The latest on Rick Warren (yup he's NOT going away...he's now on the cover of the current Reader's Digest magazine and being pushed on the American people yet again). The following are excerpts and my comments are italicized.
Quote:
Warren changed a great deal as he progressed from a preacher who wanted to "build a church for people who hate church" to worldwide religious leader. He spoke with Reader's Digest—whose parent company recently launched his new magazine, Purpose Driven Connection—twice in recent months.
Q. How did you choose Southern California to start spreading your message?
A..... We arrived here on January 1, 1980, in the middle of rush-hour traffic—I grew up in a village of about 500 people—and I said, "God, you got the wrong guy. What am I doing here?"
Q. How did you find your answer?
A.I pulled off the highway, and we walked into this real estate office and met an agent named Don Dale. I said, "My name is Rick Warren. I am 25 years old. I'm here to start a church. I don't have any members. I don't have a building. I don't know anybody here. I don't have any money, and I need a place to live." Within two hours, that guy found us a condo. He convinced the owner to give us a free month of rent and nothing down.
Q. Did Don join your church?
A. We were driving to the condo with him and I said, "Hey, Don, do you go to church anywhere?" He said, "No, no. I hate church." I said, "Great. You're my first member." We started with my family and his family. Our first service was on Easter Sunday in 1980, with 200 people. For Easter in 2008, we had 14 services back-to-back, with 45,000 people. Don is still a member here.
According to Scripture a church is an assembly of called out ones, believers. Every letter written in the NT was written to believers, and several were written to churches. See also Rev. 1-3. Warren violated this very thing. He wanted to appease the God-haters. But God will not do such a thing. We come to God on HIS terms. God does NOT come to us on our's.
Heb 10:25 Do not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Assemblying together of the elect = eclessia. Also see 1Cor. 6 about being called out and separate from the world.
Is Don a biblical Christian?
Q. When did you decide to expand beyond Lake Forest?
A. In our second decade, we said, "Okay, now we're going to go national, and we're going to help others." I cared about the little churches with 50 or 75 members. Maybe they couldn't afford to pay someone full-time to be their pastor, and I said, "Let's help these guys." So I started training pastors, and in the '90s, I trained about 250,000 people all over America. After that, we reached out globally.
This is why Warren is so dangerous. Its not only his subtle and now his not-so-subtble false teaching, but his wide reach of pastors.
Q. What have your travels around the world taught you?
A. I have seen the quick jump from political division to hatred in too many countries. All of a sudden, the guy you disagree with is evil, and you demonize him. In Rwanda you call him a cockroach and you create this mentality that can lead to genocide. It's one step from dehumanizing people who have a different view on a value that you hold dear to depersonalizing them so they are no longer human—and then you have a right to just get rid of them. Hitler did it. I don't think we want to go down that path.
I wonder if he has spoken to his apologist Richard Abanes? He's very hateful toward anyone who dares question or show the falsehood of Warren. Also Warren wrote the forward to a book which had an entire chapter on how do deal with dissenters. Warren says that disunity is of the devil. So which is it? Disunity (aka disagreement) is ok or not? Or is it only ok if he is the one disagreeing?
Q. How do we ensure that we don't?
A. The idea of tolerance has to come back into style. Tolerance means I treat you with respect even when we totally disagree on a particular issue. You're a child of God. You're worthy of dignity. We may disagree, but we're going to tolerate each other, and even more than that, we can be friends.
Again I point to the dissenters of PDL nationwide and how PDL followers including Warren, isolates and demonizes those who will not accept his error. God is not tolerant. Scripture says we are not to follow the ways of the world (Rom. 12:2). Ananais and Sephira were struck dead by God for lying to HIM and to the leaders of their church (Acts 5:1-3). Does Warren think God has changed? HE has said HE changes not.
There's also this deal with the biblical command of church discipline (Matt. 18:15-19; 1 cro. 5:1-13). But if you build a church for the unregenerate God-haters, you can't nor won't have church discipline. Rather you'll have a luv fest, but its not agape love whatsoever. Agape rejoices not in evil, but in TRUTH (1Cor. 13).
Jesus did not "agree to disagree."
Q. You've said it's important for evangelicals to be more about what they're for than what they're against. When you came out against gay marriage, Saddleback was picketed. One woman, a lesbian who attends Saddleback, said how disappointed she was in you.
A. You're never going to please everybody. I don't need to agree with somebody in order to love them. I don't need to agree with somebody in order to help them either. I hope they feel the same way about me.
Herein is my point: lesbians and all manner of sinners are comfortable at his social club. Scripture demands that those in unrepentant sin to go through the process of Matt. 18 and if they continue, they are to be thrown OUT OF CHURCH. Again, Paul demonstrates this in 1Cor. 5 where they were so proud of being tolerant of two members who were sexually immoral. Paul harshly rebuked them and demanded they put out the brother immediately. See also Gal. 6:1-3.
Q. What's your advice for someone who wants to live a more meaningful life?
A. Love God and other people with all you've got! Living a purpose-driven life means making an intentional shift from self-centered thinking to other-centered thinking. Ask yourself, "What should be the contribution of my life?" By knowing your combination of gifts, abilities, and experiences, you'll see where you can make a difference.
Nothing about being Christ-centered. Nothing about repenting of one's sins. Nothing about bowing to the Holy God of this universe in humility. Its all about ME. MY purpose, MY meaning, MY life, MY gifts, abilities, experiences. This is nothing more than what celebrities do when they serve Thanksgiving meals in front of the cameras and express how good they feel for doing their good deed.
For more on why Rick Warren is a false teacher go here.
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