Posted on 12/31/2006 8:41:18 AM PST by Gamecock
The facade is beginning to peel back from the so-called ministry of Southern California Pastor Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Church" and "The Purpose Driven Life." Unfortunately, many among his ample flock have far too much invested in him, both emotionally and otherwise, to admit their mistakes and cut their losses.
Moreover, he certainly faces no possibility of in-depth scrutiny from the "mainstream media," as his brand of "Christianity" poses little or no threat to their liberal social agenda. Yet to the degree that anyone at all questions Warren as anything less than authentic, his response is thoroughly telling as to his true character, as well as the nature of his "ministry."
Joseph Farah, editor-in-chief of the Internet news site, "World Net Daily," opened a can of worms by calling Warren to account over his fawning praise of the terrorist stronghold of Syria. While there, Warren lauded the brutish dictatorship as "peaceful," claiming that the Islamist government does not officially sanction "extremism of any kind."
When confronted by Farah, an American of Middle Eastern decent who knows too well the history of horror and tragedy faced by persecuted Christians in that region of the world, Warren immediately denied ever making such statements.
Subsequently, Farah offered as evidence a "YouTube" video from Saddleback Church, where Warren is pastor, inarguably proving Farah's statement. So Warren's church simply pulled the video from circulation and continued the denial, being unaware that a copy of the video file had been downloaded and is still in circulation. Warren's follow-up to this inconvenient circumstance is perhaps most telling of all.
In a concurrent set of moves, Warren sent a seemingly conciliatory e-mail to Farah while distributing another to his "flock," in which he characterized Farah's pursuit of the incident as nothing less than "doing Satan's job for him." Throughout this sorry episode, Farah's only error has been to suggest that Warren's disturbing behavior represents some new departure from consistency.
In fact, Warren is actually being entirely consistent. Whether his audience might be Farah himself, Syrian despot Bashar Assad or the Saddleback congregation, Warren tells each exactly what he believes they want to hear.
This pattern is the essence of what Warren is and what has made him so "successful" from a worldly perspective.
For those among his congregation who sincerely want to know the truth, the evidence is ample. Unfortunately, it always has been available, and any present "confusion" merely results from past decisions to ignore that evidence.
For example, his letter to the congregation decrying the "attack" and making his defense by invoking Scripture is barely four paragraphs long. Yet in those four paragraphs, he employs three different "translations" of the Bible. Why, it must be asked, does he not trust any single translation to convey God's message to humanity?
Could it be that he has his own message and agenda to advance, and that he has found it very convenient to utilize different wordings of different passages, not because they better convey God's purpose, but rather his own?
It would be better to ask, could his motivation possibly be anything else?
As Farah has refused to let this indefensible situation simply drop, Warren has responded by taking it to another realm, making personal attacks against Farah in an interview with the magazine, "Christianity Today." But once again, by so doing, Warren succeeds in revealing much more about himself than about his adversary.
Warren, who has not to date been known as any sort of standard bearer for Christian principle in the political arena, decries Farah (whose societal and moral views fall unambiguously on the right) and his ideological allies as part of a wrongful "political" encroachment on the faith.
In contrast, Warren's forays into the political realm prove, not surprisingly, to be decidedly leftist. At a recent conference on the African AIDS epidemic, Warren invited the very liberal Senator Barak Obama (D-Ill.) as a keynote speaker. He justified the inclusion of Obama, who avidly supports abortion and same-sex "marriage," on the grounds that Obama offered a worldly solution to ostensibly curb the spread of the disease through condom usage.
The morally ambiguous message conveyed by the advocacy of condoms, along with their inherent unreliability, make them nothing less than iconic to the abortion industry, which fully understands how much new business they generate. In the face of such pragmatism, one has to wonder what will be next. Perhaps Warren's church will sponsor a "designated driver's ministry" at every bar in its locale.
Appalling though Obama's inclusion in the conference may be, it is nonetheless entirely consistent with Warren's behavior from the beginning.
Leading a megachurch in the culturally disintegrating landscape of Southern California, Warren certainly knows that his prospects of maximizing the "flock" will be greatly enhanced as long as he shows proper deference to the real religion of the area, "political correctness."
In this, his Christian populism movement has proven to be far more palatable to the God-hating secularists of the surrounding communities than such stodgy, old-fashioned and "intolerant" notions as "Thou Shalt Not." And the Warren influence has been predictable wherever it can be found.
If other churches that abide in the Warren philosophy, such as Chicago's gargantuan "Willow Creek," were to truly uphold Christian values among their enormous congregations, they would certainly be a constant "thorn in the side" of their surrounding populace, acculturated into the modernism as those communities certainly are. Yet an amazing degree of compatibility and congeniality exists between the Warren Church model and the social structures of Chicago and Southern California.
The tradeoff between true Christian principle and acceptability to the locals is apparently worth the spiritual sacrifice it entails, with expanding parking lots, increasingly lavish facilities and, of course, fuller collection plates bearing witness. Meanwhile, such churches offer ever less of a worthwhile and much-needed alternative to the ailing world around them.
Ultimately, Warren gives conformist Christians, wearied from their ongoing battle with a world that is increasingly hostile to true Christian faith, an apparent "out" by offering a version that the modern world can find more acceptable while remaining in its present spiritual darkness.
Many among Warren's vast following have made the mistake, in light of his "purpose driven" ministering, of presuming, at the heart of the movement, a Christ-driven purpose. Yet as Warren's real character continues to be revealed, it is becoming apparent that members of that following are presuming too much.
(Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer and staff writer for the New Media Alliance. He lives in southeastern Wyoming and has been active in local and state politics for many years.)
I wish you wouldn't go away ... you do good work on FR.
I understand if you do ... just wish you wouldn't.
Incidentally, a side note. One of the local churches that underwent the "40 Days of Purpose" took their staff on a retreat. One of the staffers was told to bow at the feet of the pastor. Yikes... If someone had told me to do that, I would have reacted quite violently.
And you know it because we have had a previous, lengthy discussion about it.
But...Please provide the Biblical basis/support for the Holy Spirit working through a man-written book to "convict people to a saving knowledge."
Faith comes by the hearing of the Word (not Warren's book)!
You moved the goalposts and changed the subject being addressed, which was how to test to see if something is correct and of God.
The test to be employed is comparison to Scripture. Your personal experience test is unbiblical.
I don't think so!
And you didn't answer the question...Can a harsh word ever be uttered against a false teacher?
i don't have any problems with Scripter's assertion. God is sovereign. God can and does use any means He so desires in order to accomplish His pleasure, including the preaching of Judas Iscariot, and the sermon of a dumb ass to Baalam. Regrettably, that does not mean that Rick Warren or anyone else is above reproach. Lots of people were saved through the sermons and teachings of people of far less integredy and/or Orthodoxy than Warren currently possesses.
The scriptures are full of many such examples.
While i understand your point, "let's not go beyond what is written".
We need to cut Paul a bit of slack. You know, mercy, tempered with love, and acceptance.
The Apostle Paul named false teachers and turned them over to Satan...Do you have any words of admonition for him, as well?
After all, this was the very early church. He didn't have the benefit of the New! Exciting! Liberating! FUN! stuff that we are coerced into embracing. Heck, they didn't even have overhead projectors back then!
In fact, Paul didn't even have the benefit of learning what it's really all about from Rick Warren!
At least Paul was honest enough to admit to his ignorance! He acknowledged that he "saw through the glass darkly", but, looked forward to a day when we'd be able to see clearly. He knew that some day Brother Rick would arrive on the scene to set us all straight!
So let's go easy on the old man. He was stumbling around in the dark, alienating people right and left (*wince*), even annoying them, with his constant drumbeat of "doctrine" and other boring topics, to the point that they had no choice but to cut off his head!
Think of how productive a life he might have had, if only he'd been able to sit at the feet of Brother Rick!
So let's not be so down on him. Let's pity him, and hope that some day, he'll be in heaven with Brother Rick, kickin' down at the Eternal PAR-TAY!
Hey, God spoke through a jackass.
Yes, i belive that i mentioned that.
>Watch for this guy to get a keynote speaker nod for one night at the 2008 democrat National Convention.<
.....Or the Republican National Convention.
Rick Warren has little to offer me, but obviously, from what I've seen with my own eyes, has something to offer others. His book helped lead my nephew to Christ and I can't condemn Warren for writing in a style that reached my nephew.
Let's see now...
I became a Christian, back in the late '60s, after listening to a guy who was 1) involved with the "Urantia Foundation" cult (and a wilder bunch of madness you are not apt to find this side of The Pit), 2) flipped out on LSD, 3) convinced that women do not have souls, and 4) arrogant, domineering, short-tempered, 5) of the belief that "communion" was God's design for "getting high" (drunk). (And finally, the "foundation" of his "faith" was that, as he put it, Christianity was "the religion of this country", and since he was an American, it only made sense for him to be a Christian.)
Suffice it to say that I, born Jewish, did not exactly warm up to his, ahem, "message" -- and, it was obvious to me that a great deal of what he was saying was total rubbish.
Yet, by the same token, I cannot deny that except for the exposure I had to the Gospel -- provided (tangentially, at least) -- by this guy, I would not have become a Christian.
He didn't lead me to any altar, LOL! But, I did at one point reach over, take his "New English Bible" off his lap, and begin reading it, and that was the beginning of MY new beginning.
So, by the logic presented in your post, I guess we must assume that my old friend (whom I've lost contact with since around 1970), is "A Man of God", and that his "ministry" is to be respected, admired, and looked up to.
I don't think so.
If God can speak through Balaam'a ass, then I think we can safely say that the medium is NOT the message!
(Otherwise, we'd have to respect every radio that we used to hear someone preaching the Gospel. "How dare you speak ill of my Grundig! Do you want God to smite you?" LOL!)
So, there we have it.
The issue I was addressing in the post had nothing to do with Rick Warren. Rather, it had everything to do with how fellow Christians, fellow saints, the sanctified, those whom God has justified, sons, daughters, and heirs of God treat each other on this forum.The fruit is rotten. Why would the unregenerate want anything to do with what they see on this forum? That's the Christianity that eats its own and I want no part of it.
It's worse to call out a warning about a snake in the path, than it is to BE the snake in the path.
"Civility" Uber Alles!
I wonder what Brother Rick would have said to J.C. if he'd caught him whipping the moneychangers, driving them out of the Temple?
Oh, another thing. Not EVERYTHING is "outreach". This thread is a discussion of some serious issues regarding a wolf that is eating the flock. This is NOT an "evangelism meeting"!
Thanks, reading it now...
Nothing you have posted contradicts my post to which you were responding.
Are you seriously asserting that God is NOT sovereign?
The "logic" is rife with portent for madness.
His books twist Scripture ... so why not simply give the Holy Spirit the credit due? Why give credit to a false prophet, RW? That's what I don't understand. RW isn't "saving" anyone through false teachings.
I am a firm believer in testing "logic" by running with it, and seeing where it takes us. So let's do that with this "logic", and see where we end up!
"Don't go saying mean things about Charlie Manson! He may not be perfect (who is?), but he's not completely bad either. One night my ex-sister inlaw's cousin's neighbor's uncle had a flat tire waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere, and he didn't have a jack!
"There were dogs barking in the distance, wolve's baying, and he thinks he saw a couple of UFOs in the sky too -- the bad kind of UFO. Anyway, there he was, his life at a point of utter hopelessness, and then along came Charlie Manson, who not only changed his tire for him, but also gave him a cup of coffee, and told him that he really should be more careful on dark lonely roads like that! Then, Charlie even invited him to come over to visit him at his home! (He had to decline, because he needed to go home and change his pants.)"
OK, that's fiction. This isn't: The "Son of Sam", after looking at a photo of my sister, and chatting with his co-workers (my former brother inlaw trained him on a complex piece of mail-handling machinery), took the time to advise the women on how NOT to wear their hair, how to dress, and so forth, reminding them that "The Son of Sam" might be more attracted to certain hairdos and clothes.
So, for all his evils, we can't deny that he did some good, can we? And it was a pretty selfless gesture on his part, wasn't it! (I mean, using the "logic" that is currently in vogue.)
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