Interesting article in today’s USA Today you should check out if you’re interested in Purpose Driven, politics and Rick Warren. Here’s a clip:

Warren is no liberal. He backed President Bush in the 2004 election and opposes abortion and stem cell research.

But in a refreshing change from today’s unhealthy norm, Warren is spending his time and clout not on the divisive issues that have come to define the Christian right — abortion, stem cell research, a supposedly anti-God judiciary and so on — but on a campaign that can bring people together and save many lives in the process.

Warren is taking on poverty and AIDS and on a continent — Africa — that tends to command the least of the world’s attention and resources.

PEACE is the moniker Warren has devised for his program in Rwanda. It stands for “Plant churches, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick and Educate the next generation.”

In the tradition of evangelical Christianity, he believes the path to a better world runs through human hearts, and he is counting on churches and their members to lead the way against the seemingly intractable problems pressing down on Africa. “I’m coming from the fact that Jesus said, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ ” Warren said at a news conference in November at a global health summit. “So what motivates me is not politics.”

As Warren told The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper recently, “The New Testament says the church is the body of Christ, but for the last 100 years, the hands and feet have been amputated, and the church has just been a mouth. And mostly, it’s been known for what it’s against. … I’m so tired of Christians being known for what they’re against.”

JG