Trying to soften it by calling it "true dedication" is disingenuous; Rick Warren himself described it as "radical devotion."

Brainwashed, cult-like zeal is never good, even if it is in the service of an ostensibly "good" message. (Which it always is -- the key word being "ostensibly." No one joins a cult because they think it's evil.)

Furthermore, whether evangelical Christianity is "good" is a matter of considerable debate. The mere fact that this controversy exists should be more than enough to defend this video, but I am also trying to make a more general point.

When a charismatic leader is encouraging people to do "whatever it takes," and he is also the one who is poised to explain to them exactly what "whatever it takes" means, I don't think that expressing concern makes you a "retard," as you so eloquently put it. Not even if that leader is the Dalai Lama.

It would have been better if he'd used those figures as examples.

But the reason why he used such notorious figures is because of the shock value -- it instantly forces his audience to think about those "evil" men, and what they could achieve, so why not use that force for good?

That said, context is everything. I'm not a fan of the evangelical movement, or of Rick Warren, but I think this video is a bit disingenuous. Clearly, Warren is not an admirer of Hitler, Lenin, or Mao, nor does he expect his followers to behave like brownshirts.

Those who dislike aspects of the Christian Right would be better off engaging them honestly, and assuming that they are, at root, ordinary Americans with an ordinary sense of American decency.

I am truly hoping that the Obama era brings in an age of more dialogue in America's "culture war" and an end to the polarization we've seen in the last decade (well, truthfully, the last several decades, but it's been heightened under the Bush Administration).

Nor His follower. ;)