Rain or shine (and it’s currently pouring as I sit inside a Laguna Beach Starbucks on the Pacific Coast Highway), today’s the day I make the “pilgrimage” to Purpose-Driven Rick Warren’s empire known as Saddleback Church, located a mere 17 minutes from preacher John Verstegen’s Sunday morning meeting room inside San Juan Capistrano’s Old Firehouse.

Of course, I will be sure to give a full report. If you haven’t been keeping up with Warren, he’s aligned himself with both New Ager “Muslim-Christian” Barack Obama and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Here’s an outtake from an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: What did you think of Barack Obama?

WARREN: He’s an amazing man. I think…

BLITZER: Do you think he’s got it? In other words, he’s got that potential like so many other presidential prospects, to be the president of the United States?

WARREN: I think he does.

BLITZER: Because?

WARREN: I think he has good character. I think both Sam Brownback and Barack Obama — the reason I invited them both, first, they’ll tell you the truth. They’re not just going to beat around the bush. They’ll tell you what they believe. And I appreciate that.

Second, they’re men of civility. And I’m so tired of the rudeness we’ve got in our society where people are just mean to each other. We need to return to civility, which says, I treat you with respect even if I violently disagree with you. That we’ve lost the “civil” in civilization.

*****

Regarding Hezbollah terrorist al-Assad, whom Warren met with more than a year ago, the website Hotair.com reports, “Pastor Warren hailed the religious coexistence, tolerance and stability that the Syrian society is enjoying due to the wise leadership of President al-Assad, asserting that he will convey the true image about Syria to the American people.

“He offered to President al-Assad a memorial drawing as a gift to the Syrian people for their generosity and hospitality, thanking their efforts exerted for maintaining peace and harmony.”

The website article went on, “And in Syria, why is there no record of Warren having preached to anyone at all? The only thing we know about the Syria trip is that Warren got the go-ahead to ship in his PEACE Plan manuals and materials (minus the Purple Haze intro, no doubt), and that he lavished praise on the Assad regime.

“That would be the Assad regime that is right now helping Hezbollah re-arm for its next attempt to destroy Israel, and allows Syria to be the HQ for more terrorist groups than any other country on earth.

“Is Syria a country that needs the gospel? You betcha. Is there any evidence that Rick Warren breathed a word of that gospel while he was in Syria? No.

“We do know that the one part of historical Christianity he did cite in defending his trip, he got completely wrong. Paul was not a Syrian, and it wouldn’t matter in today’s world even if he had been. It’s not at all out of bounds to wonder that if Warren got that basic fact wrong about one of the most famous Christians in history, what else does he get wrong?”

*****

Here’s a great passage from Jordan, preaching from behind the pulpit of his Shorewood Bible Church in Chicago:

“You go off on vacation somewhere and you stop at some of these churches alongside the road and see the difference between what you enjoy here and what they put out . . . I travel all over the country, folks, and I’ll tell you what, you’ve got something special going on here because you get in that Book.

“I know sometimes you think you’re going to get spiritual indigestion from getting it all the time—nothing but meat and taters and every now and then we stick a little shortcake in; a little something sweet and light—but you know, folks, there’s some people who never get anything.”