Bestselling author and mega-church pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay, have been pushing Christians on social issues for the last decade. They were among the first evangelical leaders to begin championing adoption, which helped turn it into an issue of top priority among the faithful. And through their P.E.A.C.E. plan, they’ve helped mobilize evangelicals to fight AIDS, a disease many Christians believed was God’s judgment on gays and lesbians only a generation ago.
“It may actually be shorter to list causes that [Rick and Kay Warren] have not dedicated time and energy to,” CNN’s Daniel Burke wrote on Tuesday.
But after the Warren’s interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan last night about their son’s suicide and other issues, many wonder whether the religious power couple might lead a Christian movement for gun control.
This past April, Rick and Kay’s son, Matthew, committed suicide with a gun he illegally obtained online. He had attempted to purchase a gun legally several times but was rebuffed because of a red flag on his background check for having been forcibly admitted to a mental institution.
“We’re grateful that the laws kept Matthew from getting the gun for as long as it did,” Rick Warren said in the interview.
At one point, Morgan brought up Washington Navy Yard shooting, noting it as part of a “constant tidal wave” of gun violence in America.
“Now that you’ve been so personally touched and you’re in such a position of authority, is it affecting what you’re going to be saying about this going forward?” Morgan asked the pastor.
“Well yeah,” Warren responded, “I mean it’s going to affect me in all three of those areas, not simply in gun control.”
