God Debate

I would love to have been a fly on the wall during this… Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren.

Rick Warren is as big as a bear, with a booming voice and easygoing charm. Sam Harris is compact, reserved and, despite the polemical tone of his books, friendly and mild. Warren, one of the best-known pastors in the world, started Saddleback in 1980; now 25,000 people attend the church each Sunday. Harris is softer-spoken; paragraphs pour out of him, complex and fact-filled — as befits a Ph.D. student in neuroscience. At NEWSWEEK’s invitation, they met in Warren’s office recently and chatted, mostly amiably, for four hours.

I always find it valuable and enlightening to read what folks like Harris think, even if I disagree with them on a fundamental level. And I always find it refreshing when a dialog such as this one can be done in a brutally honest, yet gracious manner. Contrary to popular belief, those two are not mutually exclusive.