OVO

Rick Warren, 17 April 2005: “In 1939, in a stadium much like this, in Munich Germany, they packed it out with young men and women in brown shirts, for a fanatical man standing behind a podium named Adolf Hitler, the personification of evil. And in that stadium, those in brown shirts formed with their bodies a sign that said, in the whole stadium, ‘Hitler, we are yours.’ And they nearly took the world. Lenin once said, ‘give me 100 committed, totally committed men and I’ll change the world.’ And, he nearly did. A few years ago, they took the sayings of Chairman Mao, in China, put them in a little red book, and a group of young people committed them to memory and put it in their minds and they took that nation, the largest nation in the world by storm because they committed to memory the sayings of the Chairman Mao. When I hear those kinds of stories, I think ‘what would happen if American Christians, if world Christians, if just the Christians in this stadium, followers of Christ, would say ‘Jesus, we are yours?’ What kind of spiritual awakening would we have? Jesus said, ‘I want you to do this publicly.’ So what I want you to do is take the card, and in just a minute, and if you say ‘Rick, I am willing to serve God’s purposes in my generation.’ I want you to open up to the sign that says ‘Whatever it takes.’ Whatever it takes. And I want you to just say, ‘This is my commitment, before God and in front of everybody else. I’m in.’ And I would invite you to just stand quietly and hold up ‘Whatever it takes.’ I’m looking at a stadium full of people who are saying ‘whatever it takes.’ Whatever it takes, God. Time, talent, energy, money, effort, vision… God, whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, that’s what I’m going to do. And I believe that today we are making history. We’re making history that’s going to start a movement that will bring a new Reformation in the church of God and a new spiritual awakening in our world. And, our world needs it. And today, as you say ‘whatever it takes,’ you’re saying publicly, ‘I’m in, God. I’m in… I’m in.’”

[Complete video and transcript at link. I know my enemy when I see him. But unlike Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Warren and everyone who formed with their bodies a sign that said, in the whole stadium, YAY FASCISM! YAY COMMUNISM! YAY JESUS!... unlike these monsters, I won't do whatever it takes to see them fail. I advocate the withering away of superstition under the twin suns of reason and scorn. These are my only tools. They, meanwhile, are going to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get their way. Just like those who think god/history is on their side have always done. - Trevor Blake]