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.)
There are a few of them. But he would be the main one.
I understnd he was kicked off this site:
http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/archives/2005/11/7_things_i_lear.php
Yes he was (several times) & from my understanding threatened with legal action. But there are others.
Very well put. Thanks.
However, Am going to endeavor to pray more and post less on such venomous threads. God knows the hearts of all involved. He also knows the truth evidently far better than some. It may well be that a lot of unjust, unBiblical, inaccurate venom gets spread far louder and wider. But that will have to rest on the heads of the guilty involved.
Have been blessed by Romans in THE MESSAGE version more this time around than even earlier times. And I Cor, now, too. Paul is pretty clear about the Biblical stance on a lot of such things. Perhaps will end up posting mostly or only Scripture. I don't know.
But I don't want the ruthless venom to have as much air time with my eyes as it must if one reads such threads so often, so much.
I agree with Darth Vader that God is getting increasingly close to dealing with such attitudes of the heart and practices of the individuals who go by His Name. And they will likely find the tuition seriously steep. I did from the days when I operated in such a spirit and attitude. The tuition was extremely costly.
And, that's been one reason I've bothered. I'd rather others be warned and not have to pay such a seriously steep tuition. But, I wouldn't listen to wise believers then and they won't now. But God has His own ways of getting all our attention.
Greatly appreciat your wisdom and inputs. Please ping me whenever you want me to read something of yours.
People REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY seem to have absolutely NO CLUE about God's attitude toward such a spirit, attitude and perspective. And no clue about the origins of such--and the origins have little to nothing to do with defending faith and righteousness.
God be with you and yours this New Year.
Thanks. I haven't seen anything there yet but will keep looking.
Romans is my favorite book. Long commutes can be a blessing as I was able to listen to the entire book of Romans this morning on audio CD (and will again on the way back home). Doing so the past few months has given me the wonderful benefit of memorizing Romans chapter 8 (my favorite chapter in the Bible).
Sorry to see you spending less time on the threads but I can understand why.
God be with you and yours this New Year.
Thanks. The same to you my friend.
Indeed. We are at your service.
2 Timothy 43 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Thanks!
Minister Certain made reference to something along the lines of Ford's guiding mantra. Maybe he didn't use the word "guiding". Maybe he said "overriding", I can't remember. I do remember that the main word was "mantra" -- my ears perked right up when I heard it.
I wonder how Master Rick feels about "christian" mantras? After all, he's already on record as saying that people have to convert to Islam when in prison, so it's no big deal when Nichols did so after his Purpose-Driven "conversion".
(I guess that stuff about "if you deny me, I will deny you" has been "paraphrased" out of his "bible", eh?)
So, if it's okeydoke to convert to Islam, then can a "christian" mantra be such a bad thing?
After all, aren't mantras all about "peace" and so forth?
One thing's for sure -- this ain't your grandfather's church anymore!
This one's easy to answer :) They do it with a heavy hand, with iron-willed "purpose-driven" dedication to protecting The Hive at all costs, burying their detractors in reams and reams of happyfluff (and when that fails, even more reams of indignantfluff), and, of course, with the invaluable assistance of The Delphi Technique!
Yep!
We've been moving into a different day and as of now we're here. Blessings to you.........
All you listed and more. I don't see how anyone can defend his actions.
The aforementioned "reams and reams" barage IS indeed "purpose-driven" -- the "purpose" is to box their target into a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't corner.
The targets will either (from the "purpose"-perspective) either spend the rest of their hours replying to each and every spitball fired their way -- and thus, end up with a volley abuse-button firings, as the Accolytes complain of the target being "argumentative", "bickering", "unwilling to let it go", and so forth. OR, (as the strategy might see it), the target will give up, walk away, and thus, the Accolytes will declare victory by default.
Pure Delphi...
There is another way, of course. It's rarely prudent to allow one's attackers to define one's own defense from the attacks. (And that, after all, is the "purpose-driven" technique for using "Creative Destruction" to silence their targets. Tear them (that'd be "us", natch) down, silence them, do whatever it takes to neutralize them, and then "rebuild" the discussion, according to the new order, as defined by management.
From my own personal observation over the decades of cults sharing many of the same characteristics, the "worker bees" are frequently a mix of "official" ("Virtual Swiss Guard") fighters, and self-appointed camp followers, trying to approve themselves to their masters, by demonstrating valor in the battlefield.
It's a twisted view of life -- but it's nothing new.
Evidently along with Jesus warning us of the persecutions to come.
I think that 10th chapter of Matthew makes it very clear.
Today, though, it's a New! Improved! Stealth! "Social Gospel", pretending to be "evangelical", but, resulting in "hanging out with the junkies", and calling it "fellowship."
You look at the focus on "fellowship" with unbelievers, and wonder what ever happened to that business about being "unequally yoked". I'll tell you what happened to it. It was discarded. Didn't make "growth" sense.
Riddle: What's a six-letter word for dramatic, rapid, at times even uncontrolled growth?
Yup. It's so easy to debunk that "foundation" that I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
After all, by that "logic", Osama bin Laden is a greater "spiritual leader" than Rick Warren. (OBL, remember him? He's the guy that Jimmie Carter said was a spiritual man.)
I mean, if it's a numbers game, OBL wins hands down, with something to the tune of a hundred million radical Muslims at his beck and call.
*rimshot*!
(But don't hold your breath waiting for a "touche'")
Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone:
if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
But if he will not hear [thee, then] take with thee
one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three
witnesses every word may be established. And if he
shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church:
but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto
thee as an heathen man and a publican.
(Matthew 18:15-17)
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