Redefining Christianity:UnderstandingPurposeDrivenMovement

[Sothenes]

Redefining Christianity, 1 - Rick Warren
Monday, May 01, 2006

Redefining Christianity, 2 - Seeker Sensitive

Redefining Christianity, 3 - Do Methods Matter?

http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Crit ... d=5/1/2006

The Gospel: A Method or a Message?
How the Purpose Driven Life Obscures the Gospel

Issue 80 - January/February 2004

by Bob DeWaay

http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue80.htm

“Church Health Award†From Rick Warren or Jesus Christ?
A Study of the Seven Churches in Revelation
ISSUE 86 - January/February 2005
We are awash in information about how to have healthy and successful churches. Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven church movement claims to have trained many thousands of pastors around the world. The website for this movement states the...

http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue86.htm

Recovering Reformation Theology

Issue 93 - March / April 2006

by Bob DeWaay

http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue93.htm

This book is advertised on Dr. Walter Martin's website:

http://www.waltermartin.org/whatsnew.html

May 08
Redefining Christianity
Understanding the Purpose Driven Movement
Many people are concerned about what has happened to their church since it became Purpose Driven. This book will explain what has happened, why, and how a Purpose Driven church is different from a Bible-centered, Gospel church.

Excerpt from Redefining Christianity:

"Jesus said, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:19). Not even the greatest marketing genius can change this without redefining the church. Seeking the approval of the world is precisely what the Purpose Driven movement is all about."

Bob DeWaay
247 Pages from 21st Century Press
Purchase your copy today.

Note from Sothenes:

My thing is that if we water down church and the word so that the word won't offend and so that people will come, our church won't go back to the Bible unless God permits us to and we will eventually fall away because I see this as a progressive thing. Where will we be tomorrow? I think that we need to listen to author on the audio link above to see the advanced chess moves made against the church because they were thought out in advance.

 

[Gary]

Rick Warren is a fraud

My thing is that if we water down church and the word so that the word won't offend and so that people will come, our church won't go back to the Bible unless God permits us to and we will eventually fall away because I see this as a progressive thing. Where will we be tomorrow? I think that we need to listen to author on the audio link above to see the advanced chess moves made against the church because they were thought out in advance.

I agree totally.

This is a quote from one of the web sites you posted:

In researching this article, I had to read Warren for long periods of time. This was difficult for me. I found his material disturbing. To cleanse my mind from Warren’s continual assaults on my thinking I took breaks to read John MacArthur’s Hard To Believe. MacArthur got my mind and heart back on the gospel and away from me (where Warren keeps wanting to put it)....
http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue80.htm

I also felt very disturbed and disrupted by Rick Warren's out-of-context use of a bad Bible translation!

In fact, I think he is a fraud! Both Rick Warren and John Maxwell misquote the Proverb 29:18.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." (note 5) Vision gives team members direction and confidence, two things they cannot be without.

Fair enough... it SEEMS OK, but why not check his references? So I go to "note 5" and find Proverbs 29:18 KJV.

Firstly, I find that he only quotes half the proverb! The full proverb is:
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (KJV)

Why did he leave off the second half of the proverb? Didn't fit his little diversion?

However, it runs deeper than this. I happen to have done a study on the Hebrew word "vision" or chazon (CHZN).

CHAZON means "vision" or "revelation" but it is always associated with a God-given "revelation", a prophetic vision. It is NOT the secular "... the vision for this company is to be bigger than Coke... " kind of "vision".

Let us check that with other translations:

• Where there is no revelation (prophetic vision), the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law. (NKJV)
  
  Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law. (NIV)
  
  When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is happy. (NLT)

So John Maxwell is misleading his readers. He is quoting from the Bible, leaving out half the proverb (note that he has a full stop after "perish" without the reference to the law "...but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.") He never explains what the term "vision" in the Bible really means: a prophetic vision, revelation.

The other places where this word CHAZON is used is in Isaiah 1:1, 1 Samuel 3:1, Daniel 8:17, Habakkuk 2:2-3. All of these are clearly prophetic visions, revelations from God. Not the secular "vision" that John Maxwell and Rick Warren pretend it to be!

 

[Gary]

Great response to Purpose Driven deception

I think this web site does a good job of exposing the errors in Purpose Driven Life
http://www.purposeverses.com/

:D

 

[Sothenes]

Re: Rick Warren is a fraud

My thing is that if we water down church and the word so that the word won't offend and so that people will come, our church won't go back to the Bible unless God permits us to and we will eventually fall away because I see this as a progressive thing. Where will we be tomorrow? I think that we need to listen to author on the audio link above to see the advanced chess moves made against the church because they were thought out in advance.

I agree totally.

Why is the message being watered down at churches so that people will come? Is God at fault for people not coming to church that we have to get rid of God's message for people to come? 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all scripture is inspired and that it is profitable. When we kick God's word out of church, we're essentially saying that God's word isn't profitable. Imagine going to someone's house and asking the owner to tone his/her message down. Imagine telling the owner He isn't welcome. That is what the seeker sensitive churches are doing to God.

"...there is none that seeketh after God."-Romans 3:11 If none are seeking after God then do we have to tone the message down? But if God is drawing people then shouldn't we use His word because the people will come anyway?