I will not entertain anymore on this topic. I think the truth will stand on its on. Chris et al you all can have the last word.

Gee, where have I heard that one before.

[A number of the folks who would fit under the label “anti-warrenists” certainly talk a good game, but observation of their additional words/actions suggests descriptions such as “cups which are clean on the outside but dirty inside” or “whitewashed tombs”.]

This is a generalisation. So how many percent are we talking here? 10%? 5% of all good talkers? I presented the general case and you are simply representing the minority case here – people who talk but have no action.

[Regardless of the pastor, we should not elevate them to some pedestal. And, by the same token, Lance, your Monday-morning quarterbacking of Warren, is lame, as well.]

It is a fact (check christianity today/newspapers etc) that people HAVE elevated (not 1 or 2, but a LOT) RW to being ‘America’s pastor’. So i am dealing with reported observations. Hence our so called quarterbacking is required because this RW is not some normal unknown pastor with little influence. Lets deal with reality here shall we?

Hmm … When you evangelise someone to a wrong God (or wrong understanding of a right God) the number of real believers made [at that moment of time] equals to zero. So RW strength is neither evangelism nor hermenutics, as any evangelism that RW has done is made useless when the believers were made not on the terms spelt out in the bible (i.e. in truth) but on some lopsided gospel or emotional gimicks.

Its like introducing 100000000000000 people to believe in the Jesus of the mormons: 0 saved at that point of time. Introducing 1000000000000000 people to a wrong jesus is the same as introducing them to other gods. No difference.

Although it can be said that some people THROUGH OTHER MEANS AFTER the faux conversion (repentance, etc) may really believe, those end-state real believers did not become real believers because of what RW did: they became real believers because they repented and found out the truth.

Maybe you should look at Matthew, which warns us of false prophets (the topic here)

[Matthew 7, NIV]
A Tree and Its Fruit

15″Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

21″Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

I bring your attention to verses 21-23.

Sure , these people do all kinds of things, including ‘evangelise’ and make these faux believers ‘twice the son of hell as they are’ (its a biblical verse). They also do all kinds of AIDS work too – anything to make up for the fact that their truth is not the truth at all. Their christianity is at odds with the truth – a works based , truth-minimised faith. One should do the former withOUT ignoring the latter. RW ignored the latter, hence nulifying the former. Notice that the Lord does NOT acknowledge them even if they did a million things connected to christ.

DO you think the job of a christian is to deal with poverty and AIDS and bring XX number of people to Jesus? Don’t be silly. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Jesus never solved poverty when he came, so forget solving it now. Jesus didn’t come up with a disease cure, he just cured as and when he wished to show that Jesus indeed was God, thats all. And certainly don’t ever run away with the idea that a christian must bring people to heaven, as if he/she could make a person believe – it is solely and completely the work of god – man acts as the conduit but even if this conduit misfunctions, God cannot be frustrated.

I do not know if JM does shoddy research. We could fault him for shoddy research, even slander, but certainy not heresy because heresy involves wrong facts about GOD not people. To call him a false prophet would be silly because wrong research facts about PEOPLE does not mean he has the wrong facts about God.

RW has the wrong facts about God AND he preaches it amd proclaims the false facts. So shall we call him misguided? If yes, do you think RW will call himself that? Obviously not – if he did he would have repented. Given the antiRW hype in cyberspace, RW already knows that many have taken notice in his errors. Instead of acknowledging them and correcting them, he simply prints more of the same book and rattles off the same kind of speech. Think about it. At a personnal level, RW is

1) willfully disobeidient
2) consciously repackaging the gospel (come on he has a Dr in his name) – - You sure he is misguided?

While it is true that every pastor has strengths and weaknesses, one weakness that CANNOT have is poor handling of the word. Because they are the ones who feed the flock , and it is in the bible. Check the 2 books of timothy

Do you have to be all PDL in order to receive the gospel? No. Can you be? Yes. That is unless you’re Warren’s critics, then you have to look like, act, and be exactly like they would.

Many of the vocal anti-warrenists have done alot for the kingdom of God – just read their sermons and books!

Can I assume this is satire? Simply writing or saying “good” things does nothing for the Kingdom. Saying ≠ doing.

A number of the folks who would fit under the label “anti-warrenists” certainly talk a good game, but observation of their additional words/actions suggests descriptions such as “cups which are clean on the outside but dirty inside” or “whitewashed tombs”.

Do I agree with everything RW does? Of course not! Do I agree with everything I do? Well, no. Is there anyone, apart from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who’s got it 100% right? I don’t think so.

Regardless of the pastor, we should not elevate them to some pedestal. And, by the same token, Lance, your Monday-morning quarterbacking of Warren, is lame, as well.

Every pastor has strengths and weaknesses, which, somehow, a huge number of self-righteous Christians just can’t stomach. In this particular case, RW’s strength is not deep hermeneutical exegesis, but rather it is in other areas of evangelism. In Johnnie Mac’s case, his strength is hermeneutical exegesis (though I sometimes disagree with his extra-biblical systematic conclusions) and not research.

So, when JM ventures in to areas of research (see “Truth War” & “Charismatic Chaos”), it is fair to criticize the shoddy research, but it is not fair to call him a “false prophet” or the like. In the same way, when RW makes poor hermeneutical choices (like he did earlier this year with Psalm 2:4, it is fair to criticize his poor exegesis, but it is not fair to call him a “false prophet” or the like.

Rick Warren is known to be able to misinterpret scripture, many times for the sake of making a point that is not there. This means he is likely to be able to twist anything to his own advantage as well. I’m not saying that its 100% sure, but given the reports, 90-95% confidence is that Rick Warren had lied somewhere during his exchange with Joeseph Farah -of which he had no real need to.

Lance, your inference here could well be considered slander…

I am not being unforgiving here. I am simply reporting what is reported to be a fact. You can choose to take it or to leave it. But the truth will stand.

Rick Warren is known to be able to misinterpret scripture, many times for the sake of making a point that is not there. This means he is likely to be able to twist anything to his own advantage as well. I’m not saying that its 100% sure, but given the reports, 90-95% confidence is that Rick Warren had lied somewhere during his exchange with Joeseph Farah -of which he had no real need to.

Its ironic that while we are told to mistrust the syrian press, every ‘accusation’ against Rick Warren must be a lie, a misrepresentation or hyped-up anti-warren rhetoic or something. Is Rick Warren never wrong?

I am not assuming moral high ground nor i think anyone is assuming any such high ground, chris. I am simply reporting facts and asserting that RW is not all good as you may think him out to be and i urge you for your own spiritual safety, to be cautious when approaching his teachings in view of the fruit of his (questionable) character. Of course, the choice really at the end of the day IS yours and you answer to the Lord yourself, as you have said.

Phil,

People such as Macarthur critique RW badly. Many of the vocal anti-warrenists have done alot for the kingdom of God – just read their sermons and books! So i believe this generalisation is not true.

[generally... The amount of effort a person puts into criticizing a pastor is generally inversely proportional to the amount of work he or she actually does for the Kingdom.]

Joe

Generally, I would add this, too. The amount of effort a person puts into criticizing a pastor is generally inversely proportional to the amount of work he or she actually does for the Kingdom. It’s like the women who would complain to my dad about the church not having enough nursery workers. When my dad would ask why they couldn’t volunteer, they would inevitably have some lame excuse.