Rick Warren in PDL:
The best use of life is love.
The best expression of love is time.
The best time to love is now.
The best use of time is to glorify God in all things.
Love naturally is a necessary part of that, but love is only a PART of glorifying God.
It isn't the whole thing.
This is where Warren is wrong.
We've already established that Rick Warren isn't God. So why do you continue to quote him?
BTW that's SOOOO catchy. Reminds me of an article I read a while back:
Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven® Life has hung around on the bestseller lists for some umpty-hundred weeks now, proving that what we evangelicals lack as a cultural threat, we more than make up for in irrelevant spiritual Atkins-Diet® fads. Someone at Zondervan has taken pains to register the phrase Purpose-Driven®, apparently so that they get a slice of whatever market-driven® paraphernalia the Purpose-Driven® phenomenon begets. Warren plugs a whole cheekload of such Purpose-Driven® truffles throughout the book, including Purpose-Driven® devotionals, journals, something called a "Scripture-Keeper Plus," and his 1995 study in ecclesiology, The Purpose-Driven® Church. Of course many faced the inevitable Purpose-Driven® yuletide epidemic on immune systems already weakened by spending the past few Christmases praying with Jabez.....
All in all, it's a rather comprehensive summary of early Twenty-First Century Modern Evangelicalism, and is built upon three seemingly invincible Modern Evangelical axioms that are getting to be as itchy and persistent as an unbalmed poison oak rash. One: there is no theological principle or spiritual weight-loss program that can't be made to rhyme with itself. At moments, Warren floods us with his poesy the way God drowned the wicked in Genesis 7. From page 213: "Don't repress it; confess it! Don't conceal it; reveal it. Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing." With Dr. Suess dead, it's encouraging to watch Christians rushing in to fill his literary void; if only we could also approximate the late doctor's narrative coherence and attention span.
Two: there is no theological principle or spiritual weight-loss program that can't be boiled down to a trite metaphor. To wit, from page 207: "Heaven has a twenty-four hour emergency hot line . . . I call this a `microwave' prayer because it is quick and to the point." All this is to tell us that we need to pray when we face temptation, because "God is waiting to help us defeat temptation" with a dollop of piping-hot, cinnamon-sugar glazed grace, available with just one touch of His express-cook button.
Three: there is no theological principle or spiritual weight-loss program that can't be expressed as a cutesy acrostic. Do you want to find out what your ministry gifts are? Then find out on page 236 what your SHAPE (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experience) is. In Warren's favor, he resisted the temptation to exhort us to "Get in SHAPE for God!" no doubt thanks to a panicky microwave prayer.
At his very worst, Warren comes across like a youth pastor with his hand on your thigh, breathing pious come-ons in your ear: "This is what God wants most from you: a relationship! . . . Can you sense God's passion for you in this verse? God deeply loves you and desires your love in return"
CAAAAAN you FEEEEEL the LOOOOOVE Tonight....? WEll, can't you???
Ya know, I bet it'd be a real hit if Saddleback introduced that song into their praise and worship lineup! Growth of 20 percent, guaranteed. Gotta target the disney crowd.