MORIEL MINISTRIES - By James Jacob Prasch -
February 8, 2008
Moriel Ministries & Jacob Prasch take extreme
exception to the long statement highly critical of Chuck
Smith, various Calvary Chapels, Roger Oakland and
Dave Hunt by
Richard Abanes of
Saddleback Church
in reaction to their expressed position regarding The
Purpose Driven Agenda of Rick Warren. Mr. Abanes
wrote as an apologist for Rick Warren and the
Saddleback Purpose Driven ethos.
The response by Mr. Abanes was an exercise in
circumlocution failing centrally and candidly to
address the various concerns voiced to the unbiblical
nature of The Purpose Driven Agenda. These are well
documented in a series of well-researched and
strongly lucid books and presentations by Warren
Smith, Ray Yungen, Roger Oakland, Bob DeWaay,
James Sundquist and others.
The caveats raised by Chuck Smith and various
Calvary Chapel ministers, by Roger
Oakland & Understanding The Times, and by Dave Hunt & The
Berean Call, are scripturally based objections to a
compromise of biblical doctrine, biblical standards,
and the nature of the biblical Gospel itself.
The Purpose Driven agenda combines the
programmatic approach of marketing guru of the late
Peter
Drucker (a non believer) with a plethora of
consumer psychology, New Age, and an ecumenical
& interfaith pattern of compromise on essentials of the
Christian faith - even advising rabbis who reject their
true Messiah how to grow bigger synagogues without
the gospel of Yeshua (Jesus). Mr. Abanes' attempted
defense of Purpose Driven involvement with Yoga as
mere "stretching exercises" are directly balked at by
Christian evangelists saved out of Hinduism such as
Tom Chacko, and reflects the incipient New Age
infiltration of the church in addition to the more general
influences of New Age figures such as Ken
Blanchard.
From Mr. Warren's applause of a pro partial birth
abortion presidential candidate as "the epitome of
compassionate liberalism" to his false gospel that
confuses justification with sanctification - warning us
not to tell the unsaved to repent but just to accept
Jesus in direct contradiction to The New Testament,
the reasons for opposition to Mr. Warren's new brand
of paradigm shifted Christianity are very well in order.
RICK WARREN & THE EMERGENT CHURCH
Of more concern however still is the Rick Warren &
Purpose Driven partnership with Emergent Church
leaders such as Brian McLaren who
believes the use
of imagination is the hermeneutical key to parable
interpretation; this is pure gnosticism. Mr. Warren has
closely co-operated with McLaren at least since the
National Pastors Conference in San Diego in 2004.
Mr. Warren co-authored the forward to Dan Kimbell's
book on The Emergent Church with Brian
McLaren.
McLaren's rejection of propositional truth as the basis
of Christian faith stands in direct rejection of the
Pauline doctrine that propositional belief in the
historicity of the resurrection of Jesus is the crux of
Christianity; McLaren's position relegates him to the
status of heretic. McLaren's further call for a
moratorium on debate of the morality of homosexuality
and lesbianism in the church renders him a purveyor
of unadulterated moral and doctrinal apostasy.
The Emergent church is an exercise in mysticism that
redefines Christianity as a postmodern faith. With its
contemplative exercises, icons, and pseudo-spiritual
sensuality, it does not re-contextualize the gospel to
evangelize a postmodern worldview but is rather an
exercise in revived Patristic and medieval mysticism
that redefines Christianity as a spiritually abject
postmodern religion, and PURPOSE DRIVEN is
merely the door into this demonically orchestrated
delusion. McLaren's 'Generous Orthodoxy' is but
blatant heterodoxy.
Rick Warren's joint activity with McLaren, such as joint
authorship of a major book
promulgating 'Emergence', can in no sense be
dismissed as mere affiliation. McLaren and Warren
are fellow architects of a new kind of church whose
blue print is not biblical and whose ecclesiology is
neither biblically apostolic or in accordance with the
teachings of Christ concerning the nature of the
church and its mission. Such scriptural principles are
at best subordinated to the ideas of men (many of
them non-believers); at worst, biblical principles are
not uncommonly negated or else ignored. This is the
essence of so called "Emergence".
As a non-cessationist who takes a conservative
biblically grounded understanding and praxis of
charismatic gifts, I have in times past been appalled
at the Word of God being relegated to a back burner in
the face of an avalanche of emotionally charged
experiential theology disguised as 'new spirituality'. At
times, this has amounted to virtual demonic deception
as in the spiritual counterfeits in Toronto and
Pensacola that failed to deliver the promised revivals. I
likewise witnessed the lunacy of The Kansas City
false prophets and their failed prophetic predictions
before one of their leaders was discovered in serious
immorality while another was admitted to be a
homosexual and an alcoholic - after the bible was
relegated.
I also watched as the positive thinking psychology of
Norman Vincent Peale was repackaged for
Evangelicals by Robert Schuller in further
relegation of
The Word of God. I then observed yet another level of
the relegation of scripture when individuals such as
C. Peter Wagner and Bill Hybels effectively nullified
major
areas of the eternal truths of scripture, replacing divine
and apostolic concepts of church growth contained in
scripture with a usurping system of programmatic
strategies of purely human design.
I then looked in almost disbelief as men like Chuck
Colson and J.I. Packer endorsed Peter Kreeft's
book 'Ecumenical
Jihad', among other things,
demanding ecumenical unity with Islam to morally
redeem society, once again at the expense of the
teaching of God's Word.
Purpose Driven is but the natural next stage in this
progression, following the same identical pattern of a
relegation of the contextually exegeted Word of God to
an inferior level of authority in favor of the devices and
doctrines of mere men. As an evangelist to The Jews,
it is my conviction that as The New Testament teaches
in Matthew 15, this was condemned by
Christ and did
not work for Israel, and it is still condemned by Christ
and likewise cannot work for the Church. Purpose
Driven will not bring revival anymore than Toronto,
Pensacola, or any the other doctrinally flawed
attempts.
While Rick Warren's Purpose Driven agenda is again
simply the next stage in this downward progression, it
is not the final stage. It is rather setting the stage for
the next stage - The Emergent Church.
More serious than his working associations with Mr.
McLaren however have been Mr. Warren's working
associations with Leonard Sweet and the
recorded 'Davos'
address by Mr. Warren placing him
firmly at the forefront of an across the board departure
from many of the most fundamental tenets of biblical
Christianity.
The published Sweet position is that the biblical &
propositional (doctrinally and historically factual) and
the relational (personal relationship to Christ)
components of Christian faith are mutually exclusive.
Plainly, the scriptural position conversely is that the
two are not only mutually dependent and
complimentary, but hypo-statically united in
that "Jesus is 'The Truth' incarnate", yet
simultaneously and co-equally as The Logos, "Jesus
is 'The Word' incarnate". Warren has been tied to
Sweet and his aberrational views since 1995. Mr.
Warren's Davos address moreover is both irrefutable
and incontrovertible in its clear and unambiguous
contra-biblical content and thrust standing in basic
contrast to scriptural dogma.
BOOKS OR "THE BOOK"?
IT IS HARDLY THE FIRST TIME
Long before Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life"
and "Purpose Driven Church", I also have seen other
books amplified in emphasis above scripture
including "The Prayer
of Jabez", and "God Chasers".
The latter went so far as to teach scripture is where
God once was, but the epistles are dusty old letters to
ancient churches. Neither became the panacea for
woes their aspirants hoped. I also watched as
Promise Keepers promoted "The Masculine Journey"
as its guidebook by Robert Hicks. It taught that "Jesus
was tempted have sex with other men" and that our
young children losing their virginity outside of holy
wedlock and coming home drunk or stoned should be
seen as "a right of passage with the next generation
being congratulated for being human", which the
author tried to deny was placing a benediction on sin.
Needless to say, that Promise Keepers after similarly
relegating God's Word to a companion digest for "The
Masculine Journey", also similarly failed to stem the
tide of spiritual and moral decline as it professed it
could.
The Purpose Driven books of Rick Warren fit into the
same groove and merely constitute the next phase of
the same kind of books. Warren's books are simply
the next in line only engulfing even more Christians
and churches then predecessors trends in Christian
book sales that were its harbingers. As with the
others, much of the postulating in the book is
incompatible with that of scripture thus functionally
eclipsing the Bible and often rendering it to a position
of supplemental reading.
There is one partial difference with the books of Rick
Warren however. In the previous trends, deduction
took precedent over induction and the routine was to
manipulate scripture passages out of 'context', in
isolation from 'co-texts' in order to form a 'pretext'. This
facilitated a devious means to substitute exegesis
(taking out of bible texts what is in there) with
eisegesis (reading into it something not there). With
the assistance of Eugene Peterson and a cultic
hermeneutic of his own invention using the
translocation of bible verses, Rick Warren
outperforms the previous generation of false teachers
who prepared the way for him, as he himself now
prepares the way for Emergence.
As his premise is demonstrably void of biblical
substance, it is obvious why Rick Warren resorts
to 'The Message', a deranged paraphrase of Holy Writ
bearing little translational fidelity to the original Greek
& Hebrew texts. Not only does the authentic Word of
God very often not support Mr. Warren's
presuppositions, but on the contrary, scripture quite
frequently mitigates directly against key elements of
Mr. Warren's Purpose Driven / Market Driven mind set.
Jesus moreover, in The Olivet Discourse, issued an
unmistakable warning of specific prophetic events
Christians were to anticipate and recognize as
indications of His return. Those failing to heed His
instructions, Jesus warned, would be unprepared for
this 'parousia' or the apocalyptic events that will usher
it in. The final book in the canon of scripture is devoted
exclusively to this theme, as are major sections of
both Testaments. Yet, Rick Warren openly teaches the
church in no uncertain terms, is to ignore the clear
teachings of Jesus in this regard and avoid End Time
prophecy as a "diversion". This is delusional and is
proposed by Mr. Warren by a literal trans-location of
bible verses from Matthew 24 into the text of Acts 1 to
make the text state the exact diametric opposite of
what Jesus actually taught. He actually removes a
verse from one book and interposes into another to
take the place of a verse he deletes. It is actually a
computer age "cut & paste" style of biblical
interpretation, except that he is not the original author.
Jesus provided a detailed litany of End Time events to
watch for. Either we believe and abide by the plain
instruction of Jesus, or we believe and abide by the
directly contrary teaching of Rick Warren. We cannot
believe and adhere to both. Only one teaching can be
true; the other must be false. Either Jesus teaches
error or Warren does.
PROPHECY OR POLITICS
Underlying the disparity between Chuck Smith, Roger
Oakland, and Dave Hunt -and Rick Warren's Purpose
Driven crowd is series a fundamental dichotomies
between the doctrine and authority of scripture and the
philosophies and popularity of men.
No place is this perhaps more evident than in the
sphere of biblical prophecy. In Calvary Chapels, the
prophetic significance of contemporary world events
from the moral deterioration of society, to deception in
the church, to trends towards a one world currency, to
the constellation of forces aligned in The Middle East
with the same countries important in the ancient world
of the bible now at the center of world events again, all
represent a scenario pointing to the return of Jesus.
This stance has always been a cornerstone of the
ministries of Chuck Smith, Dave Hunt, and Roger
Oakland. But, it is at inevitable odds with the 'keep
away from End Time prophecy' urging of Rick Warren
to his followers.
More to the point, biblical evangelism requiring a faith
and repentance is the divine 'PEACE PLAN' of
scripture preached by Calvary Chapel (Isaiah 52 &
Ephesians 6). Again, in Rick
Warren's model, the
need for repentance is downplayed with a message
of 'Just Get Jesus Into Your Life", while biblically,
without repentance, Jesus is not coming into
someone's life.
In Rick
Warren's 'PEACE' plan of 'Planting Churches,
Equipping leaders, Assisting the poor, Caring for the
sick, and Education - there is no biblical definition of
evangelism. Rick Warren's is largely a social-political
gospel. Biblically, social benevolence aimed at
helping the poor and sick (and I write this as director
of a ministry operating orphanages for AIDS babies in
Africa) is both derivative from and subsequent to the
salvation message predicated on faith and
repentance; No Christ - No Peace. Indeed, in the
estimation of some, biblical prophecy specifically
warns against the advent of something along the lines
of Rick Warren's Peace plan (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
This is to say nothing of Mr. Warren's shameful
antics in Syria singing the praises of a terrorist
regime
responsible for the death of tens of thousands of its
own citizens, that is additionally party to the slaughter
and displacement of countless Lebanese Christians
and massive rocket and missal attacks on Israeli
civilians in partnership with radically Islamic Iran in
2006, only a few weeks prior to Rick Warren's visit.
Warren's blasting of those who decried his actions as
being "more interested in politics than the gospel" are
doubly hypocritical, as he himself certainly conducted
no evangelistic campaign in Syria, but pursued a kind
of political agenda of his own. A biblical expositor,
biblical pastor, or biblical evangelist Rick Warren most
certainly is not. A consummate theocrat and theocratic
politician however - Rick Warren most certainly is.
Nevertheless, this seems to be all that he truly
appears to be; just another motivational speaker
masquerading as a bible preacher.
A SINCERE OFFER TO OPEN AND FAIR DEBATE
& A SINCERE ENDORSEMENT OF THE UNJUSTLY
ACCOSTED
My own willingness to debate Rick Warren publicly in
an open properly formatted and filmed webcast
debate stands. While I place no judgment on their
motives, theologically I can only regard him and his
accomplices to be, wittingly or wittingly, agents of a
deception concocted in Gehenna and perpetrated
against God's people.
I thank God for the pastoral integrity exhibited by
Pastor Chuck Smith and other Calvary Chapel pastors
in protecting the flock of Christ, as I also thank The
Lord for the efforts of Dave Hunt, Roger Oakland and
others to rightly warn the church.
The polemic of Mr. Abanes reads like a flawed tome
evading and avoiding the cardinal issues highlighted
above.
We stand with Chuck Smith, Dave Hunt, and Roger
Oakland solidly. My challenge to publicly debate Rick
Warren and / or Brian McLaren also stands.
JJ Prasch
Moriel Ministries