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.)
IN essence, this post seems to be wailing about why RW isn't marching to the prescription, timing, priorities etc. of the poster.
I believe it's because he's Biblically marching to the drum GOD GAVE HIM.
You've been at this thread too long....you've lost it.
He teaches what might be called "another" gospel -- one that promises worldly peace, if only the "purpose-driven" rules handed down by Warren will be obeyed.
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Hogwash.
SCRIPTURE SAYS--BLESSED ARE THE PEACE MAKERS. JESUS SAID THAT.
Now if he ends up joining in the Anti-Christ's waging war with peace--we'd have a different situation. But I see no convincing evidence of that.
I am happy to give him a lot of grace as a boundary worker for The Kingdom.
We have some dear friends who started their own church. These friends are very vocal about their dislike for anything seeker sensitive or purpose driven. Our dear friends pride themselves on teaching meat to their local body and refuse to offer anything watered down, seeker sensitive or purpose driven.
We recently visited their church and enjoyed visiting with our friends. Then they asked us some very interesting questions. They asked us what our church does to attract new members. Unfortunately their church isn't growing but they really want to attract new members. We mentioned some of the outreach our church does, we talked about the music, the messages and pointed them to our church website where they can hear previous Sunday messages.
As it turns out, our dear friends who are very vocal about their dislike for all things seeker sensitive and purpose driven, are now seeking gimmicks, techniques, methods, features, emphasis, etc. to attract new members to grow their local body of believers.
They now want unbelievers at their Sunday morning worship services and are looking for additional ways to attract the unchurched. We think that's great and encourage them all the more.
What brothers have I bashed ruthlessly, etc. for umpteen threads without end week in week out; month in month out???
Bill Clinton is the favorite repentent sinner at Willow Creek Church, another Mega Scam fooling people into believing they are being righteous, while affirming their One World Socialist agenda.
He's a chameleon who leads because he wants followers.
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Hogwash. I'm beginning to think that not only are Jr Accusers of the bretheren extremely poor psychologists about RW, they seem to know next to nothing about his past; his personality or his priorities.
Straw dogs from bits and pieces is nonsense.
[...the Holy Spirit is convicting people to a saving knowledge of God through Warren's ministry...]
I've noticed the same thing. People are talking about Jesus because of PDL. I'd say that's fruit.
This has been an interesting year here. We have gone from a minority status to a large majority. The more Warren is publicized, the fewer people defend him.
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What egregious assumptions.
Folks avoid defending him because they don't want to get dirty getting that close to the venom on such ruthlessly RW bashing threads.
Rick Warren is doing what he believes God is calling him to do, the Holy Spirit does the actual work. And if that happens through Warren's ministries then I'm going to rejoice the Body is growing through Warren's ministries.
God doesn't need Warren just like He doesn't need anybody, but God is using Warren's ministry to grow the Body.
I will admit that I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to that deal when it went down (the drug-culture patois somehow seems appropriate given the context) -- I really do NOT appreciate the steady bombardment of tabloid "news" (while REAL news goes unreported) -- so, I only caught the occasional highlight, such as the fact that Mr. Convert turned into a Muslim.
But, I am almost certain that I heard somewhere that it turned out -- after it was too late to do anything about it -- that his selection of her apartment was not, how shall we put it, "random."
Didn't it come out that they knew each other prior to his murderous jailbreak?
Maybe I'm misremembering this, or mixing it up with some other "pop crime" story, but I'm pretty sure I heard something about them being involved before he was originally incarcerated.
If so, it would indicated that Little Miss Purpose-Driven Bringer-to-Islam was also a liar.
Thanks. But it's more than a little wearying.
But the lurkers are worth SOME effort at such.
But I have other threads to attend to. So will likely leave this one shortly.
THANKS TONS FOR YOUR EFFORTS.
Lot of "choking on a gnat" goin' on here.
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My best pastor--in my teens . . . tended to call it majoring in minors and minoring in majors.
Actually, there's a lot of
CHOCKING ON GNAT'S FARTS!
WHAT a sweet compliment.
May God bless you for such Christian thoughtfulness.
One thing I can't argue with is the Holy Spirit is convicting people to a saving knowledge of God through Warren's ministry.
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INDEED.
And the proper Biblical response is not therefore to undermine and throw rocks ruthlessly, relentlessly, wholesale and only.
Rick Warren is doing what he believes God is calling him to do, the Holy Spirit does the actual work.
Did God call him to play those games with Farah, saying he didn't say what he actually did say in Syria? Saying that he didn't tape anything, when he really did? And then pulling his tape offline when confronted with it?
Did the Holy Spirit do the actual misrepresntation for him?
Be real careful how you answer those questions. This is heady stuff...
Not everyone has the same experience with a church. If they did there would never be any dissent or church shopping. But remember this that the day someone finds and joins the perfect church the church immediately becomes imperfect.
This is because we do not leave our human frailties at the door but bring them in with us. Good churches know this and do their best to become a place of refuge, solace, love and support. These things are not separate from the teaching of sound doctrine but part and parcel of it.
Am quite happy to let Christ judge her on that score.
He alone has perfect knowledge of all that.
I'm happy He used her in spite of that.
I realize some folks can't imagine that.
I can.
God has used all kinds of unlikely people in all kinds of situations and ways in my life. And vice versa.
I guess all of us can't be lily white Sunday School prima donnas all our lives.
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