Behold The Great Humility Of Rick Warren - Rick Warren's Sermon At Desiring God (Part 6)

The following commentary corresponds to the following video from 21:45 to 23:30



Here we see a small sampling of a lot that lies ahead. Rick Warren admonishes his audience that the one necessary quality they need to be learners, and hence disciples, and hence leaders (you know, that vast biblical doctrine of "leadership") is humility. Within the space of less than two minutes Warren makes both a clarion call to humility and a brazen statement about how he is so much smarter than his enemies. Arrogant and jerk are strong words but I can't think of anything stronger so they will have to suffice for now. I just cannot believe that Rick Warren can continually act like an arrogant jerk in these large forums and not get taken to task.

Most likely, the enemies Warren is referring to are those who have been critical of his theology and practice. Not only did Warren give an apt demonstration of his staggering humility by pronouncing himself "smarter than" his "enemies", he also dumped on his many discerning critics saying that they are people "who only learn from themselves" - lacking the clear Yoda like qualities Warren has gained through his advanced learning abilities. Unbelievable - is he that delusional that he cannot hear what he is saying? Four of Warren's strongest critics who immediately spring to mind are Michael Horton, John Macarthur, Tim Challies, and James White. So is Rick Warren saying that these guys are dumber than he is? Is he saying that they are unlearned and only read their own work? Is he saying that he is way more humble than they are? Michael Horton, John Macarthur, Tim Challies, and James White are four giant intellects who grace the evangelical landscape with outstanding biblical exposition, depth of knowledge, and razor sharp apologetics. These are not the kind of guys to shoot from the hip and when they level criticism at Warren it is not unfounded nor ungrounded. Some of that has been on display as this series has progressed revealing that they are very aware of Rick Warren's "theological content".

But does Rick Warren really learn from his critics? The three most common and serious charges leveled against him would be:
1. His failure to preach the Gospel.
2. The fact that he continually twists Scripture and is overtly willing to use poor Bible translations in instances where they lend credence to his own ideas.
3. His regular failure to distinguish between believers and unbelievers when applying covenants and promises found in Scripture.

These are very serious grievances. The chorus of criticism did reach the point where Pastor Warren felt it necessary to write a book that would respond to the critics and set the record straight. He hired an apologetics attack dog by the name of Richard Abanes to harass websites and blogs that were critical of Warren as well as write the book "Rick Warren And The Purpose That Drives Him". So Rick Warren devoted a whole book to respond to the many criticisms leveled at him. And what did he have to say in response to those "big three" grievances mentioned above? Nothing - absolutely nothing! While Warren devotes plenty of energy in downplaying his friendship with Robert Schuller and his connections with the emergent church, he dances around the strongest objections raised against his ministry - in a book devoted to responding to these critics! Rick - this is not a great advertisement for how much you learn from your critics.

Tim Challies had this to say about "Rick Warren And The Purpose That Drives Him":

The single most common concern raised about Warren (at least in my experience) is his use (or misuse) of Scripture. This comes in two forms. First, Warren often quotes verses out of context or in ways that are advantageous to the point he is trying to make. He will often quote only a half of a verse if the second half does not support what he wants to say. Second, he uses poor translations and translations that say what he wants the Bible to say, rather than what God intended for it to say. There are times when this may be an honest mistake, but there are other times when it is clear that Warren has deliberately twisted a verse or taken it from its context to make it work for his purposes. Despite these two areas being of prime importance to those who are concerned with Warren's ministry, Abanes gives this no attention whatsoever. None. Not a sentence.

Another common criticism is Warren's prayer in the seventh chapter of The Purpose Driven Life. He leads the reader to pray, "Jesus I believe in you and I receive you" and then welcomes to the family of God anyone who prayed that little prayer sincerely. Yet this was before the person was provided any significant information about sin or repentance. It would be easy to assume that the person was praying to receive purpose more than to receive Christ. This is a very common criticism, yet one Abanes does not address. (online source)

All that from the man who sets new standards in humility. The pastor who is so much smarter than his critics because he learns so much from them - the very same critics who "only learn from themselves". Think about it, America's Pastor is pretty impressive. He was able to lecture us about humility, trash his opponents, and dazzle us with his smartitude all in the space of two minutes of video.

More to come . . .

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Preaching Myths In Modern Pulpits (Part 7)

Myth 7. We need to be seeker sensitive.



The seeker sensitive movement has been the big influence on evangelical Christianity for the last twenty to thirty years with the major influences being Willow Creek in Chicago and Rick Warren’s Saddleback church in California. But Robert Schuller is probably the father of the movement when he pioneered the pragmatic approach to ministry. He started a church with the idea that he needed to find out what all the lost people in his area wanted in a church and he would give it to them. Schuller says:

The secret of winning unchurched people into the church is really quite simple. Find out what would impress the non churched in your community then give it to them. (Robert Schuller, as quoted in Gary Gilley, This Little Church Went to Market (Evangelical Press, 2005): 76.)

A lot of people came to Schuller’s church because he gave them what they wanted – but it should be remembered that many who joined Schullers church were not new converts but people who didn’t enjoy the conviction of their previous church. These were people who loved the way Schuller built up their self-esteem. Schuller had a high view of man and a low view of Scripture as evidenced when he said:

I don't think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality . . . than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition. (online source)

It’s such a shame that Robert Schuller wasn’t there when Paul was writing the book of Romans. I think I’ll listen to Paul over Schuller who said that he did not know he was a sinner except that the law showed him; and that God demonstrated His love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were sinning. You cannot show God’s love without exposing mans sin!
Paul actually said in Romans 3 that no one seeks after God. It is God Who seeks and saves the lost!

Truth 7. No one seeks after God. But God seeks and saves the lost. We need to be sensitive to the One true Seeker by being faithful to the message He told us to preach.

For further and more in depth critique check out Todd Friel's excellent critique of Willow Creek and the results of their internal survey of members.

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The False Teaching Food Chain

The scary thing about living in Denmark and becoming well acquainted with a typical "danish evangelical" is that we must be close to the bottom feeders in the false teaching food chain. The foul emergent postmodernism and church growth philosophy that filters out from mega church suburbia seems to be manifold worse by the time it reaches our shores.

It is scary to listen to Paul Washer's caricature of the state of modern evangelicalism in America as he lays out in his "Shocking Youth Message". What is even more scary is that Paul Washer's caricature would be a vast improvement on the state of the supposed gospel preaching that goes on over here.

Places like Willow Creek (Bill Hybels) and Saddleback (Rick Warren) have created a monster of sorts with no seeming way of domesticating it. Here is the lay of the land as I see it and I welcome your feedback as to whether you think I'm onto something or not.

With people like Robert Schuller pioneering the consumer driven church (where we survey pagans to see what they want in the church) we saw the trend of dumbing down of biblical teaching. A culture of biblically illiterate consumer minded church goers emerged. Smaller churches with little entertainment became the catchment areas for seeker sensitive mega churches. The continual influx of these people concealed the high number of people going out the back door who were bored with the same shallow entertainment week in week out. Making the narrow gate into a wide gate by focussing more on self esteem, success, and sensuality, and less on sin, self denial, and sanctification was certainly one way to draw large crowds.



These large crowds drew attention from leaders in places like Denmark where they sat in the ruins of the reformation pondering how to "revive" their non-existant congregations. Biblical theology had been abandoned on both sides of the Atlantic leading to liberal heresies in Europe and pragmatic methodology in the US. Enamored with the perceived success of the seeker sensitive gurus in the America, people outside the USA have gravitated towards this methodology at the expense of sound theology.

Biblical discernment has become unbelievably low paving the way for people like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell to step out of the church growth trojan horse and say "hey, we've got some new ideas about what the Gospel really means but don't worry, trust us we're orthodox!" William P Young can write a blasphemous book about the Trinity (The Shack) and get rave reviews.

There are still many good and faithful preachers in the USA who are continually proclaiming the truth and turning on the light. But I want to put forward my contention amidst the woeful biblical discernment I'm experiencing here in Europe. I beleive it may be time to preach with greater and greater focus on exposing darkness. The civility Rick Warren longs for is actually becoming the problem over here. Civility coupled with a complete lack of biblical discernment is producing a sub culture of people who say amen to John Macarthur and Joel Osteen. Who download Paul Washer and read the Shack. Who can't tell the difference between the teaching of Rob Bell and Ray Comfort.

I come from Australia, and when I take my five year old daughter there I don't spend time discussing with her the best way to handle snakes - I tell her to stay a million miles away. When we talk about Hitler we don't try and balance the death of 6 million Jews with all those great roads that he built. We call evil what it is. If someone is preaching a false gospel, don't spend time trying to write an even handed review pointing out the virtues as well as the short comings - even a broken clock gets it right twice a day! The Apostle Paul said:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:8-9).

If a shepherd loves the sheep he will protect them from wolves. A key responsibility for pastors in a time of severe biblical illiteracy is to provide clear lines of demarkation between truth and error, as well as remove the fog of seeming semi-approval that rests between each end of the spectrum. How dare any other gospel come along and try to replace the precious blood of our wonderful Savior. Be like Paul and totally slam any other gospel that tries to pass itself off as the real one; all the while persevering in the true biblical Gospel that God is good, man is evil, God must judge, heaven and hell, Christ the penal substitutionary atonement, and the need for all men everywhere to repent from sin and trust in Jesus!

Why Does God Allow . . . (Part 2)

Continued from thursday.

My earliest influences as a Christian were of the Word Faith, positive thinking, self esteem and success variety. Or was it the other way around?? Having been recruited/seduced to Amway at the age of 18 I was bombarded with self help, positive thinking, positive confession, prosperity materials. I was strongly encouraged to read people like Robert Schuller, Norman Vincent Peale and Zig Ziglar. My western consumer mentality was only too happy to embrace a lot of this thinking. It made sense and was presented in a way that appealed to my carnality.

This paved the way into the Word Faith movement with people like Kenneth Copeland, and Kenneth Hagin. Perhaps I portray myself as more shallow than I really was (although I don't want to give myself any credit). As I reflect back I am without doubt that God was doing some serious providential work in my life. It was at this time that I also had a frightening experience where a complete stranger spoke words to me that penetrated my veneer of social acceptance and exposed an area of sin that I knew had me already condemned (you see, I already knew the truth - at least to a certain extent - through a young man who witnessed to me as a teenager. Though I never spoke publicly about it I did hide the words that the young man spoke in my heart and I'll speak more about this in my next post). I was overwhelmingly convicted of the sin of denial.

I knew I was in trouble and could hardly sleep at night. I had never read the verse where Jesus says that if we deny Him before men, He will deny us before the Father. But I knew I was guilty and my conscience was burning!

I went on a hunt to find a professing Christian so I could beg them to take me to their church - I didn't want to go alone in fear of being humiliated when people found out they had a sinner in their midst. I found a guy who took me to a charismatic church that was nearby. I must admit that some things struck me as weird but I was drawn to the fact that these people were very serious about their walk with God and loved to sing about Him with their hands up high. I was drawn and intimadated all at the same time. Drawn to the reconciliation I needed to put my conscience at rest, but intimidated by this great cloud of sanctified people with hands raised in unison. What if they found out that I was sinful and unclean?

Though I am not an advocate of "altar calls" (at least in as far as they are used as a substitute for Holy Spirit empowered regeneration), the altar call I responded to was a big deal because it was addressing my pet sin of hiding in silence and forced me to humiliate myself in front of the entire congregation. I don't know what to think about the message preached on that day (I can't remember to be honest) but I have no doubt that God was doing a transforming work regardless. I really walked out of that place a different person and unashamed to testify of Jesus Christ. That unashamedness coupled with my immense stupidy and lack of social skills certainly helped me to be at "enmity" with the world around me. I took it all in my stride under the delusion that the persecution was because of my faith and not because I was a jerk.

Though the church I attended was not officially "Word Faith" it did dance with a lot of their teaching and theology. I was only too happy to buy into a lot of it. I never got sick, I was financially blessed, no real tragedies to speak of, and life was turning out to be a pretty good ride. If they wanted a Word Faith poster boy then I was it . . . except maybe for the private jet!

I paint this background because it is important for you to understand that my criticisms aimed at Word Faith theology don't come out of an axe to grind with some rich pastor or because prosperity and health didn't come my way. I harbor no bitterness from earlier experience (though many of my congregational friends certainly struggled with sickness, experienced harrowing tragedy, and were dead broke). I was just really blind and stupid. I actually thought that I was the guy who must be pleasing God and all these other struggling people must have lacked faith or had sin in their lives.

Oh, I am so ashamed of this self righteousness. The truth was that many of these people had greater faith, greater devotion, and greater fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. In hindsight, I'd have to say that my blessed life was probably due to my weakness, lack of faith, and inability to cope with tragedy which in turn caused God to extend one big tsunami of mercy my way. I often ask the question - Why does God allow me to live in my blessed little bubble of safety when others go through suffering, poverty, and tragedy? Honest self examination brings me to the point of bewilderment. Why has God dealt so graciously with me and my entire family when I deserve His wrath? In fact 20/20 hindsight reveals that this is the question every person on this planet should be asking!



So what tipped me over the edge and drove me away from Word Faith theology? It was when a visiting pastor started preaching about Job!

God had graciously gave me a hunger for His Word and I spent considerable time searching the pages of my Bible. When the pastor started teaching about Job I could see the twisting of Scripture straight away - loud and clear. I knew what the book of Job taught and this "preacher" was butchering it to make it fit his theology. I was furious and my eyes had been opened to the magical world of Scripture twisting. I was on the warpath . . .

To be continued on tuesday!

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