Posted on 11/21/2006 5:49:44 AM PST by TommyDale
Millions and millions of people have purchased his books.
His California church attracts thousands every Sunday.
He seems to be the go-to guy whenever the establishment, ultra-secular press wants to quote an evangelical leader they like.
I'm talking about Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life" and the pastor of the Saddleback Church.
Ever since I first pointed out the way he betrayed the persecuted church and our Jewish brothers and sisters living in captivity in the totalitarian police state of Syria, I have been expecting to get blasted.
Millions and millions of people have purchased his books.
His California church attracts thousands every Sunday.
He seems to be the go-to guy whenever the establishment, ultra-secular press wants to quote an evangelical leader they like.
I'm talking about Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life" and the pastor of the Saddleback Church.
Ever since I first pointed out the way he betrayed the persecuted church and our Jewish brothers and sisters living in captivity in the totalitarian police state of Syria, I have been expecting to get blasted.
I thought for sure I would hear from these millions of well-educated, well-informed, biblically astute purpose-driven disciples.
It has been six days. God created the whole universe in that amount of time. And, so far, I haven't heard one cogent argument, apologia or rationalization for Warren's actions by any of his flock.
I'm told he's got one of the best PR machines money can buy. He sure is not getting his money's worth.
On the other hand, I can tell you hundreds of thousands of people are reading my critiques of his misadventures in misguided foreign policy. We can actually count those readers on WND. And they are being spread far and wide in a viral way by e-mailers and bloggers.
Is the strategy now to ignore Farah?
Is the strategy to pretend WND doesn't exist?
Is the strategy to ignore the hard facts presented here about what Rick Warren said and did in Syria and hope the controversy blows over?
I've got news for you. It's not going to blow over. I won't let it.
I demand an apology from Rick Warren – not to me, for heaven's sake, but to Christians in Syria who choose to worship outside the state-approved churches he toured. I demand an apology to the Jews who suffer the humiliating life of dhimmitude in Syria today while Rick Warren tells the world they don't exist.
This is a world I know something about.
It was just about a year ago that my Jerusalem bureau chief, Aaron Klein, was prevented from entering Syria for one reason – he's Jewish!
Funny, I don't remember Rick Warren protesting that action – minor, really, compared to the indignities Jews in Syria live with daily, but well-publicized nonetheless.
Perhaps Rick Warren hasn't seen the Syrian TV show – a big hit in Damascus – that renews the blood libel direct from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," entertaining millions with a graphic story of a rabbi who slits the throat of a young Christian boy so he can use it to prepare the Passover motzah.
Perhaps Rick Warren hasn't noticed that the Syrian government has published an updated version of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," an anti-Semitic story that claims Jews run the world by proxy.
Perhaps Rick Warren is not aware of hundreds of years of genocidal pogroms that have taken place in Syria at the expense of the Jews.
But of course he must know about all these things, because he says he's an avid reader of my column and an expert on the Middle East because of his membership in the Council on Foreign Relations.
Rick Warren thinks it is commendable that Syria has opened its arms to Christians fleeing Iraq. What he doesn't know or doesn't say is that many of those Christians fleeing Iraq are fleeing bullets and bombs and terrorists that have entered Iraq through Syria. He also doesn't explain President Bashar Assad's penchant for keeping his friends close and his enemies closer.
I'm not going to let this matter slide. Not me. Not this Syrian-Lebanese-American Christian journalist. If Rick Warren thinks dialogue with everyone is so great – let the dialogue begin right here. The persecuted church in Syria can't speak for itself. But I will stand with them in answering Rick Warren's lies about their tormentors.
Here is an example. Start here, then do a Google search with key words "transition" "Purpose Driven" "Emergent" etc.
http://www.churchtransitions.org/
OK, let me clarify.
I read enough to see that they were crap.
I did not read enough to say that I read it.
Make sense now?
Nice catch, btw.
I am sorry that you thought that was browbeating.
Proverbs 9:8 - "Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you."
Nice backpedal.....NOT
Hey, squeeze any kind of victory out of it that you can.
Congratulations.
Regardless of whether it is a correct interpretation of the Bible, it's still not anti-Semitic, which was miy point.
The letter signed by Sproul and others (found at the link in the post to which I replied) does a much better articulating those positions than I could.
Speaking of the history of the COTN, were you aware that, in the 1920's, G. Orton Wiley was tasked with writing the church's statement on inspiration and that he wrote it, in the manner in which he did, with the purpose to leave "elbow room" for science and the like (I believe psychology was on the list along with some other items)...big mistake as it turns out!
If you mean H. Orton Wiley, then yes, I know who he is but I am only generally familiar with his three volume treatise of systematic theology. He was, by the way, a past president of Point Loma Nazarene University where I studied Physics in the summer of '79. I am not familiar with this "elbow room" for sceince of which you speak, but I do know that Wiley is attributed with offering a genuine Wesleyan alternative to Fundamentalism and modernism of his era and putting the theology of the Church of the Nazarene on a more orthodox footing. That's Ok by me and I believe it had little or nothing to do with science.
I don't understand why you see my conclusion as so unreasonable...
I only see your conclusion as unreasonable because you apparently assume that we are using "material" from Warren's group that involves exegesis of scripture - and we are not. We only use the group and class structure, which is a nice way of organizing things- a progression of classes or seminars that first introduce people to membership and then assist them in finding some area in the church where they might efffectively serve.
By the way, it is also impossible to separate message and method.
You're kidding, right? I'll let brother Paul deal with this one:
1Cor.9:19 "For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more.
20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law;
21to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.
22To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.
23I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it."
Paul's message of the Gospel never changed, but his methods certainly did!
Maybe you meant to say that you can't seperate the message from the messenger. But then again you have problems when the message is truth, but the messenger is, well, evil - like Satan and his demons acknowledging the Lorship of Jesus. This whole business is pretty tough sledding isn't it?
LOL.
Rick Warren threads bring out the worst in some folks.
And, some folks seem to post them looking for another opportunity to throw rocks at a fellow believer who's won more souls to Christ and matured more folks in Christ with lasting fruitfulness.
I suspect God has a different perspective regardless of Rick's flaws.
I suppose a case could be made that
LOVING GOD WHOLLY AND ONE'S NEIGHBOR AS ONE'S SELF
and
DOING UNTO OTHERS . . .
is all that's NECESSARY.
Still, I prefer the whole counsel of the whole of Scripture.
GOODNESS!!!! GODLY WISDOM!!!
And discerning spitting out the bones!
Who'd a thunk! And a Christian FREEPER! Goodness!
Not ALL are Rick bashers? Oh, Dear! Clearly the world is coming to an end, then!
Congrats. I love to see uncommon common horse sense. Especially on a rabidly shrill BASH RICK WARREN thread.
THE TRUTH
is also quite effective at shrinking some churches.
So is church discipline.
So is some backbone on the part of more spiritual, assertive folks expressed in a timely fashion.
So is Holy Spirit falling in power and might and pointing out some chronic sins.
I guess we should throw all those things aside or out, too?
LOL.
I'll take Rick Warren over parochial haughty arrogance from biased narrow tidy boxed Christianity any day.
I'll take a Biblical based church over Rick Warren's haughty arrogance any day.
The PDC movement is tailored at making a church that appeals to the selfish nature of the lost, and ignores the true church.
= = =
Hogwash. Didn't see that, at all. I saw a great deal of challenge to
OVERCOMING SELFISHNESS.
Of course, I realize a lot of chronic rock throwers SAY that's what PDL is geared to.
I didn't read it that way.
Perhaps beauty, or not, is in the eye of the beholder.
Ridiculous assertions and shrill rants have never been lacking on the Rick Warren threads.
And the piles of rocks--whether warranted or not--seem to keep getting higher and higher and to fly at increasing frequencies and velocities.
Interesting. Especially for a bunch of loving Believers.
LOL.
Haven't characterized him that way at all. And certainly not compared to his typical bashers.
Actually, as big name folks go, I think he's amongst the more humble.
So is his living on 10% of his income voluntarily. I suspect none of his typical bashers do that.
He lives on 10% because his other 90% goes to foundations and charities that are under his control.
You don't have to. He will knock you down to get in front of a TV camera. Any TV camera. He is an opportunistic marketing person.
Perhaps a highly integris, honest, candid elaboration of the list of things those charisties have accomplished and are in the process of accomplishing for the cause of Christ and Christ's compassion around the world
would be a shred, a microgram's worth of
COMPLETE HONESTY IN ROCK THROWING?
I won't hold my breath, however.
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