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Piers Morgan Live

Interview with Rick Warren

Aired December 06, 2013 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PIERS MORGAN, CNN ANCHOR: This is PIERS MORGAN LIVE. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Also a welcome to my studio audience. Tonight, Rick Warren in good faith on PIERS MORGAN LIVE (inaudible) special.

Good evening. Pastor Rick Warren is here, answering your questions about faith and purpose in this holiday season, on dealing with family tragedy, on the pope and his new direction for the Catholic Church, and on the faith-based diet plan that saved his life and could possibly save yours, or mine for that matter. Joining me now is pastor Rick Warren, the founder of the Saddleback Church. Rick, it's great to see you.

RICK WARREN, PASTOR AND FOUNDER OF THE SADDLEBACK CHURCH: Thanks Piers it's good to be back.

PIERS MORGAN, HOST THE PIERS MORGAN SHOW: It's been a few months since we last sat down and it was an incredibly heart rending interview I did with you and your wife Kay. Got an extraordinary reaction, I know that you did too, it touched a nerve with so many people because to have somebody who's job on a daily basis is comforting everybody else to suddenly have this awful tragedy of the suicide of your son hit you as a family. I think really resonated with people. How are you coping since I last spoke to you as a family?

WARREN: Well I'm doing the same things that we talked about in that interview. I'm spending a lot of time not just with friends who support me but also in solitude, in prayer, in thinking, in grieving. And when I feel an emotion I let it come out. If you shake up a coke bottle and you don't let it out it's eventually going to come out sideways and grief is actually a good thing. It helps us get through the transitions of life. It helps us make through the difficulties and so, what I've actually been spending a lot of time doing lately is helping other people.

Because when we did that interview people who either had a family member who is mentally ill or have family member who's taken their life came out of the woodwork or either following me on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or e-mails, all of a sudden both Kay and I have received and I'm not exaggerating tens of thousands of letters, calls and notes from, I get it, I know what you're going through. And many times I don't have an answer for this people just, I understand, I understand what you're going through. MORGAN: There was one question that many people I think were fascinated by your answer to and there's a member of the audience who has a question for you which I think touches on the same thing, it's Bonnie Smith. Bonnie what's your question for Rick Warren?

BONNIE SMITH, AUDIENCE: I had a child that passed away and it's been 36 years and I've accepted it as much as I can and I'm living a normal life now but my struggle is trying to again, get peace with myself for why. Why did this happen to me? Why when you hear so many times, Piers has said it many times on his show, that is the worst thing that could ever happen to anybody and it did happen, I have to live with it but I would somehow want to come to peace with why so I can put that aside and I haven't been able to.

MORGAN: Rick I suppose the general question on the back of that is, how can a loving God put people through such terrible pain of taking a child away?

WARREN: Yeah, well again as I said, it would be very easy for God to remove all the evil in the world, just take away my freedom to do it and your freedom to do it. He could have made us all puppets where we always do the right thing, but we don't. And he gave us this freedom because God wants people to genuinely love him and it isn't really love unless you have the freedom to not love. In other words, if I'm forced to love you it's not real love. So I have to have a choice and so, while God is not the author of evil, Bible says God cannot do evil, he is not the author for evil, hates evil and one day will destroy evil.

In the meantime God is allowing this choice and everything on this planet is broken by evil, broken by sin. Our bodies are broken, they don't work perfectly, the weather is broken, the economy is broken, every marriage is broken. Nothing is perfect on this planet, so we shouldn't expect that, that is why we pray, "thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," because in heaven God's will is done perfectly, on earth it's done rarely, rarely and so that's why we're to pray, God thy will be done on earth as it is on heaven.

Now if we're looking for the answer to the question why in order to feel good, even if you know why it's not going to take away your pain, so stop asking why. You see if Kay were to drop dead tomorrow and I were to know the reason why it wouldn't make it any less painful. Explanations never comfort. God specializes in turning crucifixions into resurrections. He specializes in bringing good out of bad. Anybody can bring good out of good. God specializes in brining good out of bad. I can even see already how God has brought good out of the terrible badness of my son's suicide, it's made me more sensitive. I'm much more sensitized to people's pain.

MORGAN: Are you a better Pastor do you think because--

WARREN: Without a doubt.

MORGAN: ... of the searing agony you've had because--

WARREN: Without a doubt, in fact if you study anybody who's used greatly, you go through pain. It is pain that actually sensitizes, in fact I will hire anybody on my staff who hasn't gone through major pain and I do this because if you've never gone through major pain then you tend to, when people's in pain your attitude is well, get over it and it's very insensitive. It's kind of like buck up, do better and you're going, you have no idea, you have no idea. It is humanizing, it humbles you and so, the changes that take place in you are what I call -- the Bible calls is sanctification that when I become more like Christ in attitude, more love more joy more peace more patience more kindness these are things that come through brokenness.

MORGAN: Let me just play a clip. This is from Kay talking during the interview that we did together. This is about Matthew and about the issue of guns and mental illness.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: When did he finally get this gun?

K.WARREN: A month before he took his life.

MORGAN: And do you know how he got it? Who he got it from?

K.WARREN: He told me that he -- he told me everything and he told me that he had found somebody finally on the internet who would sell it to him and it had to be super encrypted and it had to be, you know, this whole process and he begged me to help him because he couldn't figure out the process and again there's so many moments of terrible choices with mental illness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: I mean even since then we've seen other incidents, the Naval Yard Shooting, the suicide of the Virginia Senator Creigh Deeds and so on. A lot of incidents always come back it seems to this lethal cocktail of mental illness and ready availability of guns. No one seems to be tackling this, what is the answer, how do we get to grips with this?

WARREN: I think one of the reasons why it's being hard to tackle is because there are so many guns out there. In the first place there are almost as many guns in America as there are people. You know, 300 million or something plus guns I don't -- I can't see any foreseeable future we're going to be able to pull all those back from law abiding citizens. In the first place the Constitution allows them to have it but while I may not be able to do everything, what can we do to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people?

I don't care whether you're conservative or you're liberal or anyone in between. Everybody's going to agree guns do not belong in the hands of mentally ill people.

MORGAN: What does it say though about a great country like America? The greatest super power of the world, that here we are a year after 20 elementary school children were literally blown to pieces in their classrooms and the President stood there a few days later and said, I will take action. And then here we are a year later, and absolutely nothing has been done, nothing. No background checks bought in, no ban on assault weapons, no ban on high capacity magazines. Nobody in Washington has done anything to try and prevent this happening again. What does that tell you about the state of the debate about it, before anything else?

WARREN: I don't know how they're going to attack it politically. I do know that as a Pastor I have to attack it any way I can and one of the ways that I can do it is deal with the mental illness area. Why are there so many people mentally ill out there not getting the help they need? We have, since the Reagan Administration, the number of facilities, the beds for mentally ill people has dropped. We can get the statistic but it's tenfold easily.

MORGAN: Which is scandalous.

WARREN: Well it is and so, we're caring less and less. If you care about homeless people, you have to care about mental illness. If you care about police people dealing with people on the streets then you got to care about mental illness because they'll tell you, a lot of those crimes are around mental ill. If you care about vets returning home from war, you've got to care about mental illness. Because a sizable number of veterans are dealing with post traumatic stress syndrome. So, mental illness touches into far more areas than simply that person's crazy and right now who's caring for them are the families and we've talked about this before.

There is not enough support for families of mentally ill because the pendulum swung the other way to care for the individual rights of privacy. I had a son who, my son gave me permission to talk to the doctors about his mental illness and gave Kay permission and the doctors wouldn't talk to us for fear of lawsuits. And I'm going, now that's just wrong, we have to somehow give the tools to the mentally ill people. All those people who are mentally ill out there with guns, somebody's a parent to those people. And those parents are probably throwing up their hands going, I have no support, no resources and so, I think we've got to hit it on four, five different angles.

MORGAN: Let's take a break and talk about moral America, a lot of concerns right now about cyber bullying, about this terrible knockout game that's sweeping the country, the callousness of it about the behavior of many students and colleges up and down the United States. Let's get stuck into all of this after the break.

(COMMERICAL BREAK)

MORGAN: With cyber bullying to vicious attacks captured on mobile phones, a lot of people are wondering, America's loosing its sense of right and wrong. Back with me now the perfect man to talk about that Pastor Rick Warren, I'm now here with my studio audience.

Rick there's a kind of a new phenomena isn't there? It's all related to the internet to social media to camera phones and videos. Everybody want to put everything out there. It attracts bad people who do bad things. Cyber bullying has become an epidemic really not only in America but around the world. You also see this knockout game, it's a horrendous things that's led to people loosing their lives where young kids are beating people up, to knockout them out and record it and post it on some kind of social media. What is this telling you as America's past about the state and morality in America right now? And how do we tackle it?

WARREN: Well I think you hit it on the head Piers when you said that the internet has really made a megaphone. It's created the platform, these kinds of things have been there but they are magnified now because everything on the internet is permanent, it's global and it's searchable. And so for instance we all have a sense of narcissism in our lives where it's all about us but the internet feeds that and so, I think that the drug of choice today is fame.

I think fame is more important to young adults today than anything else and everybody is trying to live, either A, a perfect life on the internet and posting like my perfect life on Instagram or Tweeter things like that. Or if I don't have a perfect life, I can't get approval I will get attention and I will get attention by doing something bizarre and mean spirited or whatever. Our civilization is loosing its ability and the internet is increasing the amount of rudeness and the reason why is, if I'm sitting here talking to you like this, we have to have a sense of civility. We can disagree on all kinds and in fact we do but we can be civil on certain things and treat each other with respect. But when I hide behind a screen I can throw firebombs at you and say all kind of mean spirited things.

MORGAN: And you've actually -- you've had this?

WARREN: Oh of course.

MORGAN: I mean over the death of your son Matthew. You had not just people setting up fake site to try and get money out of the situation but directly abusing you over rumors about him and so on, I mean incredibly hurtful.

WARREN: Yeah, we've actually closed down now over 600 fake Facebook sites of people trying to make money on my son's death, using my name.

MORGAN: 600?

WARREN: On Monday they closed down 13 just on Monday. This is six months later, and so, the internet has allowed people to become famous, any war hall (ph) statement for 15 minutes. Everybody's fame is 15 minutes but we're doing it for the wrong things but hiding behind the screen, I can say all kinds of mean spirited things that I wouldn't say to your face.

And I've actually, sometimes invited critics at Saddleback Church, come to Saddleback sit them down and across the table they become as meek and mild as a kitten and actually will then go back and write something fairly nice and immediately they are attacked, because you attack what you are. And if you still hate all the time then you attract haters and the moment you try to show some love, you become the target. And so then immediately they have to go back and say, well I really didn't mean that. MORGAN: When this knockout, I'm not going to call it a game, it's an atrocity with young kids, marching around in gangs knocking out old people, women, whoever they can find to record it online and just post it. As you say to be famous, to be infamous.

WARREN: Well I know this is controversial but I personally believe this is because of the absence of father in the lives of young kids that most kids in America today are growing up without the presence of a father in their life, most kids. I think probably 26 percent of all Anglo kids grow up without the presence of a father. Nearly half the Hispanics and nearly 70 percent African American, together it's over half of the kids growing up today don't have a father figure in their lives who's going, hey don't do that, don't do that.

Now what about those kids who don't have a dad? Well studies have shown that the single one, number one determine or factor of whether their kids are going to succeed in life or not is A, the presence of a caring adult in their life. And the interesting factor in the study show it doesn't have to be a dad, it just has to be an adult. And so it may be a coach, it may be a big brother, it may be a teacher, it may be somebody at church, it may be somebody who comes alongside but we are missing this mentoring of the next generation.

MORGAN: And if it's not a good mentor, it is likely to be a gang leader or somebody who can offer some kind of group or love of some weird type--

WARREN: Every kid is going to be a part of a group, either a good one or a bad one and if you don't provide a good one then they're going to be a part of them. I'm actually speaking on this Christmas this year, I'm doing a message on the transforming power of unconditional love. The Bible says, God so loved the world that he gave, so this Christmas gift of God's gift and one of the things that, if I've never felt unconditionally loved by somebody, I spend most of my life trying to figure out what my identity is and I'm going to go out here and if I can't find it in God or in my family then I'm going to find it in maybe some kind of a bizarre behavior.

And so I'm actually going to speak on this on Christmas. I do 14 services and we'd talk about how you need the unconditional love, you need to feel it, not just know God loves you but to feel it so that it transforms your identity from I don't have to prove my -- my kids are running games, they're looking for identity, pure and simple, they're looking for identity.

MORGAN: Let's take another break, let's talk more about leadership because this is what it really comes down to, whether its in a family or an institution. I want to talk about the Catholic Church, I'm a Catholic and the extraordinary new Pope Francis who is ripping up trees around the world and you'd say he's trying to raise (inaudible) on this guy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: Pope Francis is surprising a lot of people both inside and outside the Catholic Church with his statements about the poor, about abortion about gay marriage. To talk about all this is Pastor Rick Warren the founder of Saddleback Church, also with us my studio audience.

He's quite something Pope Francis isn't he? He is making a hell of a noise out there and I would say as a Catholic I like the caliber of this noise.

WARREN: I am nothing but impressed by this new Pope. Amazing, first place in my book the three most important characteristics for leadership are humility, integrity and generosity. And in the first months of his leadership he has shown those symbolically what he has done for a lifetime OK? His humility of showing up -- you know, paying his own hotel bill and checking out, you know, (inaudible) all of the bling and other things, the accouterments of power things like that. This is a man who spent his life working with the poor. This is a man who I happen to admire because his work with people with HIV AIDS and as, you know, Saddleback has been involved and that we just had World AIDS Day where we've been real involved in helping -- try to remove the stigma and in getting the zero by the end of this decade if we can on AIDS.

And so his integrity, I love the fact that before he starts talking about, you know, businessmen being greedy, he talks about Bishops being greedy.

MORGAN: Right.

WARREN: And before he starts talking about the low morals in the world he talks about the low morals in the church. OK? Let's do a little house cleaning on the home first and I love that.

MORGAN: Yes I agree with it. He made another news by criticizing the so called trickle down theory of economics. He said this, "Some people continue to defend trickle down theories which is economic growth encouraged by a free market will inevitably succeed in brining about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power, meanwhile the excluded are still waiting."

And it's very interesting the reaction to this. You have the conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh who came out and said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, CONSERVATIVE AMERICAN RADIO TALK SHOW HOST, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: If it weren't for capitalism I don't know where the Catholic Church would be, as I mentioned before I'm not Catholic, I admire it profoundly and I've been tempted a number of times to delve deeper into it. But the Pope here has now gone beyond Catholicism here and this is pure political.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Now it probably is pure political as well as everything else but in the end, isn't it the Pope just effectively standing up as he always has done for the poor about what he said?

WARREN: Well absolutely, first he just have the authority of speaking as a man who spent his life helping the poor. But here's an interesting thing about priest, bishops, cardinals, pastors, ministers or anybody else. Much of the world is happy for us to have an opinion as long as it's only about Jesus. OK, they don't want to stab an opinion about anything else it's like. So, the Pope can't have an opinion on economics? Really? It's like that's off limits for him? Now whether you agree with that or not is irrelevant, the fact is, first place on a leader I think every leader should be given a 10 percent grace factor on anything he says because things are taken out of context all the time.

I make one sentence statements all the time that if you put them over here and you say that looks like, well (inaudible), well I don't believe that at all.

MORGAN: I mean he follow up with this Tweet which was interesting, "If money and material things become a center of our lives, they seize us and make us slaves"--

WARREN: Which his exactly right.

MORGAN: I mean I watch, as I always do living in America the kind of after a very difficult year financially for so many millions of Americans, you look at Black Friday and Cyber Monday and the whole country goes completely bonkers.

WARREN: Here's the thing there's a big difference between being a "socialist, a communist and someone who says, materialism cannot be our God." Those are totally different things, just because a person says, "We cannot make money, the Almighty God doesn't mean he's anti capitalist in any way." There's -- Communism says, what's yours is mine and I have a right to take it. Capitalism says, what's mine is mine and I have a right to keep it. Christianity says, what's mine is actually God's and I'm willing to share it. OK? And I have no doubt, I have no doubt and I haven't talked to but I have no doubt that's what he believes because that's the historic doctrine of the church is that we are called to share and while I'm much more favor of voluntary sharing than forced sharing. OK? And I'm in favor of -- you know, Saddleback is what's called the Peace Plan -- P-E-A-C-E it promote reconciliation, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, educate the next generation.

In the last 10 years, I've sent 23,000 of my members to 196 countries to assist the poor, care for the sick, educate the next generation. Those kinds of things get done by churches all the time. And so, to limit the church, say, "You can only speak on this one area." I think it's none sense.

MORGAN: What about what he said about gays? He said that that "If someone is gay and seeks the law of goodwill, who am I to judge?" This seem to me -- again, as a Catholic -- a huge departure from anything, I could remember any previous pope saying it flies really against what many Catholics would say themselves.

WARREN: Yes.

MORGAN: You and I, we've debated this before about gay rights, gay marriage. Clearly, it's a movement in America as it is around the world...

WARREN: Right.

MORGAN: ... towards to a much more tolerant attitude to this. Have you in the last two years since I last I think debated this particular point with you -- have you moved at all now? Are you recognizing that there is this seemingly unstoppable movement?

WARREN: Well, I don't get to change what God says is right and what God says is wrong. And I think God is real clear that all sex outside of marriage is wrong. But the issue here is the issue of respect. While I may disagree with you on your views on sexuality, it does not give me a right to demean you, to demoralize you, to defame you, to turn you into a demon.

See tolerance, Piers, it used to mean we treat each other with mutual respect even if we have major disagreements. Today, tolerance has been changed to mean, all ideas are equally valid. Well, that's none sense. OK? All ideas are not equally valid.

I mean, you could say the moon is made of cheese or I could say the moon is made of beans and so many ask me it mean wrong.

MORGAN: But do you believe in equality for all as your heart right? This is where I think I took issue with you before and I will again -- how can you really as a Christian man...

WARREN: Yes.

MORGAN: ... a great man -- how can you espouse genuine equality...

WARREN: Yes.

MORGAN: ... if you don't allow gay people the same rights to get married...

WARREN: Yes.

MORGAN: ... as straight people? That's a question that many I think would love to hear the answer.

WARREN: I'd like to reposition it this way. I'm more against the redefinition of the term marriage than anything else. I don't think other groups get an opportunity to redefine a term. For instance, if a Muslim says this is a term we use and also I'll take that term and mean it for me. What? That's not right.

And I think, historically around the world, the vast majority of people would say, "Marriage means one man and one woman in a commitment." Don't take a term and make it something different.

Well, we'll talk about double speak where words mean the exact opposite of what they use to mean. I'm going -- OK. In first place, it's not against the law for you to love anybody, a man or a woman OK? It's not criminal -- at least shouldn't be but when you start taking a term, then why are taking that term?

MORGAN: Well, that term is from the Bible Right?

WARREN: Well, I -- certainly the Bible -- it says God created marriage.

MORGAN: Right, you see, my issue with that is there are many things in the Bible would simply today wouldn't fly.

WARREN: Well I understand if you don't accept the Bible like I do.

MORGAN: You must look at me in a lustful way or an evil man on this audience. According to the Bible...

WARREN: Yes.

MORGAN: ... you should be stoned to death. Now, clearly we don't do that anymore...

WARREN: Yes.

MORGAN: So there are a number of things in the Bible which seem very anachronistic.

WARREN: Yes. OK. Let me...

MORGAN: And therefore, one more time I'm going to come back to you...

WARREN: That's right.

MORGAN:... because we're going to keep talking about it I'm sure for years to come. Eventually, I'll beat you down.

WARREN: Oh, ye of little faith.

MORGAN: Do you think you'll change? I mean, can you see -- you're a man on a -- he has this incredible library, Rick Warren -- literally, one of the great libraries I've ever seen in my life, kept beautifully. You have all these books by all these great scholars.

WARREN: Yes.

MORGAN: Many, many of them would have evolved their thought processes over things depending on how they see if the -- can you see a time, when not just you but other Christian preachers...

WARREN: Yes.

MORGAN: ... and indeed the Catholic church and others say, "You know, what actually real equality means everyone has the same right to get married -- gay or right."

WARREN: I cannot see that happening in my life. I fear the disapproval of God more than I fear your disapproval or the disapproval of society. And so, I can't change what I think God has said. Now, I believe in the infallibility of Scripture. I do not believe in the infallibility of my interpretations. So, interpretations can be wrong -- we know that that as true but I believe that what Scripture says is that sex is for a man and a woman in marriage.

MORGAN: Let's take another break because I'm not going to win this argument today clearly although I know...

WARREN: But you keep having me back on your shoe. So that's the cool thing.

MORGAN: Let's come back and talk about how faith can help me lose weight because I rather like this idea.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: Back now with my studio audience. And my special guest is Pastor Rick Warren. Who are joining the conversation? Tweet me @PiersMorgan. Millions of people follow this steps to a Purpose Driven Life. Now, he's having his sights on America's obesity problem. His new book is the "Daniel Plan: 40 Days to a Healthier Life".

Also joining us his co-authors, Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Daniel Amen. Welcome to you, gentlemen.

It's fun to be here.

Coming at least from all fronts a trilogy activity (inaudible). So Rick Warren, what is this all about? What is the Daniel Plan? How are you going to get me healthier in 40 days?

WARREN: Most diet plans are pretty simplistic 'cause they only deal with food and fitness. Human beings are far more complex than this, it's not always just what you eat, it's what eats you, that can affect your health and so we took a much larger approach of what we call the five Fs. Faith and that is what's my motivation behind getting healthy. Focus and that is how do I need to think in order to be healthy, Friends which is I -- I don't get healthy on my own, I need other people. Then Food, eating correctly and then Fitness, and so we added in what we've called the secret sauce, which is -- is adding in the issues of your motivation and your -- your community that's helping you and -- and how you think about it. Changing your way in all three of these areas.

MORGAN: See - the four I (inaudible) to say, is I pray every week to loose weight and nothing ever happens so -- so I'm not sure if God is listening to me, I mean in other words, out of interest how many ...

WARREN: Let's get on our knees right now again together.

MORGAN: How many people in the audience have tried to diet? OK, and of those, how many have been completely successful in keeping the weight down after the diet? OK, a lot fewer hands, congratulations to those, I think saw a hand back here. It's incredibly difficult, I mean Rick I, you know, I told you about this before, you -- yoyo'd in weight all your life really ...

WARREN: Yeah, yeah.

MORGAN: ... and particularly, I mean it's interesting talking to you before we started that you we're hit by the big issues this year which hit many people which cause weight increase, you know, you had back injury.

WARREN: Exactly.

MORGAN: You had terrible loss in your family.

WARREN: I didn't sleep for six months when Matthew died, and then people were bringing us food everyday for months.

MORGAN: Right.

WARREN: I actually on the Daniel Plan, lost 65 toward my goal of 90, then actually after Matthew died all of that period and actually being unable to exercise too, because of my back I was in the hospital. I gained about 35 back, I've learned I lost 30 of that I will prove twice that this plan works. You know, it -- it all started I've written, I only did about a book out of decade. And in the '90s I wrote a book called ...

MORGAN: And each one sells about 3 billion copies ...

WARREN: A lot.

MORGAN: ... so that's impressive doesn't it?

WARREN: This one is actually on physical health and -- and actually the reason why is that I discovered that a lot people want to change, make changes in their life but they don't have the energy to make changes. They go -- yes, I'd like to work in my marriage, I'd like do work in my finances, I'd to work in my career, I'd to work in all these things. But I come home at night, I'm worn out, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, I lay down on the couch and I don't have any energy to change. So thought, if I could only get the energy level up then maybe we could work on some of things many things too.

MORGAN: Now I'm going to Mr. Skeptic here, Dr. Mark Hyman, you're a family physician. Why should spirituality, the power of prayer, any of that stuff have any effect of my ability to be fit or lose weight?

MARK HYMAN, CO AUTHOR, THE DANIEL PLAN: You know what's extraordinary Piers is that people change together in community. When you look at the science of behavior change, people change together, we get better together. Science of change in Biology, how to get healthy, it's easy, you eat the right food, you exercise, you take care of your self, but how do you get people to change their behavior? That's the secret here, how, it's a social power of our social networks, you're more likely to be overweight if your friend's friend, friend is over weight, than if your parents are over weight. The social threads that connect us are far more important than the genetic prints.

MORGAN: Let me bring you Dr. Daniel Amen, now you're a psychiatrist, so really, we're now getting into your world here. How are you going to convince people in their heads, never mind anything else, to come and do this because if this is the master plan you got to persuade them?

AMEN: So there are a 140 studies now, that say as your weight goes up, the actual physical size, and function of your brain goes down.

WARREN That scared me more than a heart attack.

MORGAN: Is that true?

AMEN: That's true.

MORGAN: When the brain smaller as you get fatter?

AMEN: Yes.

MORGAN: Wow.

AMEN: I published two of those studies ...

HYMAN: Big belly is bad.

AMEN: Because fat produces something called ...

MORGAN: There's something in my stomach (inaudible).

AMEN: And that's what -- what Rick said (inaudible) hooked him wasn't getting healthy for heart not to live longer because he's going to heaven, to be sexier, look at him he's already sexy but -- but what do you understood is that his influence comes from the health of his brain and if -- and 70 percent of Americans are over weight. This is the biggest brain drain in the history of the United States as we're unhealthy we're not going to be making good decisions.

MORGAN: OK let's take a short break, let's come back I want to know how you're going to in 40 days, how much weight I could realistically, if I stick rigidly to the trilogy of experts here, how much I'm going to lose?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: Back now with my studio audience. My special guest Pastor Rick Warren, his new book is The Daniel Plan, 40 Days To Healthier Life. Also with us his co-authors Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Daniel Amen. I want to start the question here. This is actually from Richard, one of the members of our audience. Richard where are you? Over there, what's your question.

RICHARD: I'm a nurse practitioner I was wondering if I should advice my patients to wait until after the holidays, it's like their 40 days.

AMEN: Absolutely not, you know, loose weight through the holidays. MORGAN: How? I just want to drink, eat and be merry. How am I going to eat, drink and be merry with Scrooge sitting here? Saying oh no, get down to gym.

AMEN: So who has more fun? The person with the good brain or the person with the bad brain?

MORGAN: The person with the good bottle of Jack Daniels.

AMEN: No.

WARREN: There's a difference between deprivation and making good decisions, let's talk about that.

HYMAN: That's right, I think it's really key. This is about abundant it's about delicious food. It's not about giving up about what you love, it's about giving up the stuff that's not creating wellness and health for you and you can have a fabulous meal, fabulous food with fabulous flavor, well I'm going to give up anything and that's the whole point of--

MORGAN: Every six weeks I feel an inherent craving to march to McDonalds to have a Big Mac and large fries, I'd do it religiously no offense Rick. What are you going to do about? Does it matter?

AMEN: So start reading the labels so get on the internet--

MORGAN: But I wanted to eat it, I like it.

AMEN: Of course because--

MORGAN: Even though I know it's terrible--

AMEN: They have food scientist that combine fat, sugar and salt and the preservatives to work on, it's called the nucleus accumbens, little pleasure center in your brain to get you addicted.

MORGAN: So this book, is it -- it's not really a conventional diet book is it? It is more about the psychology. So tell me what are you hoping, well these audience said, many of them have tried and failed with diets through their lives what is the key take away here from this book that can change things?

HYMAN: I mean it's very simple. First eat real food, if it was made by a man in a factory it's probably not good for you. If it was created by nature or God it's probably good for you.

MORGAN: Plant food?

HYMAN: Yeah, plant food, nuts, seeds, beans, whole of grains--

WARREN: It grows on a plant eat it, if it's made in a plant--

(INAUDIBLE)

HYMAN: Simple as that, and then it's also-- MORGAN: What about meat? Can you eat as much wings as you like?

HYMAN: Me chicken, fish, all of those things are foods.

MORGAN: What are the biggest no no's?

HYMAN: Sugar, flour, processed foods, factory foods,(inaudible), corn syrup, trans fats, MSG all these things that are -- the abundant things in our diet that are driving addiction--

MORGAN: I see all these faces behind you go, oh no I love donuts and I love--

HYMAN: That's not love that's addiction, that's not love.

MORGAN: What do you think has been the most effective thing for you in terms of loosing weight?

WARREN: Well there are three things. One I got in a group. We have six, actually 7,000 small groups at Saddleback Church that everyone we put a health champion in each group to help people through the Daniel Plan, those who want to do it. By doing it in community it's like having your accountability and support group, that's one. Second I changed the motivation, because the motivation it was never enough motivation on I want to look good and I want to feel good. I take this from a spiritual viewpoint. The Bible says, God created my body, Jesus died for my body, the spirit lives in my body so he better expect me to take care of it.

Actually is when Daniel began to talk about the influence of poor health on your brain that's something I cared about.

MORGAN: See that was -- I don't want my brain shrinking.

WARREN: Yeah, yeah me neither. And so, it's not enough simply to do food and fitness, you got to do focus, that's to change the way you think. You got to do friends, you got to get support group and you got to do faith and that is what's your motivation bigger than simply I want to look good.

MORGAN: Its fascinating stuff gentlemen, I think it's going to be a big hit, The Daniel Plan, 40 Days To A Healthier Life, Rick Warren, Daniel Amen and Mark Hyman. Thank you all very much indeed. I think, the audience are you ready for this The Daniel Plan?

And Rick just a final question for you, obviously you said, the most difficult year of your life, how will you be spending Christmas this year as a family?

WARREN: You know, Christmas, there's three purposes of Christmas. The three things that the angel said, I bring you good news of great joy for unto you is born this day a savior and peace on earth goodwill toward men. So I try to do a Christmas to those three things. Celebration, salvation and reconciliation that's how I spend Christmas. MORGAN: Rick it's great to see you. A little surprise to the audience, look under your seat you'll see copies of both of Rick's books. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: I want to thank my studio audience and of course my special guest Pastor Rick Warren and his co-author Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Daniel Amen, their new book is the "Daniel Plan, 40 Days to a Healthier Life." I will be starting it in January.

That's it for us tonight. See you all here next time.