A Year Later: Chillin With False Teachers

A revisit to an excellent article written n 2009: Chillin' With False Teachers: Another View by Ingrid Schlueter:

In part says:

Rick Warren has been on a PR campaign to win over his critics for some time now. A year ago, I and other writers who have been exposing the man-centered false teachings of Rick Warren and his rejection of biblical evangelism (going to synagogues and mosques to tell them how to use Purpose-Driven methods to grow) were personally invited on an all-expenses paid trip to Saddleback to meet with Warren. Apparently, the thinking was that if we could just meet Rick, encounter his magnetic and winning personality, be impressed with his fabulous church campus and personal importance, we would tone down our rhetoric and cease to be critics. I personally turned down the invitation. A man who has sold as many books as Rick Warren, features his sermons online and who has been virtually omnipresent in Christian and secular media in the last few years does not need to explain his teachings in person. I am not interested in Rick Warren’s personality, charm or expensive facilities. I do not object to the man on personal grounds. I object to Rick Warren based on what he has taught and written, because it does not line up with Scripture. This is essential to understand.

Rick Warren’s defenders, like the Reformed blogger in question, like to protray Warren critics as having a personal axe to grind with the Purpose-Driven author and as being harsh, unfair and unloving. We are painted as portraying Rick Warren as some sort of red-caped fiend, permanently surrounded by a sulfurous cloud, demonic laughter coming out of his mouth. What nonsense. Of course, Rick Warren is a congenial, friendly guy who is no doubt charming to be next to at a dinner gathering. He would make a great golf partner, host at a BBQ and, no doubt, would be the life of any party. He is likely compassionate, a good neighbor and he would stop to help you if you had a flat tire on a lonely highway. Then again, I could say the same for my Mormon neighbor, or the Hindu family that lives down the street, or the Unitarians up the block.

The people I have worked with over the years in exposing Purpose-Driven’s false teachings have not been interested in Rick’s personality. They have consistently addressed Rick’s teachings, line by line. These are men such as Pastor Bob DeWaay, who has not only met with Rick personally, but has taken his teachings and held them up to the light of Scripture in his excellent book, Redefining Christianity: Understanding the Purpose-Driven Movement, or Joseph Farah, a newsman who has corresponded with Rick Warren over his outrageous role as apologist for Syria and North Korea, or Chris Rosebrough who sat in a room at Saddleback with Rick Warren and personally discussed the specifics of Warren’s false teachings. DeWaay, Farah and Rosebrough were not interested in Rick’s personality. They focused on his teachings.

Warren, after these meetings, is unchanged. He recently addressed a Muslim convention and never once preached Christ crucified. He instead invited the followers of Allah to embark on a joint campaign with Christians to solve the world’s social ills. Warren continues to advise non-Christian religious groups how to grow their cause using his own Purpose-Driven methodology.

While the Reformed blogger prides himself on being able to hand bouquets to Mr. Warren despite their disagreements on certain issues, the tragic spiritual reality remains. I have heard for years from Purpose-Driven refugees whose churches have been destroyed by the teachings of Rick Warren. There are spiritual victims who limp off into the night, wondering what in the world happened to the churches they have loved and supported for years. No one has done greater damage to the true Gospel in the American evangelical church than Rick Warren with his man-centered teachings and emphasis on works, churches driven by entertainment to please the unregenerate and draw large crowds, his abandonment of biblical evangelism in favor of a social gospel, his de-emphasis on sound doctrine, and his participation with international political organizations who openly work for inter-spiritual apostasy.

From Crosstalk Blog.

Again I say, as I did last year, well said! And look how far we've now come? Now Piper, who clearly has a larger following than Challies (that's just so wrong anyway), has invited and is defiantly defending Rick Warren--as are many Reformers now as they follow the Pied Piper. You think it can't get any worse? Bet you said that last year.

Just wait.