[raygun]

Islam is defended by Rick Warren as a valid "faith" that he cooperates with in working (through his P.E.A.C.E Plan) for what he calls a New Reformation. In its advancement, he says he "would trust any imam or priest or rabbi...."

A month after the September 11 tragedy, a Muslim cleric, Fisal Hammouda, shared Bill Hybels's Willow Creek pulpit for a discussion about Islam. The imam and pastor discussed strong ties between Christianity and Islam, and the congregation was impressed. They learned from the charming Hammouda that jihad, more often than not, was an individual "holy war" to overcome personal weaknesses such as a sweet tooth. Seriously? Hybels was concerned that there "are some Christians spreading rumors and half-truths that the Qur'an encourages violence." It may be that Pastor Hybels has never read the many verses in the Qur'an condoning and commanding violence (especially for temporal and eternal rewards) and that he simply was misinformed. However, when Hammouda claimed that Muslims "believe in Jesus, more than [Christians] do in fact," Hybels knew enough to disagree. Yet he didn't seem to have the heart to tell the congregation that Islam's "Jesus" is someone invented by Muhammad, and therefore can't save anyone. That lack of disclosure by the pastor was not inconsequential. How many among the thousands who attended the "seeker-friendly" service left with the same enthusiastic feeling noted by one church member: "I didn't know they believed in Jesus"?¹ What of those who came seeking the truth?

Hybels's mentor in ministry is Robert Schuller, whose compromises with Islam are notorious. From personally preaching in the mosque of the Grand Mufti in Damascus, to allowing the Islamic leader's cleric son to preach from his own pulpit, these things are nothing new for someone who sponsors "Christians and Muslims for Peace" at his Crystal Cathedral. Exactly where his head is in all of this can be ascertained from a statement he made to an official of the Muslim American Society. He said that "if he [Schuller] came back in 100 years and found his descendants Muslims, it wouldn't bother him...."² Perhaps Schuller has been influenced by his good friend, Billy Graham, who said, "I think Islam is misunderstood, too, because Mohammad has a great respect for Jesus...And I think we're closer to Islam than we really think we are."³

Schuller calls Muslims "Christians", says we should not try to change anyone’s "religion", went to Rome with plans of the Crystal Cathedral to obtain the Holy Father’s blessing before building it, has shared his pulpit with Catholics, atheists, agnostics, and occultists, some of whom, such as Larry King, a Jewish agnostic, Schuller has asked to pray.

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 and, hence, counterproductive to the evangelism enterprise than...attempting to make people than...attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition⁴

To be born again we must be changed from a negative to a positive selfimage...from inferiority to self-esteem...⁵

If Christianity is to succeed...it must cease to be a negative religion and must become positive...⁶

The classical error of historical Christianity is that we have never started with the value of the person. Rather, we have started from the ‘unworthiness of the sinner...⁷

Warren begins Purpose with "the value of the person", a theme repeated throughout. Although not guilty, as is Schuller, of outright contradiction of the gospel, Warren does a masterful job of removing from it anything that those who need it might fi nd offensive. Anyone familiar with Schuller’s writings recognizes an undertone of the same compromise in TPDL. (cf. Deu 1:17; 10:17,18; II Chr 19:4-7; Mat 22:15,16; Act 10:34; Rom 2:6-12; Gal 2:3-6; Eph 6:8,9; Col 3:23-25; I Pet 1:17)

Willow Creek Community Church is the largest evangelical church in America. Schuller's "Hour of Power," which Graham helped him begin and continues to enthusiastically support, is the number one evangelistic TV program worldwide. Here's another troubling question: Where then are the heads of the sheep these pastors shepherd, and the thousands of evangelical pastors from around the country who flock to their conferences?

Rick and his wife, Kay, attended Schuller’s Institute for Successful Church leadership during his last year in seminary. "He had a profound infl uence on Rick," Kay says. "We were captivated by his positive appeal to nonbelievers". ⁸

The similarity between Schuller’s teachings and Warren’s PDL ideas cannot be denied. Warren has obviously patterned his approach to a "successful church" after what he learned from Schuller. Warren’s The PDL, which has sold more than 20 million copies and has been followed in its Forty Days of Purpose program by thousands of congregations, tells the reader that he is exactly the person God made and intended him to be. Missing is anything to convict the sinner of his rebellion against God and the coming judgment. It is all about success and fulfillment in this life. This humanistic approach is very appealing. No wonder corporations and athletic teams study it (NASCAR, Coca Cola, LPGA, Oakland Raiders, etc.). It echoes Schuller.

Willow Creek one-time assistant pastor Lee Strobel is now a pastor at Rick Warren's Saddleback Valley Community Church. While pastoring at Willow Creek in 1994, Strobel wrote a book titled What Jesus Would Say. It takes an irreverent, humorous, "sympathetic look" at immoral, prominent, ungodly personalities such as President Clinton, Murphey Brown, Bart Simpson, and Madonna, and suggests what would happen if Jesus had "chats" with these people. In exploring what he thinks Jesus would say to modern celebrities, Strobel is striving to make religion relevant to a cynical contemporary world. (As bad as that idea is, isn't purporting to speak for God a bit presumptuous at best, and blasphemous at worse?)

In Madonna, Strobel says he thinks Jesus "would see by her own admission that it's her sense of mediocrity and her desire to overcome that that's driving her -- it's a self-esteem issue. Jesus, opines Strobel, would look beyond Madonna the media icon to see Madonna the person, someone who lost her mother at a young age and who was turned off by the trappings of traditional religion. If people have a less than compassionate concept of God than this, Strobel lays the blame on evangelical Christians⁹

Strobel authored a book in 1993, Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry & Mary: How to Reach Friends and Family Who Avoid God and the Church. The book is endorsed in its Foreword by Bill Hybels. (The book is also endorsed/recommended by thirteen more neo-evangelical psychologizers, including Max Lucado, Tony Campolo, Howard Hendricks, Stuart Briscoe, C. Peter Wagner, Joseph Stowell, Elmer Towns, Bill Bright, and Gary Collins.) In this book, Strobel makes it clear that he was drawn to Hybels' church, not by the message of truth, but by the music of the world. After he found himself comfortable with the music and modern style of worship, he simply reasoned his way to a conversion experience. Strobel is completely geared to a needs based religion. His purpose is to meet man's needs, based on his own perception, rather than honoring man's obligation to worship and glorify God. Strobel's purpose is to find out what works, and not to find out what is Biblical. His purpose is to please lost, unregenerate men, and not to please God. To read Strobel's book (and by nature of endorsement, Bill Hybels' thoughts also) you come up with the idea that the problem with people is that they are simply unchurched. To the contrary, they need to be seen as lost and in need of a Savior.¹⁰

Would it be non-sequitor to state Rick Warren's theology is any different than one of the pastors preaching at Saddleback, or the many evangelicals who evidently have had a hand in formulating it? I’m not suggesting that Warren holds any of Schuller’s heresies. Yet, like Hybels and other "church growth" gurus, he has definitely adopted many of Schuller’s compromises and methods. When Schuller claims that he is the father of the churchgrowth movement, it is no idle boast.

The watered-down Schuller approach, designed to offend no one, is even reflected in Saddleback’s doctrinal statements regarding, for example, sin:

Every person, although endowed with the image of God, inherited a disobedient heart from Adam, the very first man. This attitude of disobedience (called sin in the Bible) unless rectified through Christ - forever keeps man from forming a relationship with his Creator.

No explanation of Christ’s payment on the Cross for sin. Nor does not "forming a relationship with his Creator" even come close to "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (Jn 3:36); "whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rv 20:15).

Many would like to unite church and stage... When the old faith is gone, and enthusiasm for the gospel is extinct, it is no wonder that the people seek something else in the way of delight. Lacking bread, they feed on ashes; rejecting the way of the Lord, they run greedily in the path of folly.¹¹

Endnotes:

1. Chicago Tribune, 10/12/01.

2. Newsday, 8/31/97.

3. "Talking with David Frost," 5/30/97.

4. Schuller, Time, March 18, 1985.

5. Schuller, Self-Esteem: the New Reformation, p. 68

6. Ibid, p. 104

7. Schuller, op. cit., p. 162

8. Christianity Today, 11/18/2002.

9. Santa Barbara Press, p. D4, 1/8/95.

10. Plains Baptist Challenger, pp. 5-7, 1/96.

11. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, "Another Word Concerning the Down Grade", The Sword and the Trowel, 1887

Islam is defended by Rick Warren as a valid "faith" that he cooperates with in working (through his P.E.A.C.E Plan) for what he calls a New Reformation. In its advancement, he says he "would trust any imam or priest or rabbi...."

A month after the September 11 tragedy, a Muslim cleric, Fisal Hammouda, shared Bill Hybels's Willow Creek pulpit for a discussion about Islam. The imam and pastor discussed strong ties between Christianity and Islam, and the congregation was impressed. They learned from the charming Hammouda that jihad, more often than not, was an individual "holy war" to overcome personal weaknesses such as a sweet tooth. Seriously? Hybels was concerned that there "are some Christians spreading rumors and half-truths that the Qur'an encourages violence." It may be that Pastor Hybels has never read the many verses in the Qur'an condoning and commanding violence (especially for temporal and eternal rewards) and that he simply was misinformed. However, when Hammouda claimed that Muslims "believe in Jesus, more than [Christians] do in fact," Hybels knew enough to disagree. Yet he didn't seem to have the heart to tell the congregation that Islam's "Jesus" is someone invented by Muhammad, and therefore can't save anyone. That lack of disclosure by the pastor was not inconsequential. How many among the thousands who attended the "seeker-friendly" service left with the same enthusiastic feeling noted by one church member: "I didn't know they believed in Jesus"?¹ What of those who came seeking the truth?

Hybels's mentor in ministry is Robert Schuller, whose compromises with Islam are notorious. From personally preaching in the mosque of the Grand Mufti in Damascus, to allowing the Islamic leader's cleric son to preach from his own pulpit, these things are nothing new for someone who sponsors "Christians and Muslims for Peace" at his Crystal Cathedral. Exactly where his head is in all of this can be ascertained from a statement he made to an official of the Muslim American Society. He said that "if he [Schuller] came back in 100 years and found his descendants Muslims, it wouldn't bother him...."² Perhaps Schuller has been influenced by his good friend, Billy Graham, who said, "I think Islam is misunderstood, too, because Mohammad has a great respect for Jesus...And I think we're closer to Islam than we really think we are."³

Schuller calls Muslims "Christians", says we should not try to change anyone’s "religion", went to Rome with plans of the Crystal Cathedral to obtain the Holy Father’s blessing before building it, has shared his pulpit with Catholics, atheists, agnostics, and occultists, some of whom, such as Larry King, a Jewish agnostic, Schuller has asked to pray.

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 and, hence, counterproductive to the evangelism enterprise than...attempting to make people than...attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition⁴

To be born again we must be changed from a negative to a positive selfimage...from inferiority to self-esteem...⁵

If Christianity is to succeed...it must cease to be a negative religion and must become positive...⁶

The classical error of historical Christianity is that we have never started with the value of the person. Rather, we have started from the ‘unworthiness of the sinner...⁷

Warren begins Purpose with "the value of the person", a theme repeated throughout. Although not guilty, as is Schuller, of outright contradiction of the gospel, Warren does a masterful job of removing from it anything that those who need it might fi nd offensive. Anyone familiar with Schuller’s writings recognizes an undertone of the same compromise in TPDL. (cf. Deu 1:17; 10:17,18; II Chr 19:4-7; Mat 22:15,16; Act 10:34; Rom 2:6-12; Gal 2:3-6; Eph 6:8,9; Col 3:23-25; I Pet 1:17)

Willow Creek Community Church is the largest evangelical church in America. Schuller's "Hour of Power," which Graham helped him begin and continues to enthusiastically support, is the number one evangelistic TV program worldwide. Here's another troubling question: Where then are the heads of the sheep these pastors shepherd, and the thousands of evangelical pastors from around the country who flock to their conferences?

Rick and his wife, Kay, attended Schuller’s Institute for Successful Church leadership during his last year in seminary. "He had a profound infl uence on Rick," Kay says. "We were captivated by his positive appeal to nonbelievers". ⁸

The similarity between Schuller’s teachings and Warren’s PDL ideas cannot be denied. Warren has obviously patterned his approach to a "successful church" after what he learned from Schuller. Warren’s The PDL, which has sold more than 20 million copies and has been followed in its Forty Days of Purpose program by thousands of congregations, tells the reader that he is exactly the person God made and intended him to be. Missing is anything to convict the sinner of his rebellion against God and the coming judgment. It is all about success and fulfillment in this life. This humanistic approach is very appealing. No wonder corporations and athletic teams study it (NASCAR, Coca Cola, LPGA, Oakland Raiders, etc.). It echoes Schuller.

Willow Creek one-time assistant pastor Lee Strobel is now a pastor at Rick Warren's Saddleback Valley Community Church. While pastoring at Willow Creek in 1994, Strobel wrote a book titled What Jesus Would Say. It takes an irreverent, humorous, "sympathetic look" at immoral, prominent, ungodly personalities such as President Clinton, Murphey Brown, Bart Simpson, and Madonna, and suggests what would happen if Jesus had "chats" with these people. In exploring what he thinks Jesus would say to modern celebrities, Strobel is striving to make religion relevant to a cynical contemporary world. (As bad as that idea is, isn't purporting to speak for God a bit presumptuous at best, and blasphemous at worse?)

In Madonna, Strobel says he thinks Jesus "would see by her own admission that it's her sense of mediocrity and her desire to overcome that that's driving her -- it's a self-esteem issue. Jesus, opines Strobel, would look beyond Madonna the media icon to see Madonna the person, someone who lost her mother at a young age and who was turned off by the trappings of traditional religion. If people have a less than compassionate concept of God than this, Strobel lays the blame on evangelical Christians⁹

Strobel authored a book in 1993, Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry & Mary: How to Reach Friends and Family Who Avoid God and the Church. The book is endorsed in its Foreword by Bill Hybels. (The book is also endorsed/recommended by thirteen more neo-evangelical psychologizers, including Max Lucado, Tony Campolo, Howard Hendricks, Stuart Briscoe, C. Peter Wagner, Joseph Stowell, Elmer Towns, Bill Bright, and Gary Collins.) In this book, Strobel makes it clear that he was drawn to Hybels' church, not by the message of truth, but by the music of the world. After he found himself comfortable with the music and modern style of worship, he simply reasoned his way to a conversion experience. Strobel is completely geared to a needs based religion. His purpose is to meet man's needs, based on his own perception, rather than honoring man's obligation to worship and glorify God. Strobel's purpose is to find out what works, and not to find out what is Biblical. His purpose is to please lost, unregenerate men, and not to please God. To read Strobel's book (and by nature of endorsement, Bill Hybels' thoughts also) you come up with the idea that the problem with people is that they are simply unchurched. To the contrary, they need to be seen as lost and in need of a Savior.¹⁰

Would it be non-sequitor to state Rick Warren's theology is any different than one of the pastors preaching at Saddleback, or the many evangelicals who evidently have had a hand in formulating it? I’m not suggesting that Warren holds any of Schuller’s heresies. Yet, like Hybels and other "church growth" gurus, he has definitely adopted many of Schuller’s compromises and methods. When Schuller claims that he is the father of the churchgrowth movement, it is no idle boast.

The watered-down Schuller approach, designed to offend no one, is even reflected in Saddleback’s doctrinal statements regarding, for example, sin:

Every person, although endowed with the image of God, inherited a disobedient heart from Adam, the very first man. This attitude of disobedience (called sin in the Bible) unless rectified through Christ - forever keeps man from forming a relationship with his Creator.

No explanation of Christ’s payment on the Cross for sin. Nor does not "forming a relationship with his Creator" even come close to "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (Jn 3:36); "whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rv 20:15).

Many would like to unite church and stage... When the old faith is gone, and enthusiasm for the gospel is extinct, it is no wonder that the people seek something else in the way of delight. Lacking bread, they feed on ashes; rejecting the way of the Lord, they run greedily in the path of folly.¹¹

Endnotes:

1. Chicago Tribune, 10/12/01.

2. Newsday, 8/31/97.

3. "Talking with David Frost," 5/30/97.

4. Schuller, Time, March 18, 1985.

5. Schuller, Self-Esteem: the New Reformation, p. 68

6. Ibid, p. 104

7. Schuller, op. cit., p. 162

8. Christianity Today, 11/18/2002.

9. Santa Barbara Press, p. D4, 1/8/95.

10. Plains Baptist Challenger, pp. 5-7, 1/96.

11. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, "Another Word Concerning the Down Grade", The Sword and the Trowel, 1887

[scripter]

Thanks for all the posts as I'm sure it took some time to put everything together. I'm pinging others because they're mentioned in this post.

I'm only interested in direct quotes from Warren, his book or his statement of faith and not interested in second hand accounts of what Warren has said or written. Your posts 265, 267 and 268 were posted as a response to my post 174, which was a response to this link, which, unfortunately, misrepresented what Warren wrote in the Purpose Driven Life.

Your post 281, by all appearances, looks like a response to Sunsong's post number 272 and you included me by accident, so I won't take the time to respond to that post although it looks like a good read.

Once I'm finished talking with pby then I'll get back to you. In the mean time, if you have one specific quote in mind from Warren, his books or his website, please let me know and we can start there.