Sunday, July 11, 2010

Purpose Driven, circa 1837?

reprinted from Herescope, July 7, 2010

This year, 1837, J. T. Mitchell was appointed to the Jacksonville station, and we had a blessed revival of religion in the station, and a number were added to the Church. At one of our quarterly meetings there was a minister who was what was called a New-School minister, and he was willing to work any where. When the mourners presented themselves at the altar of prayer, he would talk to them, and exhort them to “change their purpose,” and assured them that all who changed their purpose were undoubted Christians. I plainly saw he was doing mischief, and I went immediately after him [Cartwright counseled the mourners after him], and told them [the mourners] not to depend on a change of purpose in order to become a Christian, but to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with a heart unto righteousness, and they should be saved. Thus I had to counteract the false sentiments inculcated by this New-School minister. It is very strange to me to think these educated and home-manufactured preachers do not understand the plain, Bible doctrine of the new birth better. They say man is a free agent in so far as to change his purpose, and in changing his purpose he is constituted a new creature. Thus he makes himself a Christian by his own act without the Spirit of God.”


Excerpted from Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright: The Backwoods Preacher, W.P. Strickland, Editor (Cincinnati, OH: Cranston and Curts, or New York, NY: Hunt and Eaton, 1856) 369, emphasis added.



 Additional Resources 



Pastor Bob DeWaay Visits Rick Warren, Asks Him To Preach Christ

Redefining Christianity: Understanding The Purpose Driven Movement

Redefining Christianity - 15-part Radio Program

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Rick Warren, Driven By Destiny?

by Christine Pack and Cathy Mathews

In a move that should raise further questions about Rick Warren's doctrinal soundness, "America's Pastor" has written the foreword to a new book loaded with theological error and which promises to be heavy on pragmatic, self-focused, Word of Faith narcissism (as if American Christians needed any more encouragement for that).  The book, authored by female pastor Dr. LaVerne Adams, is titled "Driven By Destiny" and is slated for release October 2010. One promotional blurb about the book promises:
"Readers of “Driven by Destiny” are sure to see immediate results of transformation seeing the possibilities to awaken their potential."
Dr. Adams, who is described as a "Life Coach," wants you to examine yourself, "define your destiny, maximize your potential and live the life of your dreams." Okay, but from a Christian perspective, who is the One - and the only One at that - who has the right (and ability) to transform our lives?  To direct our lives?  The premise of Dr. Adams' book is completely at odds with the biblical teaching on what "rights" we, as Christians, have to our lives:
"With her new book “Driven by Destiny”, Dr. LaVerne Adams reveals 12 secret keys that inspire readers to overcome feelings of confusion and frustration while navigating their own unique destiny roadmap. Each power packed chapter helps to answer the questions of why life may not be working with solutions to ensure success while traveling life’s journey......Dr. Adams is passionate about motivating people live the life of their dreams."
Sounds terrific....except for that little problem of Christians having no "rights." You see, we are slaves, slaves to Christ, and slaves do not have rights.  Our lives are not our own, we have been bought for a price, and only God can know and direct our destiny.  If I plan out my life and God has a destiny in store for me other than the one I have mapped out, I must bend the knee in humble submission before God's greater plan for my life.  Just ask Stephen, who was stoned to death after  rebuking the Sanhedrin for their sinful rejection of the prophets and Messiah himself.  About Stephen, I wonder: did the "life of (his) dreams" include death by stoning? Probably not, because in our flesh, we are all small, narcissistic, self-protective and vain to the extreme. But when submitted to the Lord, as Stephen was, and as we all must strive to be by God's grace, our lives have deeper meaning and serve eternal purposes that our finite minds cannot grasp.  But not according to Dr. Adams, whose assessment of Stephen would be that he was not successfully navigating his "unique destiny roadmap."  Poor Stephen, not to have the "12 Secret Keys" to unlocking his future.....he had only the Lord to entrust his destiny to.

In addition to being unbiblical, this kind of positive self-talk in Dr. Adams' book also comes very close to being New Age/Integral Spirituality thought, which is not Christian at all.  When I was in the New Age back in the 90s, this thinking was dubbed "New Thought."  Its theology?  What mind can conceive, man can achieve.  This thoroughly New Age thinking really went mainstream and took off in 2007 with the book "The Secret," which "explained" that the secret of success in anyone's life was based on something called the "law of attraction."  This "law of attraction" puts forth the concept that thoughts have energy and power, and when you clear yourself of negative blocks, get focused and think your thoughts purposefully, your thoughts will create what you desire by "attraction."  The problem?  This is not Christian teaching....which teaches a crucified self, a life yielded to its Maker.  Nevertheless, this teaching has taken on Christian terminology and flooded into today's churches.

Because of this, when my children were very young, I would have them do a simple exercise to demonstrate to them that only God has the power to "speak" things into existence. I did this because I knew that when they were older, they would hear and see teaching around them that claimed otherwise, teaching that they themselves were "little gods," with the power and ability to speak things into being.  I wanted them to have a deep understanding of the unbiblical nature of this, and so I would have them hold out their empty hands, palms up, and would tell them to "speak" something that they wanted: cheeseburger! ice cream cone! battery powered Thomas the Train! Then I would tell them to look at their hands and see if the thing they were "speaking" was there yet.  Of course, it wouldn't be. I would tell them, okay, really concentrate, try harder, get focused! They would end up in a fit of giggles, rolling their eyes at me and my silliness.  The point is that even a child can grasp the arrogance and futility in us daring to act as God.

And may I also point out that this exercise served to highlight for both me and my children that the flesh is always self-centered and self-serving. Whether we're a 4-year-old wanting an ice cream cone or a 40-year-old wanting to have a successful business, our uncrucified flesh will always rear up demanding to have its desires and wants satisfied, catered to, celebrated, glorified.  And yet, we now have "America's Pastor" endorsing a book that in essence teaches us to celebrate and glorify our flesh by catering to its demands.  Shouldn't we be teaching our children - and exhorting our fellow Christians - that the way we come to the Lord is with our hands open, humbly submitting our dreams, plans, wants, desires to His perfect will? (Mat 6:10) Crucifying our flesh? (Rom 6:6)


In reading Dr. Adams' blog, however, I'm not quite getting a sense of crucified flesh.  More like, flesh that is thrilled with the idea that it is in the power seat commanding God to jump through the hoops of its own choosing.

And let's just be honest here: this kind of man-centered thinking has always been popular in America.  Over the years, it has morphed and molded itself to the culture and taken shape in many different forms.  It has also, as I noted, taken on Christian terminology so as to become more palatable to confessing Christians who want a way to be "Christian" and still have control over their own lives and destinies (thinking completely at odds with the crucified, yielded life that is described of New Testament believers).

This teaching has appeared under a number of different names, hawked by different teachers and pastors, but always with the same man-centered, unbiblical beliefs at its core:  Law of Attraction......Power of Positive Thinking.......Word Faith.....Possibility Thinking.......even Witchcraft.  But no matter what the name, these beliefs always have at their center the heretical view of people as very, very big and God as very, very small. God as our "go juice," and the "power in our engines."  God as the dog that jumps through the hoops of our choosing.

And now with Rick Warren slated to be the keynote speaker at Dr. John Piper's Desiring God 2010, there will be a whole new audience that can be exposed to Dr. LaVerne Adams' particular brand of crazy. And so I'll ask a question I've asked before: how far from orthodoxy does Rick Warren have to fall, and how many questionable alliances does he have to make, before Christian leaders will begin to "mark him out" and separate from him (Romans 16:17) - rather than continuing to give him a platform for teaching and preaching?

photo credit: bek30 via photo pin cc
photo credit: dirkjanranzijn via photo pin cc
photo credit: bobosh_t via photo pin cc

 Additional Resources 

More Problems With Saddleback

An Open Letter To John Piper 

Dr. Piper and Unanswered Questions

Pastor Bob DeWaay Visits Rick Warren, Asks Him To Preach Christ

Redefining Christianity: Understanding The Purpose Driven Movement

Redefining Christianity - 15-part Radio Program

Friday, July 2, 2010

Rob Bell & Shane Hipps: Blood on Their Hands

by Christine Pack and Cathy Mathews

In a recent show, Chris Rosebrough of Fighting For the Faith deconstructed a sermon by well-known author and mega pastor Rob Bell that he delivered along with his co-pastor, Shane Hipps.  Besides the silliness of a sermon being delivered by what sounded like a comedy duo at times, there was a more serious problem with the sermon itself: panentheistic Universalism.  The sermon, based on Ephesians 1:15-23, entitled "Uncaging the Lion," took a decidedly panentheistic turn when Rob Bell, using the Scripture as a proof text, began to discuss how Jesus is so omnipresent that He "fills" all the world, including cultures that evangelicals traditionally recognize as pagan, lost, and in need of the gospel and the message of salvation.  This thought, that God "fills" all the world and is "in" all things is not Christian, but is in fact an eastern view: "God" as an essence, an energy, a force, that fills all things and is "in" all things.  This view - panentheism - typically leads to a view of universalism: that since God is already "in" things, then all things will be reconciled back to Him at some point:
"(W)hat you will sometimes hear in religious circles is that we're supposed to take Jesus to a land or a people that don't have him, and then like, sort of deliver him.  Like, here, where do you want me to put Him?  Is witnessing or sharing your faith, is it transporting Jesus to some place: here is our Jesus! Or, is He already in some profound way already present in that place with that person, giving life? Is He not holding things together already, and your job is simply to name that which is already real, true and present?......Is it, Jesus over here, and then all the people who need him over here, or is He in some way already present and your job is naming the reality that they are already in, they just haven't recognized it yet?......How many of you.......coupled with your first encounter with Jesus was this realization that He had, in some way, been with you the whole time?" 
This panentheistic Universalist teaching is identical to the teaching of New Age/Integral Spirituality thought.  New Age/Integral Spirituality teachers like Deepak Chopra, Ken Wilber, Marianne Williamson, Wayne Dyer, Oprah Winfrey, etc. teach that ALL is God.  The idea that "all is God" and God is "in" all things is panentheism, and is the core of eastern religious thought, which is what undergirds New Age/Integral Spirituality teaching.  This is not Christian thought.

New Age/Integral Spirituality teaches that since all is God, we simply have to "awaken" to the presence of God already in and around us.  We've got to find the little "God spark" inside of us, and fan the flame, get better and better, and one day reach enlightenment.  This is utter heresy and is in direct contradiction to what Paul wrote to the Ephesians in Chapter 2.  (And incidentally, as Chris Rosebrough pointed out in his sermon review, this is where Rob Bell stopped his sermon text because going forward in Ephesians would have made a mockery of the panentheistic Universalism that he was going after with his proof-texts from Ephesians, Chapter 1):
"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." (Eph 2:1-3)
So, rather than having this little God spark inside of us that we just have to awaken to, the Biblical position is that until we repent and place our faith in the atoning work done on our behalf by Christ, we are dead in our trespasses and sins, and under the wrath of God.  God's wrath is a holy, burning anger that righteously condemns everyone who will not bend the knee and bring their thoughts and beliefs in alignment with God's truth as presented in the Bible.

But Rob Bell's teaching, sadly, as heretical as it is, does not set off alarm bells because a version of this teaching has already been prevalent for almost 40 years, in, of all places, the mission field. In the first Lausanne Congress in 1974, Ralph Winter, who was a huge, well-respected figure in the missions movement, first introduced the idea of allowing people groups to maintain their cultural identity, even to the point of keeping their pagan worship practices. Over the years, Winter worked hard at "re-educating" American Christians involved in missions into thinking that the gospel must be contextualized and that lost people groups could follow God in their own way. Ralph Winter believed and taught that lost people groups could blend their pagan ideas and beliefs about "God" and "theology" with Christian views and could come up with their own culturally unique ways of "following God."  As in, a Buddhist following God in the way of Buddha, a Muslem following God in the way of Allah, a Christian following God in the way of Jesus, etc.
"In Afghanistan it may be common to demand that a spiritually seeking person distinctly recognize the divinity of Christ, thinking that that is the key point. Curiously, the millions of Ismaili Muslims (many in Afghanistan) already believe Jesus was the Son of God. But, since they still call themselves Muslims, we may demand that they learn and acknowledge still more of our “Christian” doctrinal tradition—and begin to call themselves Christian? Do we preach Christ or Christianity? If the latter, it may be the greatest mistake in missions today."
The problem is that, contrary to what Ralph Winter taught, recognizing and understanding the divinity of Christ is a very key point, without which no-one can be saved.  It is also somewhat disingenuous to say that Muslims believe that Jesus was the Son of God in the same way that orthodox Christians understand this.  This is not true.  Muslims believe Jesus was the "son of God" only in the same way that they believe that all who follow God are sons and daughters of God.  So, an Ismaili Muslim simply cannot "follow God in the way of Allah" because what Islam teaches is wrong.  Besides wrong doctrine on Jesus, Islam is also a works-based religion that teaches that with enough elbow grease and determination, a person can get to God (Allah). Same goes for Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, etc.  All of these are religions that offer a false sense of "righteousness" based on one's own efforts (works), and therefore reject the truth revealed in Scripture that salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.  There is nothing we can do, and God set it up this way to keep us from becoming self righteous and proud.  Good thing too, as that is our natural bent.

Please also bear in mind that "doctrine" is not a word that belongs only to Christians.  "Doctrine" simply means a set of beliefs, and obviously, when speaking of Christian doctrine, this would mean Christian beliefs or teachings pertaining to the true character and nature of God, and the way of salvation.  Bearing this in mind, please also understand that ALL lost and pagan cultures have beliefs about the character and nature of God, and what the way of salvation is....but they are wrong beliefs.  Damning beliefs.  Not according to Ralph Winter, who taught that lost people groups could maintain their (false) doctrines. This teaching has profoundly impacted not only the missions culture, but also trickled down eventually into the church in America and became widely accepted and taught in such movements as the Emergent Church and the Purpose Driven Church.

Ralph Winter and the Lausanne Movement were also responsible for the view in missions that "clues" about God and Jesus are "embedded" inside each lost culture....and the thinking goes that missions teams simply have to "unearth" these buried clues in the cultures they are evangelizing, and use these markers to point the lost people to Christ.  This view literally exploded into the mission field through a book published in 1984 and entitled Eternity in Their Hearts.

The Christian view, on the other hand, is rather simple: we believe that all we need to understand about a culture is that it is filled with men and women who are dead in their trespasses, alienated from a holy God, and that these people need the life-giving truth of the gospel message.

But with the "embedded clues" view in mind (which is nowhere taught in Scripture), what Ralph Winter, the Lausanne Movement, and now Rob Bell today are doing is attempting to take what is known as "General Revelation" and imbue it with enough salvific power to be "Special Revelation."  This is the opposite of what the Bible teaches.  Scripture plainly teaches that yes, while God does give enough of a revelation of himself in nature for man to plainly know that there is a God to whom he is beholden, this is NOT enough revelation for man to be saved.

This is why Christians since apostolic times have taken seriously their commission to "go into all the world, and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation," so that "whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."  The gospel is a specific message, comprised of words, which must be spoken.

To be in a position of leadership and give any other message than Jesus Christ and him crucified is to teach "another Jesus" and to damn those seeking answers.  Rob Bell and Shane Hipps, with their cutesy little routine in the pulpit, are serving up another Jesus, a Jesus who supposedly masquerades in all cultures in embedded cultural markers that simply have to be uncovered and interpreted to the people in that culture. What utter heresy.  Rob Bell and Shane Hipps are damning the people in their care with their false gospel.  They have blood on their hands, and for their own sake, they should repent and believe on Jesus, the one true Jesus, who said "Narrow is the way and few be those who find it."  He can and will forgive even them.

Chris Rosebrough's show deconstructing "Uncaging the Lion" can be listened to in its entirety here.

photo credit: Christian Selvaratnam via photopin cc

 Additional Resources 

Rob Bell and Shane Hipps Teaching Mysticism

Shane Hipps: All Religions Valid

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Author of The Shack: "The God of Evangelical Christianity is a Monster"

reprinted with permission from Lighthouse Trails Research

This past Friday night, author and researcher Ray Yungen attended a lecture at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon to hear The Shack author William Paul Young. The name of Young's talk was "Can God Really Be That Good?" During the talk, Young told the audience that "the God of evangelical Christianity is a monster." He was referring to the evangelical belief that God is a God of judgment and will judge the unbelieving. Young also rejects the biblical view of atonement (wherein Jesus died as a substitute for us to pay the price of our sins). This view by Young is evident in a radio interview he had one year ago where he rejected this view of the atonement. He echoes the sentiments of William Shannon and Brennan Manning, who both say that the God who punishes His own son to pay for the sins of others does not exist:
"He is the God who exacts the last drop of blood from His Son, so that His just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased. This God whose moods alternate between graciousness and fierce anger - a God who is still all too familiar to many Christians - is a caricature of the true God. This God does not exist." (Shannon, Silence on Fire, p. 110, also see Manning who stated the very same thing in Above All, pp. 58-59 )
Young told the audience that his book has now sold 14 million copies. He says that he believes his book has been a "god thing" to heal people's souls because so many people have been tainted by this evangelical God.  Young also said that his book is so effective because when you put something in a story form it gets past mental defenses.

Young's obvious disdain for Christianity (in a derogatory manner, he said there are "1.4 million" rules in the evangelical church) is shown in his book as well when The Shack's "Jesus" states:
"I have no desire to make them [people from all religious and political backgrounds] Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa" (p. 184).
During the lecture, Young posed a rhetorical question addressed to "evangelicals:" "Do you want to hold onto your darkness?" (meaning, the "narrowness" and "intolerance" associated with evangelicalism).  He then answered for them: "No, you want to get rid of it."


 Additional Resources 

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Crosstalk Interview: Evangelical Leaders Pushing Mysticism

Thank you to Ingrid Schlueter, host of Crosstalk America, for having me on her radio show today.

During the show, I briefly went over my own testimony of being mercifully saved out of the New Age (which is today called "New Spirituality" and "Integral Spirituality"), only to find that the same mysticism I had once practiced was now coming into the church.

Mysticism has gone mainstream, and many of today's pastors and authors are "speaking" the language of mysticism (Spiritual Formation, Spiritual Disciplines, Solitude and Silence, etc.), as well as selling books leading unwitting readers into occultic mystical practices- chiefly, mantra meditation.  The book Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster, first published in 1978 and taught today in most seminaries as a "classic of the faith," has probably been the one book that has been the most instrumental in bringing Roman Catholic/pagan mysticism into the church.  Some of the more surprising names moving in this mystical direction are well-respected leaders in evangelicalism today:
Dr. John Piper
Tim Keller
Matt Chandler
Mark Driscoll
Rick Warren
One thing I'm not sure I explained well in the interview that I wanted to go over here is that when people do contemplative prayer as taught by the mystics (with mantra meditation), they WILL have a spiritual experience. A lot of people tend to think the occult is all smoke and mirrors and diversionary tactics. That's not true. The occult is the area of the spiritual realm over which Satan has dominion. If it will take a person's focus off of God, he is more than happy to give an experience that will be profound, intense, positive, and yes, supernatural. At least, in the beginning, these meditative experiences will be positive and will "feel" good. At some point, though, Satan's mask will "slip," because as Ingrid pointed out, he is evil and it is his intention to steal, kill and destroy. He will not stay masked forever.

I have friends who do contemplative prayer, and I know this is kind of a ruthless prayer, but I pray that they will get a glimpse of Satan's true nature that will so terrify them that they will repent, and run back to the Savior and worship the Lord in spirit and in truth.....rather than approaching the Lord with worship that has been syncretized with pagan practices.


You can listen to the show in its entirety here.

 Additional Resources 

Rick Warren Promotes "Christianized" Mantra Meditation

Mark Driscoll: The Face of Contemplative Calvinism

Emergent Church: Religious Syncretism

Matt Chandler: A "Reformed" Charismatic?

Dr. John Piper: Unanswered Questions

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Saddleback Promotes "Christianized" Mantra Meditation

Posted by Christine Pack

Rick Warren, "America's Pastor," author of Purpose Driven Life and pastor of Saddleback Church, literally changed how we do church today in America. With the blockbuster success of the Purpose Driven Life "franchise," out went the crosses and hymnals, communities were polled to see what their "felt needs" were - which the Purpose Driven model church of that community would then seek to meet, pastors began dressing in business casual, and sermons morphed from expository passage-by-passage preaching into topical, life enhancement coaching sessions. But beyond  the surface changes, something sinister was being introduced in this best-selling, Christian book:  breath prayers and Roman Catholic mysticism.

In Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren describes the practice of "breath prayers" and positively endorses Roman Catholic mystics Brother Lawrence and Madame Guyon. Those references have most likely gone over the heads of most readers, but as a former mystic myself, I can tell you that "breath prayers" is code for mantra meditation, which both Brother Lawrence and Madame Guyon practiced.

Saddleback's website also features two books by Quaker and mystic Richard Foster, today's leading proponent of something known as "Spiritual Disciplines" or "Spiritual Formation."  Also promoted are several other books focusing on the Spiritual Disciplines, which teach a practice that is nothing more than a "Christianized" version of mantra meditation, a pagan practice borrowed from Hinduism and Buddhism.  In this pagan practice, a person will "empty" the mind employing some kind of device: rhythmic music, repeating a word or phrase, focusing on breathing, etc., in an attempt to connect to God.

But in today's undiscerning church - and with a little help from Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven empire, this pagan practice has been flowing into churches because its proponents insist that this is a Christian practice and has been practiced by Christians for centuries. After all, what could be wrong with something called "Spiritual Formation," right? It sounds kind of Christian and churchy, doesn't it? And we know there's something about Christ being formed in us (Gal 4:19), so that has to be what this is talking about, right? Wrong.  Spiritual Formation is a series of disciplines which supposedly aid in "spiritual development," and which are generally thought to be Christian because these disciplines were formed centuries ago by monks in Roman Catholic monasteries. There's just one problem here, but it's a biggie: these Roman Catholic monks, who were known as the Desert Fathers, cloistered themselves in the Middle East and Egypt; and, because of their close proximity to eastern cultures, ended up being heavily influenced by paganism to the point of grafting pagan practices into their prayers, chiefly, mantra meditation.  So in essence, these "spiritual disciplines" that are part of today's "Spiritual Formation" programs are classic, eastern occultic practices that have simply been "Christianized" with a sprinkling of the magic pixie dust of Christian terminology.  But make no mistake, these practices are occultic.

Jesus himself seems to be addressing this very topic when He says:
"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words." (Matthew 6:7, my emphasis)
I have often heard this scripture taught by pastors as an admonition not to engage in "mindless" prayer: that is, praying by rote, without thoughtfulness or care.  While it is true that we ought to be mindful that we are entering into the presence of God every time we pray, with the understanding that this is an astounding privilege in and of itself - and we therefore ought not to take this privilege for granted and speak thoughtlessly or carelessly -  that is not what this verse is talking about. This verse is admonishing Christians not to pray in the same manner as pagans.  And how do pagans pray?  Well, outside of Christianity, mysticism has always been the natural default of the human heart.  All world religions that I know of have some kind of mystical tradition through which they attempt to approach God:
"Other methods of meditation involve drumming, dancing, and chanting. This percussion-sound meditation is perhaps the most common form for producing trance states in the African, North/South American Indian, and Brazilian spiritist traditions. In the Islamic world, the Sufi Mystic Brotherhoods have gained a reputation for chanting and ritual dancing. These are known as the Whirling Dervishes. Indian Guru, Rajneesh, developed a form of active meditation called dynamic meditation which combines the percussion sound, jumping, and rhythmic breathing." (Ray Yungen, For Many Shall Come In My Name)
These mystical practices, rather than bringing us into the presence of God, however, work to put the brain into a trance-like state, lowering one's God-given boundaries, and opening its practitioners up to the demonic realm.  This is what Jesus is cautioning against in this passage.

And yet, this pagan practice is exactly what Rick Warren, America's Pastor, first introduced to us in his book Purpose Driven Life, and is now promoting on his Saddleback website.  And so it has to be asked: How much further away from orthodoxy does Rick Warren have to fall before Christians and Christian  leaders will begin to "mark him out" and separate from him (Romans 16:17) - rather than continuing to give him a platform for teaching and preaching?

photo credit: mckaysavage via photo pin cc


 Additional Resources 

An Open Letter To John Piper

Mysticism: A Counterfeit Holy Spirit

Roman Catholic Monastic Mysticism at Saddleback