Posted on 03/17/2005 8:19:35 PM PST by buckeyesrule
To me, the worst aspect of this scenario is McArthur going on a national program through a secular broadcast to denounce the work of another brother. I know that he understands what Paul is saying I Corinthians 6, so I'm pretty disapointed with this course of action.
I almost wrote a blog post dealing with it, but then decided that - hey - I would be doing the same thing.
This was the statement that you were in disagreement with which led to our discussion. I still stand by my support of this statement. However, it does not make me draw a line in the sand for either one of these people. There is a danger though in directing the finger to what man should be doing instead of acknowledging all that God has done for us. From that acknowledgement comes our desire to tell others of the Good News.
Imagine that, they misrepresented someone who really preaches the WHOLE Bible, and made a guy who corrupts the Gospel look good. Imagine that....
"What are Freeper opinions of Rick Warren and his book?"
You'll get the whole gamut here. I personally think it is totally NewAge. It's just Robert Schuller repackaged. Warren even has a "Global Peace Plan" which plays right into the hands of the end time "One World" scenario. It's just unreal. If he is sincerely trusting Jesus, then he is profoundly ignorant of Scripture as well and should NOT be leading any church or even a Bible Study.
Some GREAT pages with links to LOTS of refutation of Warren's 'poison pablum' (as I like to call it).
Biblical critiques
of Rick Warren's (Essentially Robert Schuller's) teachings:
http://www.twincityfellowship.com/cic/downloads.php
especially the articles entitled
"Redefining the Church"
"Church Health Award - From Rick Warren or Jesus Christ?"
"How the Purpose Driven Life Obscures the Gospel"
and "Robert Schuller and the Seeker Sensitive Church"
http://www.moriel.org/discernment.htm#this
scroll down and click on the “church issues” tab – there you will see a list of topics, click “purpose driven.”
http://www.erwm.com/Church%20Growth%20Movement.htm
Many many links there.
http://www.seekersensitive.com/articles.shtml
as well as here.
http://www.myfortress.org/RickWarren.html
has quite a few also. Some may be duplicated between these three lists of course.
http://www.biblebb.com/files/purpose.htm
6 papers on Rick Warren's teachings from Grace Community Church (John MacArthur's church)
http://www.challies.com/archives/000573.php
challies has a lot of stuff on the Rick Warren Phenomenon. Search through his articles for church growth topics and through his book reviews.
here's a good excerpt from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.
By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.
The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.
God hates visionary dreaming; it makes a dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.
Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise. We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what He does give us daily... In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives big things.
We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet not so small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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