The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Rick Warren Quote

neicey,

I am going to have to respond by saying that I STRONGLY disagree with your assessment, i.e., that what Kim said in regard to where God was during 911 and what Rick Warren said are the same or even remotely similar. There is SOoooooooo much wrong (unbiblical) with Warren's statement that it would take me far too long to respond to all of it. But let me just address a couple of the more obvious things:

(1) God does not dwell in the hearts of unbelievers; in Warren's estimation, He dwells in the hearts of those who do what is perceived as "good", e.g., the rescue workers, etc. First, no man does good!! Second, God only dwells in the hearts of those who have been made alive by the Holy Spirit, Who having created a new nature which is fit for His presence, dwells therein; that person having been reconciled to God through faith in Christ. That God uses wicked men, women and children to accomplish His purpose on earth to His ultimate glory and for the good of His own, the Church is decidedly not the same thing as "being in the hearts" of all those who do acts of compassion to their fellow man. The God of the Bible is a sovereign King Who presently rules all of His creation in an objective manner, including the taking of lives in what we as humans call "tragedies". (cf. Isa 45:7)

(2) Here is a perfect example of what happens when a person believes that they can "learn truth" from all the other religions. What Warren said and thus is teaching, at least in part, a part that has been co-mingled with historic Christianity, is the "god" embraced by such Liberals as Friedrich Schleiermacher. To Schleiermacher, religion was "a sense of community", it is not the creation of ecclesiastical institutions and dogma; rather, it is their creator. It emerges out of a prior community and is rooted in a dimension of self-consciousness that cannot be expunged from the nature that is fully human. Put more simply, "god" is when people come together for a singular purpose for the betterment of their fellow man. The point here is that Rick Warren's "religion" is an admixture of various "truth" which he has found in "all religions".

I cannot find a "better" definition and/or understanding of true faith in sources other than the inspired Scriptures. But for people like Warren, they seem to think that although the Bible is "sufficient" to a degree, other religions are able to add to one's understanding of such things as faith which are helpful in that they can "expand upon" that which the Bible teaches. It's like going to a Bible study where the infamous question is asked of those sitting around in a circle, "What does this text mean to you?". You are then encouraged to listen to each person's response and then by combining all that people have said, you come to a "fuller/better" understanding of what the passage means compared to only relying upon your own "feelings" about what the text says. There is no OBJECTIVITY....... no OBJECTIVE truth which one is to discover and submit to. It all becomes a matter of what one "feels" the text means, i.e., how the text "moves you", etc.... which again comes right out of the repository teachings of neo-Orthodoxy, e.g., Karl Barth, &co.

The most dangerous teachings a Christian can be confronted with are those that contain both truth and error, because they do have an appearance of verity to them. And most always, what is included in such teachings is the warning, "Be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater." Which is another one of Satan's deceptions, i.e., allow error to dwell alongside of truth since YOU cannot be absolutely sure that error is error or even that what you think is truth is really truth. Doubt is a most valuable weapon used by the Evil One, "Yea, hath God said . . .?"

In His Grace,