![]() How many priests in Orange County can you name?” “People became more attracted to the individual rather than, say, the liturgy. “These people are ‘charismats,’” Smoller said. ![]() Warren emerged as one of the key early figures in Orange County evangelicalism - a roster that included Paul and Jan Crouch, who founded Trinity Broadcasting Network, and Robert Schuller, founding pastor of Crystal Cathedral, said Fred Smoller, associate professor of political science at Chapman University in Orange County. In this “Warren-ified,” celebrity evangelicalism, churches are often defined by a single face, Hall said. “Rick Warren is the pope of a version of American evangelicalism,” said Amy Hall, associate professor of Christian ethics at Duke Divinity School. Warren is both the proponent and product of the American evangelical megachurch movement- a movement characterized by multimillion-dollar buildings, enormous congregations and iconic leaders. Over 200,000 church leaders studied the principles in that book, according to the Saddleback Church website. In 1995, he published “The Purpose Driven Church,” part of his effort to export Saddleback’s megachurch pattern to other congregations. Warren’s megachurch model became a paradigm for other church leaders. Time magazine flashed his face across its cover. He interviewed national leaders like George Bush and John McCain, spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hosted Rwandan President Paul Kagame at the Lake Forest campus. ![]() except the Bible, according to Tanya Luhrmann, an anthropology professor at Stanford who has written about American evangelicals. While leading his church, Warren achieved influence in other ways: he became a bestselling author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” a book that sold more hard copies than any other in the U.S. Over 30,000 tune in each week to hear Warren speak. He gave the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration in 2009. What began as Rick and Kay Warren’s home Bible study exploded to over a dozen campuses in California - including the 120-acre main campus in Lake Forest - as well as churches in Argentina, Hong Kong, Germany and the Philippines. Over the next few decades, Warren transformed his church into a behemoth of evangelical Christianity. ![]()
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