Careful, you threaten the Catholic church, and they can take away your salvation and condemn you to Hell. 
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.)
Show me in the NT where non-believers are commanded to worship God.
The 50s were before my time, and the 60s for me were spent learning to walk, talk and read, so I'll take your word for that. However, I remember the media being pretty vicious toward Billy Graham in the 80s and the 90s. In a way, he flew a little under the radar, because he avoided personal scandals that engulfed the likes of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. But every now and then the media would take notice of him, and they were never kind when they did.
A pastor in the Presbyterian Church In America. We're the intolerant Presbyterians!
Yes, but even Walter Cronkite held his liberalism to himself for decades.
Careful, you threaten the Catholic church, and they can take away your salvation and condemn you to Hell.
"Show me in the NT where non-believers are commanded to worship God."
I didn't make my reply clear.
What I should have said is that Christians are never commanded to worship on a certain day of the week.
The works themselves prove nothing.
IMHO, the Vietnam war radicalized media ... thing is, I wasn't politicized myself until adulthood, so I may have been missing the biases.
That is stunning! You wouldn't believe the wonderful editions I find in my travels. I've even found Bibles in dumpsters, which makes me sad, but glad that I could save them. I'm building up a collection and when my son and all of my other 14 nieces and nephews marry, they will be given one from the collection as their "Family Bible" on that day. (I know they'd rather have cash, but tough nuts! They'll come to their senses eventually.)
Long ago my Dad "challenged" me to read the Bible EVERY night for a year before going to sleep...he's a total scholar on the subject, but I was just an 8th Grader at the time.
Man, did he know what he was doing! He bought me a paperback copy of "Good News for Modern Man" and a highlighter pen and I've never looked back. :)
You said -- "The Lutheran religion also believes that you must be baptized, ..."
As a side note here, it's interesting about baptism, as the Bible does say to be baptized.
It's one of two practices (or sacraments) that Baptists recognize that Christ said to do. But, baptism isn't viewed as a salvation act, but rather as obedience to a command of Christ. There are many things that Christians should do, that some (or many don't) and it doesn't negate their salvation. It seems to me that being baptized is one of those things, even though it should be done.
One could view baptism as the second of those two things spoken about in Romans 10:9-10. At the time of baptism one is affirming with their mouth what they believe in their heart and thus fulfilling what it takes to be saved. But, one could say the same thing to any number of people (in other words, "publicly" and without trying to hide it) and it would be the same.
So, baptism may very well be the "institutional act" of becoming a Christian, thus "formalizing" the process. But, baptism does not appear to be the act that actually "effects" salvation (as a special act, in and of itself).
As another side note here (or a question) -- is it true that Lutherans baptize infants and thus consider them saved from that point on? That would differ from what it appears that the Bible talks about, in terms of one acknowledging certain things (in their heart) and then speaking it out loud (meaning publicly). It would not appear that infants would be capable of this.
Regards,
Star Traveler
I'm Lutheran. I respect Catholics, as I do most religions, but we've gone our separate ways, to say the least.
I agree. But a lack of works does.
Happy New Year GC !
That and Watergate, where the media got their first real taste of the power they had by bringing down a President they thoroughly hated (I'm not making any excuses for Nixon or what he did, but can anyone doubt that if the press had rallied around him like they rallied around Clinton, he would have easily survived Watergate?).
I wasn't really all that political myself until the Clinton years, but even as apathetic as I was in the '80s, I couldn't miss the hatred and contempt for Ronald Reagan that dripped from every word the media wrote about him. But that was a different era, post Vietnam and Watergate, so the media spent those eight years actively looking to bring him down like they took down Nixon, which necessitated letting their bias show.
Just filling a niche.
Happy New Year right back at you
We need to defeat his "populism"-liberalism/theological errors so that id doesn't spread to the rest of the Christian community..I suspect Pastor Warren is really a "plant of the left". I haven't trusted him for years ever since I was introduced to his "Purpose driven Church/Life program".
It's nothing against Evangelicals to say that there is NO church that doesn't have its bad apples and hypocrites. That is certainly true of my own Catholic Church, it's certainly true of the Protestand Mainline Churches, and it's true of the Evangelical Churches as well.
The MSM and the leftists will pretend it's just a true revelation of what these churches really are. No, it's just human nature in a fallen world. Even the twelve apostles included one traitor. God doesn't force anyone to be good, He gives them the choice and the grace to be good, but they can refuse it, and parasites can always come along, play the hypocrite, and feed on the faithful. But they usually show glimpses of themselves, and those with discrimination will respond accordingly.
"...is it true that Lutherans baptize infants and thus consider them saved from that point on?"
Yes, we do have infant baptism, but we baptize older children, too. However, we also have a "Confirmation" of our Faith that happens when the kids are in Middle School, about age 12 to 14, when they take classes to learn about "the whole shebang" and what they're really getting into. It's another ceremony when we re-commit ourselves to our faith because, as you said, a baby can hardly be aware of faith as an infant.
It's similar to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah in the Jewish faith without the lox and bagels. ;)
In all seriousness, I think it's too young to have it, because what hormonal pre-teen takes religion seriously? But that's the way it's set up. *SHRUG*
And, if that's NOT confusing enough...we have two "synods" (chapters, sectors, etc.) in the Lutheran faith. 'Wisconsin Synod' and 'Missouri Synod.' I was raised in the Missouri synod, which is much more strict and by-the-book than the Wisconsin Synod...of which now I am a member, but only because I'm still shopping around for a church that meets my needs. I'm a hard-liner (Missouri) at heart, but a congregation of that sort is hard to find in this part of the country these days. :(
My Mother is a Methodist. I go to church with her from time to time, but they're too lax for me, LOL! I've never seen so much "goofing around" in church! Too much fellowship and community event announcements and "Passing the Peace" and not enough Fire & Brimstone preachin' for me. :)
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