Rick Warren: This is a man who has been asked to speak at the UN, and even has his own plan for peace, which he presented to the UN, but it never mentions Christ.
He also is the author of The Purpose Driven Life, which is based upon successful business principles employed by his mentor, Peter Drucker, not the Bible. Verses from the Bible are selected to support the business model that Warren uses, many taken out of context.
In the book Warren quotes a scripture after leading people through a relatively vague prayer to ask Jesus to come into their life. To back his assertion that all who pray that prayer are automatically transformed by the Holy Spirit, he quotes a phrase from a "scripture" from “The Message,” a paraphrased Bible translation by Eugene Peterson that promises, "Whoever accepts and trust the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever!" (John 3:36a).Unfortunately, Warren doesn’t even quote the whole scripture, just the “good” part, if you can call “The Message” a Bible at all. The NIV says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” Warren totally leaves out the acknowledgement of sin, which is essential to true repentance when accepting Christ as Lord.
He also deliberately changes the Word of God and teaches a different gospel. He said at a TED conference, “Did you know that God smiles when you be you? Some people have the misguided idea that God only gets excited when you're doing “spiritual things” like going to church or helping the poor or confessing or doing something like that. The bottom line is that God gets pleasure watching you be you. Why? He made you. And when you do what you were made to do He says, ‘That’s my boy!’, ‘That’s my girl!’”
I’d be interested to know where God says this in the Bible.
Whether Rick is a believer in Christ is between he and God, but Matthew 7 tells us we'll know false teachers by their fruits. He may have good intentions, and may very well be leading some people to a genuine saving faith in Christ, but he is also leading thousands, perhaps millions astray. The evidence speaks for itself. He uses his many versions of the Bible to support his "purpose." His eschatology just doesn't add up to what the Bible says.
Next post--Joel Osteen.
