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 don't think many have a clue about level of discernment.
Thankfully, God does.
DOH!
LOL. Sigh.
CHRIST HIMSELF NOTED THAT IN HIS OWN MINISTRY
MOST FOLKS CAME FOR THE LOAVES AND FISHES AND TO SEE THE MIRACLES.
Sheesh.
Thanks.
AMEN.
Don Joe: I'm having difficulty finding evidence that Brian Nichols became a "radical muslim" in prison. Could you please assist?
Thx -- Jo
VERY WELL PUT.
THX.
To the situation you're referring... as I've previously stated and from what I've read on the subject, I think both Farah and Warren handled the situation incorrectly.
Be real careful how you answer those questions.
Please be careful to accurately represent what I've written.
>>>The more I see and hear of Warren, the less I trust him or believe anything he says.<<<
My wife and I made it through about 4 pages of his book, "The Purpose Driven Life", before we came to the conclusion that he was a Con-Man.
Bingo.
I still remember it as if it happened yesterday, although it was about thirty years ago. My church, having been taken over by "Shepherding and Discipleship" ghouls, the members were forbidden to have any contact with me.
This decree was quite serious. The members were ordered to obey it -- and, they were brainwashed into believing that they MUST obey "the elders", because "rebellion" against "the elders" would be judged as rebellion against GOD, even if "the elders" were "leading them into sin."
It followed a certain event -- the event I still recall after three decades.
What happened was that I asked one of the members to show me where in the Bible his "submission" (um, that'd be "islam", in Arabic, wouldn't it!) doctrine was found.
He couldn't. He also became visibly upset.
I then said, OK, don't show me where your belief is found in scripture -- just tell me WHAT it is that you believe.
At that point, he leapt up, put his hands over his ears, and RAN out of the apartment (his apartment!), yelling at the top of his lungs, "Stop trying to confuse me! Stop trying to confuse me! You're NOT going to confuse me!"
After that little incident, the members were told that I was "possessed by very powerful demons of confusion, which would use me to ask questions for which there was no answer", and therefore, they were prohibited to have ANY contact with me whatsoever.
I could go on -- the blatant LIES that were spread, in order to enforce that decree (and the sense of betrayal that these people experienced when they discovered that they had BEEN lied to) -- but it'd literally be a book's worth of coverage.
The point is, when someone is in the sway of a cult, their ears are sealed, and anything that challenges that hold on them is viewed as an "attack", which they will "defend" -- blindly, and totally, with every ounce of fiber in their being. They will not hear, because they cannot hear. They have been seduced.
Sounds like my sister and her husband who are Gothardites.
Me too. Please ping me if somebody provides a link.
I have personally compared a large number of his Scripture citations in The Purpose Driven Life with reliable translations as well as with the original. In far too many instances, there is no resemblance between his citation of a paraphrase and the original. That, in my estimation, and in the estimation of a number of Bible teachers, is not rightly dividing the Word. It has been documented in a number of places.
That was one of the examples we provided to our friends. Stop making so much sense! ;-)
That's more complex than I care to get into tonight.
I'm typically very underwhelmed by such hair splitting.
All the better paraphrases contribute something to the understanding of God's Word, imho.
THANKS FOR YOUR KIND WORDS.
PTL.
LUB, God's best to you.
I typed Nichols warren prison muslim into Google and "I got links!"
Here are a few random links from that query: http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_1286106.php
Here's a snip from that link:In initial news reports, she failed to mention the methamphetamine she gave her captor. Also little publicized was Nichols' subsequent conversion to Islam. Despite Smith's admission, Warren said the drug had no effect on Nichols' decision to surrender himself. Instead, he said it was an example of how "God uses imperfect people." He said Nichols' conversion stemmed more from necessity – "You gotta convert to Islam if you're in a prison" – than belief.
http://www.newswithviews.com/PaulProctor/proctor78.htm
Oh, this is rich. Here's a snippet from the above link:for some reason they didn't think it was all that important or relevant to point out to anyone later that his new "purpose in life" would be to follow Allah and deny his horrific homicides in court before the eyes of those who witnessed them. You see, Nichols not only converted to Islam in jail after the hostage incident, but also pleaded "not guilty" to the four murders he committed in front of numerous witnesses. (Unbeknownst to most Purpose Driven proponents and their prospects; without confession and repentance, there is no conversion to Christ.)
http://www.covenantnews.com/proctor060128.htm
And here's a snip from the above:Ironically, as a guest himself on Larry King Live, Rick Warren called the much reported incident "a story of two redemptions," in spite of the fact that Nichols unrepentantly pleaded "not guilty" to those multiple courtroom murders and converted to Islam upon returning to jail; not to mention Ashley stating, with Warren at her side, that she had actually been a Christian since around the age of seven. .)
It wasn't really very difficult to find those links. What were you using, that didn't return any info for you?
Thanks for the links.
Brian Nichols Muslim Prison. Came up with the original story.
Once I changed my search criteria from "brian nichols muslim" to "brian nichols islam" I found some hits. The name Paul Proctor keeps coming up. I'll look at this tomorrow.
They're still goin'? Wow. You'd think they'd be fully "basic youth conflicted" out, after the sex scandal, but I guess not.
BTW, there were plenty of other "quirky" horrors over the years besides Gothard and "Shepherding & Discipleship" -- and there was a nontrivial amount of intermingling between some of them (for example, a lot of "S&D" people had their "Basic Youth Conflict" course manual (forbidden to show to outsiders!), and then there was the "The Local Church" thing, as I heard it, parallels to S&D, but a separate heirarchy, dominated by "Witness Lee", who claimed to be a good friend/close associate/official representative/whatever for Watchman Nee.
Where the flesh is, there will the eagles be...
I can say, without a doubt, that I agree with both of you.
Thank you for the pings.
Still, I appreciated the humor. :)
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