Rick Warren in His Own Words
Now, last hour I spent talking to you about really how I see new age being promoted by the right and by the left, whether it’s Glenn Beck or Opera, how I see Rick Warren bringing Leonard Sweet to his church. April 2008 Leonard Sweet is now going to be the chief writer over at sermons.com. We see the new age being promoted in the churches, Quantum Spiritualities, the book that Leonard wrote. We see Islam being promoted in the culture. We see Rick Warren wanting to work with the mosque and the Muslims. We have Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention joining the Anti-Defamation League to help Muslims overcome legal obstacles so they can build mosque, which is really crazy. And what I’m basically saying is the globalist are deliberately co-opting the church in order to bring about this one world religion, one world economical structure, one world government, and the coming one world leader, who many of them will follow this one world leader, this antichrist, because the scriptures says he will show up performing counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders, and won’t that really excite a lot of them word of faith people who in these experiences, it will really excite many of the emergent church who are into mysticism. It’ll excite many who have simply abandoned theology and doctrine and are more interested in an experience than they are studying the scriptures to be approved workmen who are not ashamed. And so, I believe, that the church in America and worldwide, but speaking specifically about America, the church in America is being co-opted and there are agents of change within our mist. There actually are change agents who are actively seeking to transform the church so the church is no longer an obstacle to the new world order but an active participant and builder thereof.
One of those people, I believe, and you can disagree with me but I’ve done enough research on this guy to say that he has to be a change agent; he has to be doing this on purpose. No true discerning Christian would say or do the things that Rick Warren is doing unless they are doing it on purpose. Of course, Rick has been running around the country and the world promoting his PEACE Plan, P-E-A-C-E, and the plan originally included the P for planting churches, and sometimes, I guess depending on who he’s speaking to it says planting churches, but at one point it actually was changed to stand for promoting reconciliation. And so you go through this whole PEACE Plan, each letter standing for something, like P standing for promotion reconciliation, and as you go through the acronym, you find out it really sounds a lot like what United Nations would be up to and he’s seeking to bring all of the religions of the world together and work as one. Is God pleased when we do that? Rick Warren says that God is pleased. Well, I’m going to show you scripture that says that’s not the case.
Let me play some sound clips for you. Clip number one, here what we have here is -- this whole interview, I’ve broken it up into about seven or eight, nine clips, it’s Rick Warren being interviewed at the Clinton Global Initiative a couple of years ago. So here’s Rick Warren speaking for Bill Clinton. Well, I think we all know where Bill and Hillary Clinton stand on globalism and the United Nations, do we not? So here is Warren speaking for Bill Clinton’s global initiative and he’s being interviewed by this guy named Eboo Patel. Well, Eboo Patel is someone I’ve talked about extensively over the last few years because he’s the head of the Interfaith Youth Core and if you read the mission statement of the Interfaith Youth Core, you quickly find out that one of their goals is the promotion of pluralism, all religions and beliefs are equal, the promotion of pluralism. And it seems to me that Eboo is pretty excited about the fact that an “evangelical” pastor like Rick Warren is so busy speaking to them and helping them and calling for religions to work together. But it sounds like, to me, and it sounds like Eboo Patel is agreeing with what I’m going to tell you, is that Rick Warren is really helping bring this pluralist party together. In fact, it was Rick Warren who, at the National Cathedral a few years ago, said, “The future of the world is not secularism. It’s religious pluralism.” Well, is that mean you’re for religious pluralism or you’re against it? You know, I don’t know. It sounds like he’s for it with us all working together. And Eboo Patel with the Interfaith Youth Core Alliance is all excited that someone within the evangelical community is actually singing from their same songbook. Listen to this clip one of Eboo interviewing Rick Warren.
[Begin sound bite]
Eboo Patel: I’m here with Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church. He needs no introduction. We are at the Clinton Global Initiative where he was just on a panel about solving problems in rural poverty and one of the questions that was asked to you directly, Pastor Rick, was what can the church do? And your response was to actually expand that and to say it’s actually about houses of worship.
Rick Warren: Uh-huh.
Eboo Patel: And I’m really struck by how explicit you were as an evangelical pastor about the need for Buddhist and Hindus and Muslims and Christians to all be a part of efforts that are solving poverty. I’d love for you to just talk about why you are so explicit and direct the need for all these faith communities to be a part of this.
Rick Warren: Well, you know, if you remove people of faith, and when I talk about people of faith, I’m talking about all of the faiths that we have in the world, the actual number of secularist is quite small outside of Europe and Manhattan. Most people have some kind of faith.
[End sound bite]
Most people have some kind of faith? No, no, no, no, Rick. All people have a faith. So to say that, hey, there are the secularists over here and then there are the people of faith, well, the secularists have a faith too. An Atheist has a faith. In fact, I would contend that Atheist, or the secularists, the naturalists, whatever you want to call them, have a faith that’s even greater than I have because, as a Christian, I have a reasonable faith. The Atheist, the naturalists, those who believe in evolution, that there is no God, that this all happened by chance, has an unreasonable, unscientific faith. They have to believe that all the smart things came from all the dumb things, that cause had no effect, intelligence comes from non-intelligence, and that the probability that even one molecule could have formed by random chance with all the needed necessary assets and the proper sequence, I mean, it’s astronomical that even one molecule could evolve by mistake. And that is called faith, larger than I have, to believe that something so crazy can happen. It’s much easier to believe in an all knowing, all powerful God who spoke everything into being than to believe that all of this can just happen by random chance and have this incredible complexity and order by chance. That is an unreasonable, crazy faith. But for Rick to say that, wait a minute, there’s the secularists but then there’s the rest of us who have a faith. Well, first of all, you’re wrong, Rick. Everybody, even the secularists, has a faith. The person following secular humanism, Atheism, naturalism, whatever you want to call it, they have a faith as well. Everybody has a religion. A religion is a system, set, or collection of your beliefs. That’s about as crazy as Bill Maher saying, you know, those religious people, they have a neurological disorder. They’re crazy. Well, that means he’s crazy too because a religion, again, is simply a system, set, or collection of beliefs. And so in explain his beliefs, he’s explaining his religion. Thereby it makes Bill Maher crazy and having a neurological disorder himself.
So we have to understand, first of all, that everyone has a faith. Everyone has a religion. Everyone has a worldview. And you can’t simply say, well, there’s the secularist over here but the rest of the people of faith. No, they’re all people of faith, Rick. All right, next clip.
[Begin sound bite]
Rick Warren: There are about 600 million Buddhists. There are about 800 million Hindus. There are 1 billion Muslims and about 2.3 billion Christians. So if you don’t have them in the agenda for dealing with the global issues of poverty, disease, illiteracy, corruption, trafficking, all of these different things, you’ve removed the largest pool of volunteers.
[End sound bite]
Okay, you’ve got to have all of those people of the faith movement, he says, in the agenda. Okay, so let’s acknowledge it’s an agenda. Thank you, Rick, for acknowledging you are promoting an agenda. And I have to ask, what is that agenda? It sounds like to me it’s ecumenicalism. It’s pluralism. It’s universalism. It’s a one world church. I don’t know how else you’d describe it. But this is an agenda, it’s a social justice agenda. It’s one we need to get all the religions of the world working together to solve the problems of poverty and AIDS and the lack of education and the lack of clean drinking water, but where’s the gospel? Remember the commercial, where’s the beef, the Wendy’s commercial? Where’s the gospel, Rick? Where’s the gospel? And, of course, you can’t talk about the gospel if you’re going to hook your wagon with the Clintons. You can’t talk about the gospel if you’re going to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, which he is, along with Richard Land of the Southern Baptist. See, these change agents have infiltrated our own churches and our own denominations, in my opinion. The Council on Foreign Relations, the same group of guys I told you last week, formed the Federal Reserve in 1913. The Council of Foreign Relations, the same group of guys that formed the United Nations in 1945. The UN and Council of Foreign Relations, from my research, reveals that it is an antichrist organization and you can’t speak about the gospel if you are going to be seen as being a participant, one who is a collaborative contributor, a productive group participant. You can’t gain consensus with these people unless you lower the Cross of Christ and raise this ecumenical flag. And so you can’t talk about the gospel. How are you going to work with Muslims and Hindus if you keep telling them they are lost and going to hell unless they repent and follow Jesus Christ who is the only way, truth, and life, John 14:6? So it’s not going to get you invited to speak to Muslims. It’s not going to get you invited to speak for Clintons Global Initiative. It’s not going to get you invited to all the prestigious places, and it also makes you a radical, an extremist and a bigot, according to the media, and they’re certainly not going to have you on to push and sell all your books. But he’s admitted it’s an agenda and he’s working for social justice with all the religions of the world. So it seems to be a Christless social justice, a Christless agenda, because you can’t have the gospel being presented if you’re wanting to bring all religions together. If you’re going to unite spiritually with these faiths then you have to check the Christ of the Bible, the Jesus of the Bible at the door, and I’m afraid what these folks have done. Let’s role the next clip.
[Begin sound bite]
Rick Warren: The other thing is if you go to rural areas, the only social structure in rural areas are houses of worship, either churches, mosques, or whatever. And so not only do we have universal distribution, you can find a house of worship in every village in the world, but we have the most volunteers, because when you talk about community development, you are talking about the mosque, the church, the temple, whatever, because the people are there. And then number three, those houses of worship have the most creditability. People trust that emom. They trust that pastor. They trust that priest, that minister, whoever it is because he is there caring for the people in their times of need. He’s there offering comfort, offering wisdom, offering support.
[End sound bite]
Okay. So we have this agenda. We want to bring the religions of the world together to accomplish this social justice agenda and we need to have the church involved because people trust the church. They trust their church. They trust their priest, their pastor, their emom. So interesting, in other words, the globalist need to co-opt the church so that the people will follow the lead of their specific religious leader. People trust the church. People trust their church or they trust their religious leader. So we’ve got to go through the church or the churches or the different faiths, however he describes it. It proves to me, again, that they realize that to accomplish their globalist agenda, they have to co-opt churches and they’re willing to compromise the gospel in order to bring all these religions together and have this consensus and this global agenda; because in the end, the globalists aren’t interested in the Jesus of the Bible anyway. The globalist are all committed to the Jesus of the new age. Most of your globalists today are into pagan spirituality, whether it’s Maurice Strong, Mikhail Gorbachev, you know, you just keep going down the line, Al Gore, I mean, most of these folks that are committed to globalism are also big time into pagan spirituality. People like Tony Blair, which by the way, there you have Rick Warren sitting on the foundation, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which what is the purpose of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation? To bring the religions of the world together. And there is Rick Warren, go to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation website, and you’ll see on the advisory board is Rick Warren praising Tony Blair for what he’s doing. Again, Rick Warren’s also signed the Yale Center document about Christians and Muslims can get along because we worship the one true God and love our neighbors as ourselves.
If this isn’t pluralism, what is? Don’t forget he’s being interviewed by Eboo Patel with the Interfaith Youth Core who, right on the home page of their website, talks about religious pluralism and their goal of religious pluralism. All religions are equal. All religions can come together, as he says on his website, Eboo Patel does, to solve the world’s problems. But they realize they must co-opt the church, all churches, but particularly trying to co-opt solid churches so those solid churches are compromised and can be transformed. Let’s role the next clip.
[Begin sound bite]
Eboo Patel: I’d love for you to talk about whether it was an expansion for you to go from the idea of churches being the only kind of distribution system to this, to again, being so direct about the need for different faith communities. One of the stereotypes of people of faith –
Rick Warren: Right.
Eboo Patel: – and perhaps evangelicals in particular, as I said, your end goal is only multiplying your church –
Rick Warren: Yeah.
Eboo Patel: – and you are so deliberate about saying the end goal is quality of life for people and I’m willing to work with anybody to get there.
[End sound bite]
Well, wait a minute. This is an excellent opportunity for Rick to say, no, no, no, excuse me, Eboo Patel. The end game for me is not to come together with all the different religions and faith to solve social ills. No, that’s not my end game. My end game is the proclamation of the gospel and salvation through Jesus Christ alone, to see people through faith and repentance, yield their life making Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior of their life and realizing that there is no atonement of sins apart from accepting the work that Christ performed on the Cross and counting yourself dead to sin and alive in Christ. That’s my ultimate goal, the proclamation of the gospel. I don’t want to simply make people comfortable on their way to hell. I don’t want to simply give people water bottles on their way to hell. My ultimate goal is the proclamation of the gospel. So, Eboo, forgive me if I have confused you in believing that my ultimate goal was to solve the world’s ills or problems, that’s not my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is to see people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That was his chance. Is that what he’s going to say? Let’s find out.
[Begin sound bite]
Rick Warren: I am willing to work with anybody on issues that involve everybody. When you deal with poverty, that’s not a religious issue, that’s a human issue. When you deal with disease, that’s not a religious issue, that’s a human issue. When you deal with education, everybody needs to be educated so that they can have the opportunities for growth, for a job, and things like that. And so we don’t have to agree on everything to work together on issues that we all care about. I don’t know anybody who really would say, oh, I don’t care about the poor. And so we have to work together in saying, the problem is so big we have to team tackle it.
[End sound bite]
This guy is either deliberately not telling the truth or he really is this ignorant. Poverty and disease and education is not a religious issue? That’s what he said. I want to play the very first part of that clip again, Gordon, and I’ll stop it at one point, but he says poverty, disease, and education are not religious issues. That is 100 percent false. Let me tell you why but let’s play the first part of that clip again.
[Begin sound bite]
Rick Warren: I am willing to work with anybody on issues that involve everybody. When you deal with poverty, that’s not a religious issue, that’s a human issue. When you deal with disease, that’s not a religious issue, that’s a human issue. When you deal with education, everybody needs to be educated so that –
[End sound bite]
All right, let’s stop it right there. Those -- you see? That’s what he said. I wanted to make sure you heard what he said. Poverty, disease, and education are not religious issues. Those are human issues. Excuse me? All issues are religious issues. All issues are spiritual issues. You can connect everything back to -- well, really the ultimate problems we have in the world go back to one thing, sin, and the depravity of man. We live in a fallen, sinful world. Why do we have poverty? Well, one of the main reasons we have poverty is because of sin. If man had not sinned, man would be in the garden and would not have thorns and, well, there wouldn’t be the pain of childbirth. And the scriptures talk about, in Genius, what is going to now happen to man because they have sinned and been kicked out of the garden. So the reason we have poverty to start with is because we were kicked out of the garden in a perfect environment because of sin. Now why do we have poverty in the inner-city? Because the intellectuals within education have taught a humanist worldview that says, as you find in the Humanist Manifesto I, the Humanist Manifesto II, the Humanist Manifesto 2000, these three different humanist documents and manifestos, clearly say they don’t believe in moral absolutes. That there is no afterlife. Right now is all there is. Basically, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. There is no absolute truth. That the goal in life is the pursuit of pleasure, hedonism. Well, that’s the educational system we’ve gotten in America thanks to people like John Dewey, the father of modern education, who signed the Humanist Manifesto, who started the socialists society in America, who went to Russia in 1928 and started the Carl Marx way of education and then came back to teach at Columbia University. This is John Dewey, the father of modern education. So our educational system largely in America has been based on humanism. There is no God. There is no absolute truth. There is no truth at all. It’s whatever you choose, situational ethics, value clarification courses. That has produced multiple generations of young people who do not believe in conducting themselves according to the biblical principles. And as we have taught free sex, free love, you know, here’s a contraceptive, here’s a condom, go do what you want. What have we ended up with? Generation after generation of poverty. We have people in many of our inner cities having babies with multiple men so they’ve got multiple children with multiple fathers of those children. And the chief cause of poverty really is sin.
Now some people find themselves in poverty of no fault of their own. It’s because of the sin of their parents and grandparents. As the sins of the father are visited on the second and third generation. Some people find themselves in a bad position because their families have sinned and have not cared for them because they have come down with an illness or maybe they’ve been injured and they can’t work, legitimately, or they’ve gone blind, I talked to someone recently. If it wasn’t for their family taking care of them, who would take care of them? But you see now they’re in a tough situation and maybe poverty because their family has sinned and not taken care of them. So really we can take most, not all, but almost all poverty can go back to the issue of sin. That is a religious and spiritual issue.
The same thing with disease. Why is AIDS prolific in Africa? Because the men there have sex with anyone they want. They refuse to practice a monogamous relationship with their wives and having sex within the confines of marriage. And when you go over there and you give them all condoms, they won’t use it. It’s a taboo over there. It doesn’t fit with their “culture” they claim. So you got an ultimate issue of going over there and giving them condoms is only condoning what they’re doing, first of all they’re not using it, but you’ve got to address the issue of their behavior, their sinful behavior. So disease is an issue of sin. Multiple sexual diseases, ramped in Africa.
So poverty, disease, education, I’m sorry, Rick, those are not issues that we can say are not religious or spiritual. They are. And so he thinks he can solve these problems minus God. Really? Because he’s saying, look, we just need to get the religions of the world together and then we can solve these problems just like the UN. No, you cannot solve these problems. Jesus said himself the poor will always be with us. That doesn’t mean we don’t help the poor but we got to go back to a biblical definition of what it means to be poor. The poor in America, by the way, live better than the kings of Rome with satellite dishes hanging off their apartment buildings and they got cars and I’ve gone through the list before of what the average poor person has today; air conditioning, heating, refrigerator, televisions. We have to go back to a biblical definition of poor.
But if you go read a book by this doctor that I quoted in my book, Grave Influence -- I can’t remember his name now. He’s got an odd name. But he treated over 10,000 patients in Europe in hospitals and in prisons and this guy isn’t even a believer. He wrote the book called, Life at the Bottom, subtitled, the Worldview that Creates the Underclass. That was the title of the book, the subtitle, the Worldview that Creates the Underclass. I don’t even think this guy was a believer. Guess what he said was the number one cause of poverty? Moral relativism. Moral relativism is what this doctor says the major cause of poverty. That is a religious, spiritual issue. No wonder Rick thinks he can solve the problems. He’s leaving -- by coming together with all the religions of the world because he doesn’t need God to solve the problems. If the problem is not spiritual, it’s not religious, than you don’t need to talk about God. Therefore you can unite with all the religions of the world which tells me that either Rick is extremely immature -- hang around long enough and listen to what this guy says and you tell me if it lines up with the scriptures. Let’s role the next clip.
[Begin sound bite]
Rick Warren: Well, let me give you an example. In Rwanda, in one area where we’re working on healthcare issue where we’re saying -- there were only two doctors in this province for over 700,000 people. We said, what if we could train healthcare workers in every house of worship. So right now through our PEACE Plan, we are training both pastors and emoms and we are training leaders, actually volunteers, from both the mosques and the churches that are coming together to say, how can we learn healthcare so we can care for the people in our congregations. The congregational unit, whether it’s a Muslim congregation, a Jewish congregation, a Christian congregation or whatever, is a basic unit you’re going to find in every community and that congregational unit is there to be mobilized for these global problems.
[End sound bite]
Really? I thought the church was to be mobilized for the proclamation of the gospel, not the solving of social problems. In reality, what do you think the world, the Muslim thinks, the Hindu, the Buddhist, when this well-known “evangelical” shows up in their country and starts to train them on giving medical care and education but never speaks the gospel? Let’s them live in their religion and die in their religion. What is the ultimate message Rick is sending? I don’t need to share Jesus Christ with you because in the end, we all end up in the same place. Your religion is acceptable because I don’t hear the guy saying, what we really want to do is go in there and give them, you know, agriculture and water and medicine, but we do that to gain creditability so that we might bring them the ultimate solution to their problems which is Jesus Christ. They don’t need to worry about their flesh. They need to worry about their soul which God can judge and will judge. If He judges it and they have not found faith and repentance in Jesus Christ, they’re going to be judged and their soul will be sent to hell. So we need to be more concerned about their soul than we do their actual physical flesh and body. Well, really what Rick Warren’s doing is loving these guys and gals to hell. If he thinks this is love, it’s not. Because what he’s really saying to them is your religion is okay. Let me just bring you a Band-Aid, when they’re ultimate problem is their sick, sinful soul. Let’s role the next clip.
[Begin sound bite]
Eboo Patel: Last question, Pastor Rick. Tell me something that you have learned that you admire about, say, Islam, as that’s a prevalent faith in Rwanda.
Rick Warren: Yeah. Well, I would say -- of course, I’ve been in the Middle East many times. In fact, I recently went to Syria with my next door neighbor who is a dear, dear friend of mine -- in fact, I’m actually going to be the keynote speaker for a major Muslim Convention this next December…what I love, what I can find in common with Muslims is they talk about God that some people who when you get around them, if you say the word God, they’re afraid and they claim up. But you can’t talk with a Muslim without talking about God because it’s a part of their life.
[End sound bite]
You can’t be around a Muslim without them talking about God. Rick Warren is saying that the Muslims love to talk about God. It is a false god. It’s Allah, a false god. The Crescent moon god. Mohammad had an angel appear to him. I believe it was Satan. He gave them a false religion. Mohammad was a child molester. He had a 6-year-old wife. He consummated the relationship when she was 9. He was a war profiteer. He was a false prophet. He was a polygamist. This is Mohammad who is leading these people to Allah. If you look at the descriptions of Allah in the Koran you will see that it is the same description as Satan in the Bible. I’m sorry if you doubt me. Then talk to some of my friends who are formerly Muslims. In fact, I urge you to get the three hour documentary that we produced with Usama Dakdok on our website at worldviewweekend.com entitled the Worldview War of Islam where he lays a lot of this out.
And here’s Rick saying, well, what I love about the Muslims is how much they want to talk about God. So what I love about the Muslims is how much they want to talk about Satan. That’s what Rick’s saying whether he knows it or not. Because the god of the Muslim religion is Allah, who I believe by his very description of Allah in the Koran and in the scriptures, the description of Satan, is one and the same. And this guy is so naïve or B, he is such a change agent that his ultimate goal is one thing, the transformation of the church for the building of the new world order. In other words, to take the church from being opposition to being a willing participant in the building and promoting of a one world religion, a one world government, a one world economical structure. Wow!
I’ll come back, I’m going to share with you who influenced Rick Warren. His name, Peter Drucker.
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[Commercial]
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Now the first and second hour, and really continuing the theme of last week, which is really that the church is being co-opted by agents of change and Rick Warren is continuing to push is PEACE Plan. And maybe you’ll be able to say, well, you’re making an awful lot of Rick Warren, why? Because the guy has sold over 30 million copies of his book, The Purpose Driven Life. He’s speaking at conferences, training pastors, has a website for pastors, and his PEACE Plan, according to news reports, has been translated in to 52 languages. His website says they have more than a half a million evangelical churches that are partnering with him in his ecumenical effort of his. A half a million churches! Would you not talk about the leader of such a movement if you believe he is an agent of change that is co-opting the church for a social program, a social gospel, ecumenicalism? Sure, you would. And I’m trying to warn the church and warn the remnant to be aware of what, I believe, is one of many false teachers that are out there today.
Let’s continue with this interview were Eboo Patel of the Interfaith Youth Core is interviewing Rick Warren at the Clinton Global Initiative a couple of years ago and the things he’s saying which I think reveal the fact the guy is not committed to the gospel at all and is making completely unbiblical statements, like saying poverty, disease, and education are not religious issues. Oh, yes, they are. They’re biblical and spiritual issues. Let’s role the next clip.
[Begin sound bite]
Rick Warren: I find this too. Practically every religion is that what you read in the paper and the reality are two totally different things. What you find about people, I find that Christians get smeared in papers. Muslims get smeared in papers. Jews get smeared in papers. And a lot of times you don’t even know the real truth until you sit down and you talk with people. And the truth is we all have the same needs here on earth, families to be safe. We all want our families to have an education. We all want to make enough money so there’s food on the table. These are common needs and humanity -- I think God is pleased when we work together.
[End sound bite]
Oh, well, first of all, our need ultimately above all education and clean water and healthcare and putting food on the table, the ultimate need is salvation in Christ. Where is the gospel, Rick? Why do you seem to have little commitment to the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ? False teachers don’t have an interest in the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, do they?
Now he also concludes by saying what? I think God is pleased when we all work together. In fact, listen to Eboo Patel conclude the interview on how he agrees with Rick. Let’s role that clip.
[Begin sound bite]
Eboo Patel: I think God is pleased when we work together also and I thank God for you, Pastor Rick, and your unbelievable efforts. This is Eboo Patel from the Interfaith Youth Core with Rick Warren at the Clinton Global Initiative. Such a blessing to be with you.
Rick Warren: Thank you. Thank you, Eboo.
[End sound bite]
Oh, yeah, Eboo is beside himself because he’s into pluralism. It’s all over his website. Pluralism, go read it; Eboo Patel. Just put his name into a search engine and find out about Eboo who Rick was just interviewed by and you’ll see they’re big time into pluralism, religious pluralism. All religions are equal. So he’s really happy to have Rick Warren singing from the same hymn book with him, it sounds like.
And so they say God is pleased when we all work together. Really? What does the Bible say? Isaiah 74 says, but we are all like an unclean thing and all our righteousness are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. So in other words, even our righteous deeds, to God, look like wickedness or unclean rags, menstrual rags. I’m sorry, but that is the correct translation. That is what our righteous deeds look like to God, a part from Jesus Christ. So is God pleased when all the pagans of the world get together and try to solve the problems of AIDS and poverty and disease and education without bringing in the ultimate foundation, Jesus Christ? No, He’s not pleased at all. He doesn’t look at your helping the little lady across the street as even being a good deed. He looks at it as righteousness.
This is a fallacy that God’s pleased when we all just come and work together. God is also not pleased when we unite in spiritual enterprises with unbelievers, 2 Corinthians 6:14. We’re also told in 2 John 9-11 to not even greet or invite into your home or greet those who bring to you another doctrine other than the doctrine of Christ less you take part in their evil deeds. You certainly don’t go into their mosque and help train them and equip them with better medicine and education. You can evangelize and preach the gospel to them, but that’s not what Rick is doing. So he’s in clear violation of 2 Corinthians 6:14 and 2 John 9-11.
We also see in Romans 8:8, it says, “So than those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” So for him to say, oh, yes, God is pleased when we work together. No, God is not pleased when those who follow false gods, pagan idols or pagan spirits, really demonic sprits; those who follow the antichrist and antichrist religion, and what is an antichrist? One who denies that Jesus has come in the flesh, the deity of Jesus Christ. God is not pleased by that. God is not pleased by those who are in the flesh conducting their world affairs. No, He is not pleased by the unbeliever in what he’s doing. So than those who are in the flesh cannot please God, Romans 8:8.
What’s another verse we can look at? Well, we also can see from the scriptures what should be the first calling for all of us, including Rick Warren, should not be to meet the needs of humanity, like education and disease and poverty. The first foremost calling should be what we read in the book of 1 Corinthians 5:4, again that’s 1 Corinthians 5 -- no, I’m sorry, it’s Chapter 15. Post-it note was covering the one. It’s 1 Corinthians 15:3, it says, “For I delivered you to you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures and that He was seen by…” -- and then he goes on the list, the people that Jesus was seen by, over 500 people who saw the risen Lord. So here is Paul and what Paul is saying is the first thing that I did was preach the gospel. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received. So the first thing that Paul did, according to 1 Corinthians 15:3, was he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. He preached the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So that’s the first thing we should be doing, first and foremost, keeping that center. Not a social justice, a social gospel.
Then I would also say Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith, it’s impossible to please him.” Without a faith and trust in Jesus Christ, it’s impossible to please God. That’s when our righteous deeds even look like wickedness. So to address the issue that Rick stated, is God pleased when we all work together with other religions? Absolutely, false.
Now, where did Rick get a lot of his ideas? We’re quickly running out of time but I’ll tell you he got a lot of his ideas from a guy by the name of Peter Drucker. Peter Drucker is dead now. He lived to be about 95 and he died just a few years ago, but Peter Drucker was known as a guy that was really, really big into management. He’s called the father of modern management. And there was an article written on the Leadership Network. The Leadership Network is an organization that consults churches. It was started by a guy named by Bob Buford and Bob Buford writes, and Fred Smith -- Bob Buford and Fred Smith write that Peter Drucker had a huge impact on their life and that he really is the brains behind Leadership Network.
Interesting, last week I told you about the Global Faith Forum that took place in Dallas/Fort Worth, November 11 through the 13th, the Global Faith Forum. Well, it was sponsored by World Vision which has gotten off to the left field, Leadership Network, and the Council on Foreign Relations and I told you about that last week. Why would these groups be so interested in co-opting the church? For the reasons I’ve been telling you all of last week and this week. They’re looking to co-opt the church for globalism, for their social justice, for really bringing about the new world order, the one world religion, one world economical structure, and really preparing it for a one world leader, quite frankly, whether they know it or not.
Well, the Leadership Network is a part of that, along with the Council of Foreign Relations, this Global Faith Forum that took place last week in Dallas/Fort Worth. And the Leadership Network was really the brain child, according to Bob Buford and Fred Smith, of the man that mentored them, Peter Drucker. Well, this Peter Drucker, as I said, is known as the father of modern management. He was educated in international law, politics, economics, and Drucker said that human behavior is really what interested him the most. Well, he went on to also influence Rick Warren. Here is what the Leadership Network writes about Drucker. “Both Drucker and Buford recognize the potential of these churches to reenergize Christianity in this country and address societal issues that neither the public nor private sectors had been able to resolve.” So in other words, they’re going to bring in the church to solve the social problems. Really? By what? Giving them the gospel? No. They’re not going to do that. “Drucker was quoted in Forbes magazine as saying, ‘The pastoral megachurches that have been growing so very fast in the U.S. since 1980 are surely the most important social phenomenon in American society in the last 30 years.’”
The article at Leadership Network goes on to say, “Some leaders, like Father Leo Bartel and Pastor Rick Warren, followed up with telephone calls seeking Drucker's advice on pressing issues, and even made trips to consult with Drucker in his home. Bartel is the parish priest of Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Morrison, Illinois, and has presided over the diocese in the areas of Catholic Charities and…” -- are you ready? “…social justice.” There you go. So this priest in Morrison, Illinois presided over the diocese in the areas of Catholic Charities and social justice. Well, it went onto say that Rick Warren went and visited with him as well. “Both Bartel and Warren speak of Drucker's graciousness and wisdom in helping them chart the course for their ministries.”
So they’re going to have their course charted by a guy’s who expertise is in what? People management, behavior modification, behavior management. “Warren says his staff reads and discusses Drucker's writings, using them to manage the church's multi-faceted ministry. Everyone who walks into the pastor's office is reminded of Drucker's well-known advice, which appears on a print that Drucker signed and gave to Warren.” Here are the questions that are on there, “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?”
So really that’s what the church has melted down to now. In fact, Drucker and these guys refer to the pastors as managers and the people who come to the churches as customers and that reality is who’s most important is not the customer but the non-customer because there are more non-customers than there are customers. So you always want to be finding out what is it that the people who don’t go to your church, the non-customer, what do they want? Well, that’s a way to have a great solid, biblical church. Just find out what the unsaved pagan wants his church to look like. Wrong! But that’s what they do and they run around and they take surveys, whether it’s been Rick Warren, Schuller, Hybels. Isn’t this what these guys have done? Go around and take surveys of the unchurched, of the unsaved or the pagan. What do you want your church to look like? And then give it to them because, after all, they’re customers and what’s more important that the customers is really the non-customers who have yet to show up because there is more of them then there are customers. So he has on his wall, according to this article signed by Drucker, Warren does, this print that Drucker gave him. “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider of value?”
So Drucker’s idea was that the church could be the force for bringing about social change. In fact, the article in Leadership Network, says, “…in a 1992 article in Harvard Business Review, where Drucker stated he wants America to find solutions for ‘the old-and never resolved-problem of the pluralistic society..” Well, there’s that word pluralism again. All religions are equal. All religions are the same, values are the same. So he says he wanted to, “…find solutions for ‘the old-and never resolved-problem of the pluralistic society: Who takes care of the Common Good?’”, he asked. So this is Peter Drucker. This is the guy they followed.
Well, what else did Peter Drucker teach? Well, Drucker said, “But a social discipline such as management deals with the behavior of people and human institutions. The social universe has no natural laws.” The social universe has no natural laws as the physical sciences do. “It is thus subject to continuous change; and this means that assumptions that were valid yesterday can become invalid and, indeed, totally misleading in no time at all.” Do you hear what Drucker’s saying? There is no such thing as absolutes, moral or social absolutes. They’re always changing. That is totally a part of the evolution that has been brought to bear in the area of law. As society evolves, morals evolve, the law evolves. What you see happening in the area of economics, our economic system is evolving as we mix socialize with capitalism and evolve into a new economic system. We see that in the area of spirituality as religions evolve together, religious syncretism. Christians having emoms in for dialogue at their churches. You have Christianity today, as I told you a few weeks ago, saying that Muslims can be messianic Muslims, a Muslim who follows Jesus yet Mohammad also. You have the Jews helping the Muslims in America now build mosques, go figure. We have evangelicals dialoguing with the Mormons. They’ve been doing this since 2004. Major evangelical leaders with LDS leaders and they want to put out a joint statement.
So we see religious evolution, a spiritual evolution. Well, this is what these folks all buy into. This idea that everything is evolving and changing the calpol stream keeps moving. There are no absolutes. That’s what Drucker believes. I’m reading you his own quotes. This is the man that greatly influenced Rick Warren. The Leadership Network that was really -- the man behind it was Drucker, according to the founder, Bob Buford, and the Leadership Network was involved in sponsoring this Global Faith Forum with the Council on Foreign Relations for pastors at a church in Dallas/Fort Worth, November 11 through the 13th of this year, the Leadership Network has said this, “This new paradigm is not centered in theology but rather it is focused on structure, organization, and the transition from an institutionally based church to a mission driven church.” Folks, did you hear what they just said? This is the Leadership Network. These are the guys like Bob Buford, Fred Smith, who are consulting megachurches. They’re following the same philosophy as Drucker, Peter Drucker. Drucker influenced Warren. And they have said that this new emerging paradigm is this, “This new paradigm is not centered in theology…” No wonder you never hear Rick Warren talk about the gospel and salvation through Christ alone, the Cross of Christ, man’s sinfulness and depravity. Because this whole system of building the church to be a great force for social change is not centered in theology. As if we didn’t already know that, right? Exactly.
In fact, Rick Warren is running around speaking to the TED Conference a couple years ago saying that the way we’re going to solve these problems is through the three legged stool which is the same thing you see coming from Peter Drucker. I think that’s where Rick Warren got it. And the three legged stool is going to be the social sector, churches, government, and corporations; churches, government, and corporations. And the social sector, i.e., churches, non-profits, are going to work together with the government and corporations to solve the problems of the world. Well, you see why this isn’t working out so well for them? Because they’re not giving the root foundation of mans ultimate problem. The root problem is sin. The solution is theology and doctrine, salvation in Christ alone, the inerrancy of scripture, the deeds of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, that’s all theology and doctrine and that’s what’s going to solve mans’ problems is understanding these doctoral issues. But that’s not what they’re teaching.
One of the people that is involved in all this is a Eddie Gibbs, professor of Church Growth at Fuller Theological Seminary, and speaking during the annual meeting of the Americans Society for Church Growth at Golden Gate Seminaries, Mill Valley, California, this is what he said, “The church itself will need to go through a metamorphosis in order to find its new identity in the dialect of gospel and culture.” Did you hear what he just said? “The church will need to find its new identity in the dialect of gospel and culture.” Remember me talking to you about the Hegelian dialectic process? How the change comes from the conflict? You deliberately pit opposites against each other? You bring opposites together? You bring the unbeliever into the church on purpose, the agent of change does, the change agent does? You bring the unbeliever into the church deliberately to conflict with the believer so that people tire of the conflict and will compromise their biblical positions, their biblical principles so you can have unity and harmony and group consensus? Well, that’s what this guy is saying. “The church itself will need to go through a metamorphosis in order to find its new identity in the dialect of gospel and culture.”
Let me ask you this question, do we find anywhere in the scripture where the gospel and the culture are to merge together, evolve together? No, to the opposite. We’re called to be in the world but not of the world.
Folks, I have more research than I have time to get to but the bottom line is simply this, these guys know what they’re doing. They’re transforming the church for social change, a social justice, a social gospel, and it sounds an awful lot what the United Nations is doing and what other humanist and humanist groups are doing. We need to ask ourselves, are these people really interested in people’s salvations, their souls, their spiritual condition? Are these people themselves followers of Jesus Christ or are they the very ones that Jesus himself warned us about in Matthew 7 and Matthew 24? The false teacher. The ravenous wolves. They have a form of godliness but deny God. They deny the deity of Jesus Christ, the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. They love their religious titles but they’re false teachers. Look out. They are ravenous wolves.
The problem is that when you and I point this kind of stuff out, we become the extremist. We become the bigot, the one who’s intolerant, judgmental. Reality is, all we’re seeking to do is to warn the church and we love the church for Christ died for the church and upon this rock He said He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail. But my friends, we are called, in Ephesians 5:11, “To have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather expose it.” If you love the Bride of Christ for whom He died, you will expose false teaching because it is very important that people’s spiritual condition, that they not follow the lie. Because if they do, the end can be eternity in hell.
So reality is we’re not being harsh and judgmental. What we’re doing is the most loving thing we can do, speaking biblical truth so that people might come to salvation through Christ alone. That’s the ultimate solution to their sin problem.
Until then, I hope you’ll visit my website as well, worldviewweekend.com, where you can hear my daily radio show, worldviewweekend.com.
I hope you have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving as we’re most thankful for the salvation that is found in Jesus Christ alone and the work He performed on the Cross.
Take care.
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