By Peter J. Smith

LOS ANGELES, December 10, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Prominent evangelical Pastor Rick Warren and author of the immensely popular book, “Purpose Driven Life,” says that he prays for President Barack Obama as he addresses the nation’s economic crisis and health-care reform. However, he says the president’s position on keeping abortion “rare” actually depends on the contradictory premise that all life begins at conception.

Warren made his comments during a Nov. 29 appearance on Meet the Press, saying that 36 years of legal abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision has created a real “holocaust.”

“We’ve had 46 million Americans who aren’t here. Those who could be here since Roe v. Wade, who are not voting,” said Warren. “I think that innocence is a holocaust.”

Warren said that it is true that Americans need “to get beyond the name calling and find common ground.” However, he said he did not comprehend how such “common ground” could be achieved by keeping abortion unrestricted and at the same time engaging in efforts to make it “rare and less.”

“Well, either you believe it’s life or you don’t,” said Warren. “Why would you believe it should be rare?”

“If a baby, a fetus is not a life, then why restrict it?” queried Warren rhetorically.

During the 2008 president election, Warren hosted both President Obama and his opponent Sen. John McCain for a debate at his Saddleback Church in California. When Warren asked the President at what point infants in the womb have rights, Obama famously quipped that that answer was “above my pay grade.”

President Obama later selected Warren to deliver the invocation at his January Inauguration – a move that infuriated homosexual activists who labeled the Evangelical pastor as a supporter of Proposition 8 in California. Pro-life advocates also worried that Warren’s participation at the Inauguration would appear as a pro-life and Evangelical endorsement of Obama.

However, while Warren did initially support Prop. 8, the measure to ban same-sex “marriage” in California, he did a quick about-face when the matter became a source of public controversy. He has since distanced himself altogether from the marriage battles and has stated he would not intervene if a measure to restore same-sex “marriage” appeared on the ballot – a position that has drawn fire from disappointed pro-family advocates.

Warren, however, has a strong record of upholding the right-to-life and was a signatory to a joint Evangelical-Catholic document, “That They May Have Life.” That resolution affirmed that authentic Christians have an obligation to care for the most vulnerable of society, and defined any deliberate taking of innocent human life – including abortion – as murder.

The document states: “The direct and intentional taking of innocent human life in abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and embryonic research is rightly understood as murder.”

See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

Baptist Seminary Prez Albert Mohler Dismayed by Rick Warren About-Face on Homosexual “Marriage”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09041414.html

HLI Challenges Pastor Warren’s Participation in Obama Inauguration
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08121909.html

Joint Evangelical and Catholic Document on Abortion calls it Murder
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/oct/06102305.html