Just like on this thread, Warren seems to be damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. At any rate this blurb from Alan Wolfe is quite interesting:
Warren is certainly not a Calvinist in the strict sense of the term; his disposition is too sunny and his preference for love over intellect is too pronounced to find much in common with Geneva’s great reformer. Yet Warren does, in his own way, rely on one important element in the Calvinist tradition: its insistence on predestination. To be sure, we are not talking here about such ideas as “double predestination” in which the fates of both those who are saved and those who are not are decided in advance; there would not be much to say about a purpose-driven life if all life’s purposes were so tightly scripted. Still, Warren’s avoidance of the more positive view of human nature admired by Augustine does lead him in the direction of those leaders of the Protestant Reformation who opted for a narrower conception of human ability than those, often described as Arminian, who viewed people as agents whose salvation could be influenced by their own actions.
Emphasis added.
Wolfe continues:
For one thing, Warren makes no bones about his explicit commitments to Christianity; The Purpose-Driven Life is bound to be discomforting to Jews, Muslims, and even Christians who do not share an evangelical perspective on their faith. Indeed, so strong are Warren’s religious convictions that one cannot find in his book a definition of what purpose is divorced from Christian language...
To lead a purposeful life, as Warren tells the story, God’s plans are all that matter, not yours. Indeed you do not really have a plan because everything was decided before you were born. “Not only did God shape you before your birth, He planned every day of your life to support His shaping process,” Warren writes. This does not leave us without decisions to make; we are obligated to serve God, but how we do so – how we shape ourselves to discover how He shaped us – does depend on the way we understand our experiences in everyday life and turn them into opportunities for service. God gives us great things, but it is up to us to use them purposefully.
Wolfe doesn't particularly like Warren's emphasis on God and Jesus and then chides him for his being too heavenly minded:
A faith-driven life? A life devoted to Jesus? Those objectives are clear, and for people who seek them, and who seek a sense of purpose through them, Warren’s book, as its success suggests, has been a great boon. But by its very anchoring in evangelicalism, Warren’s understanding of what purpose requires will fall flat to those more focused on the world around them than on the eternity that awaits them.
Sometimes, one can only chuckle at those with a blind hatred for for evcerything Warren.
I did not say Warren was naive or shallow. But I don't think it's bashing him to wonder if he knows what he's getting into.