Slate is running a review by religion professor Alan Wolfe of a biography of Rick Warren. Offering a rather tepid scathing of Warren, the piece briefly touches on the important niche that the mega-pastor has carved for himself in the public sphere. Warren has been out of the limelight since his Inaugural moment. Yet his role in the formation of contemporary global religion and politics is still worth examining.

Wolfe correctly sets Warren apart from his high profile predecessors in American Evangelicalism. But I think Wolfe makes a misstep when he links Warren with prosperity theology:

For Warren and those to whom he preaches, worldly accomplishments matter but so does God's grace. American and capitalist values instruct us that we rise in life due to our own efforts. Warren teaches above all that it happens because we are fulfilling God's plan. The combination is irresistible: We can take pride in what we have become without viewing ourselves as selfish egoists.

Warren's theology and ethos is not a blatant defense of wealth. Instead, it positions him as a sort of high priest in the reigning "soft capitalism." Slavoj Žižek, the uberhip psychoanalyst/philosopher, explains this new breed best. We now have the weird reality where capitalist philanthropists (i.e. Bill Gates) are the saviors of the developing world and Starbucks the champions of fair trade. In theological terms, our sin (consumption) is redeemed by the good deed (e.g., saving Guatemalan farmers) made possible by our consuming. Žižek points to the irony that our capitalist system itself is what created the vast inequalities that corporate charity is attempting to dilute.

So we have this Christian leader rising to global prominence in an age where this logic is emerging as dominant. A cogent defense of "soft capitalism" concludes that we now have a more empowered consumer. Companies would not be going green, organic, or fair without the egging on of the conscientious buyer.

Of course, the retort to this would be that we are left with a libertarian defense of the political status quo. The same critique can be applied to Warren:  despite turning Evangelicals from ardent absolutes and toward relevant issues (HIV/AIDS), Warren's style is toothless. He wields a political power without a prophetic edge. And, like the new form of capitalism, his theology does little to address collective responsibility or systemic forces behind those pesky global problems.

Warren remains an incredibly fascinating subject to watch. Rather than simply critiquing his logic, I would prefer people look how his worldview is aligned with the dominant ideological approaches to policy solutions.