COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. — Evangelical leader Rick Warren came to the heart of the religious right movement last week to criticize a narrow focus on abortion, homosexuality and pornography as un-Christian.
Strikingly, top Christian conservatives agreed.
During a three-day summit here, members of Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ joined Warren and dozens of other pastors from across the nation in a pledge to devote more of their resources and clout to helping children in need.
"We've got some people who only focus on moral purity and couldn't care less about the poor, the sick, the uneducated. And they haven't done zip for those people," said Warren, a mega-church pastor in California and author of the best-selling "The Purpose-Driven Life."
Warren hastened to say that he also opposed abortion and gay marriage. But too often, he said, Christians these days are defined by their "big mouth" -- what they argue against, not what they embrace. He pointed to a verse from the Book of James that calls caring for orphans an essential element of a "pure and undefiled" faith.
"It's time for the church to stop debating the Bible and start doing it," Warren said.
The summit was the start of a campaign to enroll more Christians as adoptive and foster parents.
Over the next six months, Christian media will be saturated with stories and ads touting adoption and foster care as a scriptural imperative, an order direct from God. Tens of thousands of pastors will be urged to preach about the issue, set up support groups for couples considering taking in troubled kids, and even invite state child-welfare officials to talk to their congregations.
With hundreds of thousands of churches in America and 115,000 children awaiting adoption, "we have a chance to make a difference," said Mark Andre, who directs the fledgling orphan initiative at Focus on the Family ministries.
Andre called the campaign heartfelt, genuine and divorced from any political consideration. But in a movement that long has entwined faith and activism, political overtones were inevitable.
Several speakers talked of an urgent need to settle children in Christian homes that have "both a mommy and a daddy" -- an implicit rebuke of same-sex parenting. Others suggested Christians could bolster their case for protecting the "pre-born" by proving that their concern for the child extends beyond the womb.
