Posted on 01/10/2006 10:06:56 AM PST by Terriergal
LAKE FOREST, Calif. - This week, it was the Rose Bowl players' breakfast. This month, it will be the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Then the President's prayer breakfast in Washington, followed by an entertainment industry conference in Los Angeles.
Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist preacher's son from tiny Redwood Valley, Calif., is much in demand these days.
The founding pastor of the Saddleback mega-church south of Los Angeles and the author of the best-selling The Purpose Driven Life, Warren is perhaps the most influential evangelical Christian in America.
With his book - the best-selling hardback nonfiction book in the nation - and Purpose-Driven Life videos and 40-day Bible study plans, Warren has created an unparalleled international network of millions of individuals and 400,000 churches, spanning faiths and denominations.
Now he wants to use his growing influence - and wealth - for an ambitious global attack on poverty, AIDS, illiteracy and disease.
"The New Testament says the church is the body of Christ, but for the last 100 years, the hands and feet have been amputated, and the church has just been a mouth. And mostly, it's been known for what it's against," Warren said during a break between services at his sprawling Orange County church campus.
"I'm so tired of Christians being known for what they're against."
Fresh from preaching to 38,000 congregants during Christmas week services, Warren was looking to the future by invoking the past.
"One of my goals is to take evangelicals back a century, to the 19th century," said Warren, 51, shifting painfully in his chair because of a back sprain suffered during an all-terrain-vehicle romp with his 20-year-old son, Matthew. "That was a time of muscular Christianity that cared about every aspect of life."
Not just personal salvation, but social action. Abolishing slavery. Ending child labor. Winning the right for women to vote.
It's time for modern evangelicals to trade words for deeds and get similarly involved, Warren contends.
At the end of his second sermon last Sunday, he reminded his largely affluent Orange County audience: "Life is not about having more and getting more. It's about serving God and serving others."
That, simply put, is his message. Give your life to God, help others, spread the word. It is the same message that Christians have been preaching for 2,000 years. Warren has updated the language, added catchphrases and five-step guides, but he readily admits "there is not a new idea in that book."
The Purpose Driven Life has sold more than 24 million English-language copies since 2002, with millions more in other languages. It has been popular with Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, with pastors and priests using it as a Bible-study handbook.
The book figured prominently in a hostage drama in Georgia last March. Ashley Smith, held by alleged Atlanta courthouse killer Brian Nichols, said he released her after she gave him methamphetamine and read to him from the book.
Warren "is able to cast the Christian story so people can hear it in fresh ways," said Donald E. Miller, director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He is "a very important figure in evangelical Christianity," part of a "trend we'll see more of," Miller said, citing Warren's independence, social activism, informality and ability to reach across racial and national lines.
"The Gen X-ers are sick and tired of flash and hype and marketing," Miller said. "The soft sell of a Rick Warren is far more attractive to them than a highly stylized TV presentation of the Christian message."
Among evangelicals, Warren is more influential than better-known and more-divisive figures such as religious broadcasters Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell or radio psychologist James Dobson, and is often seen as the heir to the Rev. Billy Graham as "America's pastor."
Scott L. Thumma, a professor of the sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary and the author of a forthcoming book on mega-churches, said polls of church leaders often put Warren in first or second place among most-influential evangelical leaders.
"And one of the interesting things is that he crosses boundaries... . He's not just respected by the evangelical world but by many outside that world," Thumma said.
In North Philadelphia, the Rev. Herbert Lusk, the former Philadelphia Eagles running back who is pastor of the Greater Exodus Baptist Church and a prominent supporter of President Bush, brought Warren to town in November to raise money for aid to Africa. Lusk also tutored many of the Eagles' players and coaches in the Purpose-Driven Life program last year.
Lusk said Warren "took the principles that we preach about every Sunday and packaged them in a way that are palatable for Christians and non-Christians."
"The guy is a preacher's preacher... . He's the leading evangelical in the world, unquestionably," Lusk said.
Broadly defined, evangelicals are Christians who have had a personal or "born-again" religious conversion, believe the Bible is the word of God, and believe in spreading their faith. (The term comes from Greek; to "evangelize" means to preach the gospel.) The term is typically applied to Protestants.
Millions of Americans fit the definition, although estimates vary on exactly how many. Forty-two percent of Americans described themselves as evangelical Christians in a Gallup poll in April, while 22 percent said they met all three measures in a Gallup survey in May. The National Association of Evangelicals says about 25 percent of adult Americans are evangelicals.
Evangelicals are often equated with fundamentalists or the religious right, which annoys Warren. Although he's politically conservative - opposing abortion and gay marriage and supporting the death penalty - he pushes a much broader agenda and disdains both politics and fundamentalism.
Warren is a friend of President Bush and a repeat visitor to the White House. But he also met for several hours at Saddleback last month with Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, to discuss issues such as poverty and the environment.
"I'm worried that evangelicals be identified too much with one party or the other. When that happens, you lose your prophetic role of speaking truth to power," Warren said. "And you have to defend stupid things that leaders do."
"Politics is always downstream from culture. I place less confidence in it than a lot of folks. I don't think that's the answer... . Politics is not the right tool to change the culture."
With his goatee and penchant for Hawaiian shirts and colloquial language, Warren embodies a laid-back approach to worship that resonates with Americans who have little allegiance to formal denominations or rituals.
His 120-acre hilltop campus, with palm trees, waterfall and meandering brook, is a kind of religious theme park, where worshipers meet in different buildings to suit their musical preferences, while watching simultaneous video feeds of Warren preaching at the main worship center.
Warren's father and grandfather and great-grandfather were all preachers. He followed their path by starting Saddleback in 1980 with his wife, Kay, and a congregation of seven. His ministry prospered in booming Orange County, as Warren went door-to-door, asking residents what they'd like in a church. For 15 years, he and his growing flock were nomads, meeting in schools, homes and other buildings. Construction started on the current campus in 1995, and Warren now has 80,000 names on Saddleback's rolls. Saddleback is a a Southern Baptist church, but it doesn't advertise the fact.
As the money has rolled in from his book, Warren said he has given most of the millions to the church and the three social-service foundations he has established. He stopped taking his $110,000 annual salary and repaid the church for his 25 years of salary since its founding. He and his wife became "reverse tithers," he said, keeping 10 percent of their income and giving away the rest, including $13 million in 2004.
This month, he is leading a trip to Rwanda, to train pastors and distribute medicine and money to battle AIDS and other diseases. It's part of what he calls his global PEACE plan (Plant a church, Equip leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick, Educate the next generation).
Last month, he launched the first major evangelical effort to battle AIDS, convening a three-day conference at Saddleback to mobilize American Christians to help AIDS victims and raise money to fight the disease. Part of the battle for Warren is overcoming resistance from evangelicals who view AIDS as strictly a gay disease or even as divine retribution for immoral behavior.
Warren said he sees religious institutions as more powerful forces than governments for solving the world's problems.
"I would trust any imam or priest or rabbi to know what is going on in a community before I would any government agency."
But, powerful as churches can be in working for the powerless, they can't succeed without governments and nongovernmental organizations, Warren said.
Warren predicts that fundamentalism, of all varieties, will be "one of the big enemies of the 21st century."
"Muslim fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, secular fundamentalism - they're all motivated by fear. Fear of each other."
ONLINE EXTRA
To read the rest of the series on the evangelical movement by Paul Nussbaum, visit http://go.philly.com/religion
>>That should send some chills up the spines of any unsaved visitors.<<
What better thing for them to hear than:
"...and sinners plunged beneath that flood,
loose all their guilty stains"?
Versus
"We love you Lord, we love you, we love you" x12
Considering that you can't love the Lord properly unless your sins have been washed away.
See, that's the whole thing right there - I've been to the seeker churches, I've sat in on the sermons, and ALL of what I've heard has been the very simple message of "Trust in Jesus". Now, while that phrase is very sound for the believer, it does nothing to the unsaved, who doesn't know WHY he needs to trust Jesus, nor what he's being saved FROM.
The sermons I heard only spoke of calling on Jesus in times of need - like He's some sort of ATM. No mention of sin, no mention of the vileness that seperates us from God, no mention of the weight of our iniquities - just luv luv luv huggy huggy luv luv cotton candy theology.
Do you see what I'm saying? If the message is, "You're ok, but Jesus can make you better!", then why should the unsaved listen to anything beyond hearing that he's ok? If he's ok, why does he need to be any better?
People need to be convicted of their sin, not smokescreened with spiritual Similac.
>>Is your church in a rural area surrounded by cornfields?<<
No, it's about a half-mile from a huge industrial park. Why do you ask?
Professor.
You need to get out more.
Out *where*, Marlowe, since you seem to know so much about me.
Have you looked at the Reformation Study Bible? Theological notes and commentary by R.C. Sproul - I've found it quite edifying.
>>Also includes thos who think every event that occurs is the result of god's direct will.<<
God is not Sovereign over His creation?
If more pastors realized that they are not called to be a friend, but a Shepherd, then this apostacy would not run so deep.
Imagine yourself as an unsaved and uninformed and naieve agnostic that does not know a word of Christian lingo and who has been invited to a church located in a cornfield 20 miles from civilization. You haven't been in a church since you were knee high to a grasshopper, maybe not at all.
You go into the old wooden church building and are met by a bunch of solemn faces who look at you like you are some outsider. You look around at the altar and above the altar you see some kind of tub and you have no idea why they would have a tub in a church. You take your seat. Then the service begins with these formerly solemn faced people erupting into a wide eyed and joyous chorus of "There's a fountain filled with blood." Some of the children tug on their parents' arms and point at you, the stranger in their midst.
Now honestly wouldn't that send chills up your spine?
Well, you certainly haven't described my church in the least, but I do thank you for proving me right.
You've placed feelings and environment as stronger than the Word of God.
Emotions don't save, old wood doesn't save, pop-christian music doesn't save, being in the right environment doesn't save. Only Christ saves, and He's not beholden to any method other than the sound preaching of His Word. "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."
Isaiah 55:10-11:
"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
Christians aren't responsible for the comfortable feelings of newcomers, they're responsible for the sound preaching of God's word.
That being said, I think you'd be hard pressed to find true believers who are not welcoming to newcomers. The love of Christ being in us, we understand fully well the condition of the unsaved, and we are joyed when someone is drawn into fellowship with us.
God's sovereignty. Obviously that person is attending that morning for a reason. God has drawn them that morning according to His good pleasure. Why would any believer NOT be happy about that?
You seem to have a pretty dour misconception of anyone who's not party of the Happy Clappy set. Have you used the phrase "The Frozen Chosen" within the last month? :-)
Oh, and you still haven't told me *where* I should get out to.
Conversely, you are spiritually bankrupt. You just know that you are broken and don't know how to go about fixing yourself. You venture into a modern "worship facility" and are bombarded with flashing lights and everyone worked into a frenzy singing the umpteenth go-round of the latest market driven happy clappy praise chant. This totally clashes with what you are feeling. This is not where you are, you stumble out in a confused daze.... How is that any different from your scenario?
My scenario was an (apparently feeble) attempt at humor.
Maybe a comedy club.
Your scenario is very apt, GC.
In my days as a heathen, I was invited to my brother's "Born Again" worship center (none DARED call it a church!), and went willingly.
When they were all up singing and dancing in the aisles, some crying hysterically, some shouting like they had Tourettes' Syndrome, I felt obligated to "join in" and act the same way. No one else was standing still and heck, I didn't want to be the only one, so I acted the part.
My brother and several of his friends saw me acting as the rest of them and saw this as a "sign" of conversion, and began pressing me for months to return and join them in all manner of 'studies" (read: social hour) and 'events' (usually block parties where only the church members showed up to applaud each other for doing such a good work). When I declined and showed no interest, I was met with hostility. "What, you come to worship with us, and then don't do anything to follow-up? What's wrong with you?", etc.
A terrible experience to say the least, but looking back on it with new eyes, I can see the deception as clear as crystal.
With regard to Rick's personal life I probably wouldn't call him apostate. However his teachings are so vague that they allow heresy to flourish, and error if left unchecked gives rise to further error. (e.g. a little leaven leavens the whole lump) I cannot judge him by his personal life since I have no access to that. I judge his teachings. He is sorely mistaken, and refuses correction because he has not publicly realized his error and fixed it. I can also judge that.
I have stayed up many nights, for months, into the wee hours crying and praying, and physically trembling before God before I took that step with complete assurance, and before I rebuked my own pastor for his cavalier, deceptive, politicking attitude and behavior.
Define Fundamentalists.
I have far less problem with them than with 'permissivists.'
Truthfully, I know that Rick is far more conservative than he says publicly. That is a political facade, and I look at it as virtually synonymous with cowardice as well. John Macarthur has written a book _Ashamed of the Gospel_ which I think applies quite well.
go to www.seekersensitive.com and post your story on the forum there. It's a great place. Not too well- known ...yet
You have been delphi'd!
see: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37b321093ce6.htm
Also this one from a public school website: http://www.illinoisloop.org/committees.html Shows how the technique is used to build consensus and eliminate dissenters. People use it all the time and don't even consciously realize it, it's so ingrained in our society.
Another good resource is Dean Gotcher's "Diaprax" seminar
http://christianunplugged.com/klenck_report.htm
which is similar -- exposing the Delphi method at work, how the group works to make you go along with it against your principles.
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