Rick Warren: Most loved Pastor of the World holds a little debate

Civil but Defining Discourse
Posted by Chris L on Aug 18th, 2008
2008
Aug 18
Saturday night, after spending some much-needed time in conversation with my wife in the wake of our oldest son leaving for his sophomore year at Purdue, I turned to the Olympics to watch Michael Phelps’ swim into the record books. Sunday morning, though, I heard a good bit of buzz in church about another event that occurred on Saturday evening – the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, where Rick Warren sat down and gave essentially identical interviews to both major Presidential candidates. On the advice of many, I watched the replay on Sunday night…
…and I was impressed. Perhaps my expectations were already low (since I’m pretty skeptical on the mixing of politics and faith), but I was very pleased and surprised at the service done for the church in America by Dr. Warren’s church. And – if public reaction can be taken as an indicator – he may have provided an excellent example of how the church can play a non-partisan way in political involvement and improvement of public discourse. [After all, with Obama’s official cheering section (i.e. the MSM) being sure to note that the Saddleback crowd was stacked to favor McCain, and the anti-Obama spokesfolks (i.e. the Armchair “Discernment” “Ministries”) grousing about audience applause for and Warren’s non-condemnation of the Democrat, the truth is bound to be between the two interpretations…]

HT Crn.info

Rick Warren is the type, I believe, that could be the false prophet that we see in the book of Revelation.

No, I do not get my information from the Left Behind series. I am not predicting the end of the world. But I see a man who preaches a different Gospel that is embraced by the world in which he lives. Consider a few factoids:

He has significant control over the media:

• Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch calls Rick Warren ‘his pastor’, and gives him favorable and prominent air time on his networks (which also feature filth of the worst kind).
• Time Magazine has done at least two feature articles on Rick Warren, and, unlike other Christian leaders, has treated him with kid gloves.
• ABC news Nightline did a feature on him this past week that tossed softballs and gave worship and adoration to this man.
• He is the author of one of the best-selling books of all time. 

He also has considerable political clout:

• Two of the most powerful men in America at this time sat down with him at (as Warren puts it) at his invitation via e-mail.
• Rwanda has allowed him basically free reign to use them as a test market for his PEACE plan.
• He is regularly invited and takes part in think-tanks and political forums, also initiating them inviting non-believers to his pulpit to share their views

He has significant religious clout:

• He has been invited to share at the National Cathedral.
• He has shared his purpose driven principles with Jewish, Mormon, Catholic, and other mainline churches.
• It is said that some 60-75% of evangelical churches in America are influenced by his writings, teachings, seminars, and study guides.

This love that is shown in these spheres for this man can be taken one of two ways. We can all fall into line, or we can examine the truth of the scripture. It seems fairly clear in scripture that if we preach Jesus, and we claim to follow Him, the world will not love us, as it does Rick Warren. It seems pretty clear that the world will hate us. The reason the world flocks to Rick Warren? Because the principles that he teaches, though they are based on Christian and marketing principles, are not offensive to the world because they are inclusive, while the true Gospel is not all inclusive. People will be offended when the true Gospel is preached; it is a stumbling stone, a rock of offense. 

This is why it is not surprising that Chris L and others over at CRN.info are impressed with this effort of Warren, and anything else that he puts his hand too. Discernment must be used to determine if what Warren is preaching is the whole truth, a half truth, or an outright lie. I say that he could not be enjoying the mass popularity he does without compromise of the biblical Gospel.