Purpose driven AIDS plan

HIV/AIDS | Pastor Rick Warren stirs passions—and politics—at church AIDS summit | Lynn Vincent

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif.— When Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) appeared at this month's 2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church, at Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., some fellow evangelicals warned of dark fallout: Saddleback Pastor Rick "The Purpose Driven Life" Warren was pandering to the secular elite—and was giving quarter to a pro-abortion enemy. Warren and his wife, Kay, would be forced to favor condom distribution over abstinence as a means of preventing AIDS. And Obama, a putative presidential hopeful, would parlay his appearance on Saddleback's stage into a churchy photo-op designed to woo evangelical voters in 2008.

While pundits burbled over the unusual Warren-Obama alliance, Alison Sutherland had more immediate worries: the hundreds of people she works with in Tanzania who are suffering and dying from HIV/AIDS.