Wednesday, April 15, 2009

WARREN explanation: “This Week” no-show

April 15, 2009

Explanation of Pastor Warren’s no-show on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos as provided by a Warren aide’s email via Politico’s Mike Allen. FOX had asked that the church be spiffed up before the broadcast and evidently they got to it kind of late.

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Warren aide email to POLITICO:

I received a call from a Saddleback colleague (Pastor Rick’s chief-of-staff) [Saturday] morning that Dr. Warren awoke ill. He had already preached the first four services, beginning Thursday night. (Two of the Friday services were taped for broadcast six times over the weekend on the Fox News Channel.) I was informed that he would have to clear his schedule of interviews and preaching appearances yesterday in order to regain his strength to get back in the pulpit on Easter Sunday.

My understanding was that Dr. Warren’s condition was related to fatigue and exhaustion — which affected his voice — exacerbated by inhalation of fumes from the newly refurbished (but still drying) pulpit used in the televised services the previous night. After initially informing George Stephanopoulos of his inability to pre-tape on Saturday, I put him directly in touch with his chief-of-staff after doctor consultation to pursue the remote possibility of an early [Sunday] AM pre-tape. That turned out to not be a possibility as he had to cancel half of his sermons today, though he was able to preach several of the six services at which he was scheduled to preach.

There has been a lot of blog chatter trying to connect the dots with the interviews this weekend and comments Dr. Warren made on CNN Larry King Live, but his cancellations were related to health and fatigue…. I was looking forward to the opportunity for him to clarify his position with Messrs. Stephanopoulos and Huckabee (the latter with whom he was to interview live at 2:45 PM EDT on Saturday) to reframe the picture for television viewers the way we had been trying to do on a per-inquiry basis with print outlets by sending out the statement below.

A copy of the statement referenced was left in the comment section of our Larry King - Rick Warren interview post. See link below.

***
Larry King: Pastor Rick Warren
WARREN: I urge you to support Proposition 8
WARREN: Same-sex marriage like incest and pedophilia?
WARREN: “I’m naturally inclined to have sex with every beautiful woman I see”
WARREN: cancels “This Week” appearance
WARREN statements in a nutshell
Pastor Warren’s spokesman re: Larry King appearance
WARREN explanation: “This Week” no-show
***
CBS Poll: Same-sex marriage
Iowa legalizes same-sex marriage
GOP reacts to Iowa’s same-sex marriage ruling
Iowa to become “gay marriage Mecca”?
Vermont legalizes same-sex marriage
Larry King: Joel and Victoria Osteen

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