unfashionable among us: for, we are well assured, if those which we call the doctrines of grace ever come to be contemned or disrelished, vital piety will proportionably languish and wear away; as these doctrines always sink in the esteem of men upon the decay of serious religion.

I believe they are right.

I generally try to avoid politics on this blog, but this is an issue that has been gnawing at me for some time now. This post could get me into lots of trouble, but here goes.

Simply put, my concerns over conservative speakers such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck continue to grow. I believe many far right conservatives have become masters at stirring anger but offer nothing in terms of solutions. As they rouse anger, they win supporters. Palin and Beck in particular know exactly which buttons to push and how to push them.

At risk of crossing Godwin’s Law, here is my fear. How do the cries of Palin, Beck, and others differ from the cries of Hitler when he was building support? He knew what issues stirred people’s fear and anger. As he lit and stirred the fires of anger, he won fiercely loyal followers. I see the same taking place with Palin and Beck. They do not sound like totalitarian dictators (did Hitler early on?) but they are certainly gaining a following based on little more than their ability to stir anger.

There are reasons to be angry. There are good reasons to be frustrated and fed up with politics as usual in Washington. But I see Palin and Beck as even greater threats. They are not offering solutions to the problem, they are pouring fuel on the fire and when things blow up, they (far right conservatives in general) hope it will launch them into positions of power. If this happens, they will have behind them a base of supporters angry about the way things had been and willing to grant the new leaders a great deal of trust and loyalty. And since the new leaders had stirred so much fear and anger, something drastic and dramatic will have to happen so that it will look like the new leaders are dealing with the problems. In Germany it meant targeting the Jews as the source of every social ill. In the U.S. it will likely be immigrants, starting with illegal immigrants but spreading from there. Then it will be anyone who differs too much from the far right dogma.

Now, I do not believe that Palin or Beck or any others have any intention or desire to be anything like Hitler. Palin does not dream about totalitarian rule. But I wonder if even Hitler had any intention of becoming what he became.

I also do not believe things will get that far. The anger is immense, but I think most people would recognize and back away from the threat of totalitarianism. But if the far left continues its decline into blind insanity (and I have my own speculation on how the far left might try to prevent the rise of the far right, and it is equally troubling) and if the far right continues its plunge into the fires of fury, someday something will have to give.