Pastor Rick Warren of the evangelical Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA said that the country’s economic woes are due ultimately to a spiritual failure in an interview on ABC’s This Week Sunday.
Asked by guest host Jake Tapper about how he counsels parishioners struggling to make ends meet, Warren talked about his view of the causes of the poor economy:
Regardless of all the problems that we see out there, I think they all have at the root a spiritual cause. And we have overspent — the biggest problem for — for all of our economic problems is our inability to delay gratification. I want it and I want it now. And I’m going to buy it even if I can’t afford it. And not only have people done that, the government has done it.
Asked about Obama’s call, based on scripture, to care for the poor, Warren responded with a conservative dislike of “wealth redistribution”:
Well certainly the Bible says we are to care about the poor. There’s over 2,000 versus in the Bible about the poor. And God says that those who care about the poor, God will care about them and God will bless them. But there’s a fundamental question on the meaning of “fairness.” Does fairness mean everybody makes the same amount of money? Or does fairness mean everybody gets the opportunity to make the same amount of money? I do not believe in wealth redistribution, I believe in wealth creation.
