Excerpts about Rick Warren and a smorgasbord of Warren’s comments:
On p.20: Warren calls pastors “CHANGE AGENTS.”
On p. 76: he mentions, positively, the huge syncretic, ecumenical, political Promise Keepers!
On p. 80: “We must adapt our communication style to our culture without adopting the sinful elements of it, or abdicating to it.” Yet Warren HAS and DOES adopt the unworthy elements of culture.
On p.126: Warren mentions favourably the New Age/Christian Richard Foster.
On p. 127: he mentions favourably C.Peter Wagner, an apostate teacher with ties to the New World Order controlled US Center for World Missions. Is Warren unaware of who and what these people are? If so, where has he been?
On p. 127: the New Age term “Serendipity” is used. There is something very suspect about a group calling itself that! He also mentions the Korean cell -church model, I presume he is talking about David Yonggi Cho’s shocking New Age/Christian groups here!

“Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free...” (Gal. 5:1).
LEADERS RICK WARREN USES AS EXAMPLES
OF SOUND MINISTRIES WHICH HAVE PROSPERED.
1. Robert Schuller. This man has headed up the world-wide cult of Self-Esteem and Self-Love. His teachings are anti-biblical in many different ways, Schuller is an ecumenist who embraces the Roman Catholic Church. From Dave Hunt’s “The Seduction of Christianity”, p.p.14,15" “Success Is the Name of the Game. Success is the name of the game today, not only out there in the world, but inside the church as well. Humility is out and self- esteem is in, even though we are urged in Scripture, “Let each esteem others better than themselves” (Philippians 2:3 KJV). It used to be common knowledge that the besetting sin of the human race was pride. Now, however, we are being told that our problem is not that we think too highly of ourselves, but too lowly, that we have a bad self-image, and that our greatest need is to build up our self-esteem. Though Peter wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the might hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time” (I Peter 5:6), we are being urged to “visualise” ourselves into success. Paul’s inspired declaration that Christ “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant ... [and] humbled Himself by becoming obedient to ... death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7,8) is now explained by Robert Schuller, in the context of today’s success-oriented world, to mean:

Jesus knew his worth, his success fed his self-esteem ... He suffered the cross to sanctify his self-esteem. And he bore the cross to sanctify your self-esteem. And the cross will sanctify the ego trip. Success and self-esteem have become so important in the church that they seem to overshadow everything else. Robert Schuller states: “A person is in hell when he has lost his self-esteem.” (1) As Christianity’s “number one TV preacher,” (2) he is watched on nearly 200 TV stations each Sunday by an audience of nearly 3 million. (3) A prolific author, his books are frequently on The New York Times best-seller list. According to Christianity Today, “Schuller is now reaching more non-Christians than any other religious leader in America.” (4) Schuller’s influence is enormous, and his “Gospel of Success” (5) is being accepted and preached by increasing numbers of Christian leaders. What does Schuller find wrong with the old gospel? Although Paul wrote that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (I Timothy 1:15), and Christ Himself said that He came to call “sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32), Robert Schuller writes: I don’t think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality and, hence, counterproductive to the evangelism enterprise than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition. (6)”

And Rick Warren even uses a recommendation by Schuller at the start of his book, “The Purpose Driven Church.” Success, popularity, prosperity, worldliness are the aims and purposes of both Schuller and Warren.

2. Richard Foster. This teacher has entered into the shadowy world of pantheistic occultism! His book “Celebration of Discipline” has many, many New Age teachings in it. If Rick Warren was more Bible study orientated he would realise that this man Foster is NOT of our Biblical God at all. In the original edition of Foster’s book p. 170 said this, “We of the New Age can risk going against the tide.” Later editions have had this slip removed, it showed Foster’s true colours. Foster is a mystic, who teaches of the dark night of the soul, and extreme passivity and emptying the mind in meditation techniques of the New Age. From Dave Hunt’s “The Seduction of Christianity” p.p. 126,127: “Richard Foster, who is one of Agnes Sanford’s many admirers and was heavily influenced by her, states: “I have been greatly helped in my understanding of the value of the imagination in praying for others by Agnes Sanford and my dear friend, Pastor Bill Vaswig.” Foster says that he took “the idea for some of the ... visualizations” he presents from Vaswig’s book; (1) and Vaswig got them from Sanford. (2) The arousal of the power of the imagination through fantasy and visualization is one of the major themes of Foster’s best-selling book Celebration of Discipline, (3) which, nevertheless, is to be commended for encouraging devotion to the Lord and greater discipline in the Christian life. Later Foster says again: “This advice ... [of] prayer through the imagination ... picture the healing ... and much more, was given to me by Agnes Sanford. I have discovered her to be an extremely wise and skilful counsellor... Her book The Healing Gifts of the Spirit is an excellent resource.” (4) Whatever Sanford said as a “skilful counsellor” concerning her favourite topic, “prayer through the imagination,” was rooted in her basically pagan beliefs onto which she merely superimposed Christian and psychological terminology, especially Jungian. This ought to be clear to anyone reading her writings. For example: Wise men of India for many centuries have trod the lofty peaks of meditation developing their psycho-spiritual powers and giving birth to their oversouls.

Spirits of those [dead] for whom we have prayed on earth are working through us.....One conveys that healing force to the inner being [of the sick] through the law of suggestion ...He [the person doing the healing] has made a thought-track between his spirit, subconscious mind and body; the body, the subconscious mind and the spirit of the patient ... (5)”

These following quotes from Richard Foster will show where this man is coming from, New Age/Christianity and shamanism: “Imagination opens the door to faith. If we can’see’ in our mind’s eye (the third eye of the Hindus) a shattered marriage whole or a sick person well, it is only a short step to believing it will be so.” (insert added, p.36, “Celebration of Discipline.”) “‘Let’s play a little game,’ I said. ‘Since we know Jesus is always with us. let’s imagine that He is sitting over in the chair across from us. He is waiting for to center our attention on Him.’” (p.37. ibid).

3. John Wimber. Now deceased, John Wimber has been used as a model by Warren: From Dave Hunt’s “Seduction of Christianity” p. 174: “...these men are creating a powerful New Age “paradigm shift” that is changing the way thousands of pastors and future pastors view Christianity and the Bible. In his latest Signs and Wonders Lecture Notes, John Wimber writes:

At the time of the preparation of this manual, Dr. C. Peter Wagner and I have been teaching MC510 for three years. It has been one of the most invigorating and exciting adventures of our lives.

At this date, January, 1985, we have had in excess of 700 students take the course at Fuller Seminary School of World Missions. The results have been astounding. Better than 90 percent of the students have indicated a paradigm shift in which they are now ministering in an altered worldview. (1)

Wimber’s seminars are being attended by thousands of pastors and Christian leaders. John Wimber is very sincere in his desire to bring biblical teaching. It is the extra-biblical sources he and others draw upon and recommend that creates the major problem. Under the influence of writers such as Sanford, Kelsey et al more and more Christian leaders interpret Scripture through a grid of mysticism blended with Jungian psychology. *Just Imagine!* There is a definite “paradigm shift” taking place in the thinking or a very wide spectrum of church leaders. Catholic priests Dennis and Matthew Linn state, “Whatever I vividly relive in my imagination affects me as if I really experienced it.” (2) Lutheran pastor William Vaswig writes: Perhaps the most important thing Agnes Sanford taught me about prayer is that it has to do with the imagination ... I always thought of imagination in somewhat negative terms. I often heard imagination disparaged: “Oh, don’t let your imagination run away with you ...” Genesis 6:5 says that the imagination of man was exceedingly corrupt ...”

NOTE: Warren uses the term “new paradigm” on p.80 of his book, “The Purpose Driven Church.” He states, “This book is written to offer a new paradigm, the purpose driven church, as a biblical and healthy alternative to traditional ways that churches have organised and operated.”

4. Dr. C.Peter Wagner. This man has also been cited as a successful leader by Rick Warren. You have noticed his name above. Who is Wagner and what does he believe? He is the professor of Fuller Theological Seminary, School of World Mission, Pasadena California. He believes in Dominion Theology, Kingdom Now, which is the premise that the Kingdom of God is already here! Wagner’s spiritual warfare book, “Territorial Spirits,” is a compilation of the writing of such people as Paul (David) Yonggi Cho, Larry Lea, Jack Hayford and others who accept the neo-dominionist doctrines. This book is an anti-biblical book which teaches that Christians can dispossess Satan’s angels from their seats of authority over geographical areas. Biblically, these spiritual entities will not be put down until Jesus Christ returns, at the end of the Tribulation period, when Satan himself is bound for a thousand years. Revelation 19-20. Wagner says the Kingdom has come NOW. P.14: “The kingdom has come.”

Wagner is an ecumenist. He does not care what doctrine churches teach, whether they worship Mary, hold the abominable Mass where Christ is supposed to be sacrificed again and again, every time mass is “celebrated”. Wagner is a tool of the Vatican in many ways. P.87, “Territorial Spirits”: “Over many cities a spirit of religion reigns. That’s the spirit that divides brother from brother and says, “‘I’m a Baptist’- of some other denomination - ‘and you’re a Methodist so there’s no fellowship between us.’ Or “I’m a charismatic and you’re a Catholic so there’s no love flowing between us.’ Whatever denominations may be involved, this spirit insists on dividing the church. With the spirit of religion dogma is more important than Jesus. But when we resist this spirit, we must insist that everyone who names the name of Jesus Christ and holds that name as their only hope of salvation is our brother or sister.”

Wagner merges paganism and Christianity in a shocking but subtle manner in “Territorial Spirits.” P.179: “ In this way the Jews resolved the problem of the one and the many. There was only one God, and he was their god for ever. All other spiritual forces, be they good or bad, were ultimately of his creation, under his control and assigned as tutelary DEITIES to other nations. ...The nations which ruled the ancient world were under the supervision of their angel-princes, who in their turn were under the ultimate control of Yahweh, the Lord of heaven and earth...” (Note that pagan ‘gods’ and spirits are seen as under Yahweh, and acknowledged as “tutelary deities”. Emphasis mine).

5. Bill Hybels. Here is another man who is supposed be a successful church leader who has great “Growth” in his congregation. Hybels is of the same brand as Warren. Warren cites Hybels as one of the “successful” churches in America. Hybels is also a man who builds a church on marketing surveys! He has a church congregation of over 12,000 called Willow Creek Community Church (note its title is the same as Saddleback). A description of Hybels’ “church” comes from “Christian News” 7/91, “Commentary: Building a Church on Marketing Surveys” by Dr. Balmer, professo of religion Barnard College/Columbia University. He is the author of “A Perfect Babel of Confusion”:

“South Barrington, ILL. (RNS) The traffic will likely be the first thing to capture your attention during a visit to Willow Creek Community Church. The main entrance to the church is a winding, four-lane driveway that, just before any of the three weekend services looks more like the Santa Monica Freeway at five in the afternoon than a church entrance on Sunday morning.
From the perspective of the traffic controller perched atop the church building, the succession of Cadillacs, Toyotas, pickup trucks and Volvo station wagons resembles a military convoy headed for the front or a regiment of ants marching toward a picnic. The traffic maven barks instructions by radio to a bevy of uniformed traffic guards who guide the automobiles into a huge parking lot demarcated into sections airport style. Welcome to the weekend worship services, one on Saturday evening and, two on Sunday morning at Willow Creek, an evangelical church in South Barrington, Ill. Inside the lobby there are information booths and counters offering audio cassettes for sale. Several men in three-piece suits (conspicuous in this casually dressed crowd) roam the lobby with walkie-talkies and earpieces, their eyes scanning the crowd, looking very much like the Secret Service. The worship service starts on the hour with a crescendo of music from the orchestra. The congregation sings one song. A drama troupe presents a one-act play illustrating the sermon’s theme. Someone gives a few announcements, collects an offering and a preacher struts onstage to deliver a 40-minute sermon. From the beginning to end, the service lasts one hour and 15 minutes, whereupon the congregation files back to the parking lot and heads home. If all this sounds like the product of meticulous planning and execution, make no mistake about itit is. Willow Creek has all the trappings of an efficient corporation, from traffic control to a child-care system during the services, complete with photo identification cards. The church was begun in the mid-1970s by Bill Hybels, a graduate of Trinity College, Deerfield, Ill, who conducted a door-to-door survey in the northwest suburbs of Chicago to find out why people didn’t attend church. He discovered that non-church goers preferred to remain anonymous when they did attend church, that they resented being dunned for money and that they generally found church services boring. Armed with the results of his public-opinion survey, Hybels proceeded to design his own church to appeal to what he calls the “unchurched Harrys” and “unchurched Marys.” Accordingly, Willow Creek spends a great deal of time, money and effort on entertainment. Visitors are never asked to stand and introduce themselves, as they might be in other evangelical churches. The announcements before the offertory explicitly state that visitors need not contribute, that they should consider themselves guests. If numbers are the criterion for determining success, Willow Creek’s formula is overwhelmingly successful. Approximately 12,600 people attend the church’s worship services each weekend.

Despite the casual appearance of the congregation shorts and T-shirts predominate this is the Gospel dressed in pinstripes. Willow Creek Community Church represents ecclesiastical niche marketing at its best. The “management team” (the term the church uses to refer to its senior pastors and administrators) has carefully crafted a program to appeal to the tastes of suburbanites. The church building itself resembles a corporate office park, complete with a pond, a fountain, and a flock of geese. But it has no Christian symbols whatsoever no cross, no icons so as not to frighten or intimidate visitors. The ministers refer to their overall programs as a “product.” The self-help ethic pervades both the sermons and the many support or special-interest groups singles, new mothers, alcoholics, those with sexual addictions. Despite its apparent novelty, however, Willow Creek Community Church lies very much within the tradition of American religion. The free market of religion in the United States demands that churches compete with one another for their audiences. Here in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, that entails appropriating the trappings of corporate America, with its ideals of efficiency and its careful attention to “consumer” tastes. Evangelicals have historically adapted to popular tastes more readily than other religious groups in America. Unconstrained by liturgical rubrics or denominational hierarchies, they have fashioned their message to their audiences, whether it be the Methodist circuit riders on the frontier, the mendicant revivalists around the turn of the century or the televangelists of the 1980s peddling their prosperity gospel to Ronald Reagan’s America. I find the slick, contrived professionalism of Willow Creek discomforting somehow, but that may reflect my uneasiness with corporate culture. For 12,000 upwardly mobile suburbanites, however, the formula works. If success is reckoned in numbers, evangelicals have shown once again that they can package the message to meet the demands of the marketplace.” *

This material has been an excerpt from the Christian News of July, 1991.
via BDM Material (see link above)
Ask yourself, “do I really think this kind of merchandising of men’s souls is what is needed in Australia? Or do we need a genuine move of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love?”
ROCK MUSIC, should it be in Christian Churches?
Rick Warren insists that there is nothing wrong with using Rock music to attract the unsaved. He insists that there is no Christian music, only Christian lyrics. This is NOT TRUE! Here I will quote from “What’s Wrong With Christian Rock?” by Jeff Godwin, p.p.37-41:

“Rock music has been PROVEN to have a detrimental effect on the adrenalin, sex glands and blood sugar of the human brain. Study after study has shown that Rock music ALWAYS stunts growth and chokes off life.”
(Godwin cites the work “Christian Rock - a Stratagem of Meph-istopheles,” p.27).
“Any ‘Christian’ Rock star/fan who thinks music is neutral should face up to one simple fact: nobody gets hooked on neutral music. Why don’t you do a little experiment? Spend the next 30 days without listening to or playing ANY rock music. (Six months would be better). Try it, Christian Rock fans. You’ll quickly find yourself going through WITHDRAWAL, because Rock music is a drug! Don’t believe it? Go 30 days without it.
Here is some technical information you need:

MELODY. True melodic formula (motive) will combine to create phrases and themes, each individual melody having its own contour of ascending and descending pitches. There will be a definite high place near the conclusion, showing proper resolution. Static movement and lack of balance will create either a hypnotic effect or despair in the listener. Based on these guidelines, Rock ‘music’ has no melody at all.

HARMONY. “All harmony is based on chordal patterns which support the melody subserviently. Chords are based on a very specific keynote, or tonic, and must move through prescribed formulas in the traditional harmonic structure of the major-minor tonal system. The modulation of keys, as charted on the Circle of Fifths, will show great regularity in the relationships of chords, pitches, scales, and tonalities. Excessive consonance and/or dissonance will not be evident.’
Based on these guidelines, Rock ‘music’ has no harmony.

RHYTHM. Rhythm is the orderly movement of music through time.
Constant alternation of triple and duple measures creates a driving syncopation, producing excessive tension. Subtle balance between regular accent patterns and occasional syncopation is necessary to avoid hypnotic effect. (There that nasty word ‘effect’again.) Based on these guidelines, Rock ‘music’s’ rhythm is a combination of unending backbeats and backbeats whose end is to swamp the listener and totally consume them in an intense artificial atmosphere of dominance. This should never be the intent of rhythm.

PITCH. True music has a variety of pitches which are ACCURATE. Very high pitches are used only for contrast and climax points. Rock music is just the opposite. Its constant repetition of pitches almost never modulates, and is slightly UNDER true pitch (as in ‘Blues’). The high pitched screams, both human and electronic, are thrown helter-skelter throughout, the end result being musical chaos.

INTENSITY. True music employs much contrast between loud and soft, with a constant change in the dynamic level. There is always a wide, CONTROLLED variation in qualitative force intensity. Rock ‘music’ has an intensity that is as loud as possible - as long as possible. The dynamic has all the subtlety of a freshly detonated neutron bomb. The end result: ROCK MUSIC IS NOT EVEN MUSIC. Where does this leave ‘Christian’ Rock music? ‘CHRISTIAN’ ROCK MUSIC IS NOT EVEN MUSIC....

Add it all up, and here’s what you’ve got: Christians are trying to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a musical medium which doesn’t even exist. Secondly, there is no such thing as ‘Christian’ Rock, for Rock ‘music’ is the exact opposite of everything Jesus Christ stands for.”

(End of quote from Godwin).
SUM UP -
WHAT CAN WE MAKE OF RICK WARREN &
SADDLEBACK VALLEY COMMUNITY CHURCH?
This man Rick Warren, who is being lauded and copied by many, many churches in diverse denominations, is NOT a Godly model, nor is his church - although it has a congregation of 10,000. We have seen herein a mere snippet of the book, “The Purpose Driven Church”, and have examined only a sample of the beliefs and techniques of Warren. Yet, it is clear that this man, who may well be sincere enough, is sincerely WRONG! He is leading those who follow his example into dangerous water indeed.

Warren is a neo-evangelical, with all the problems that these “new” churchmen have. He moves in a world where there are many like himself, who have also fallen away as he has from true Christianity, and Godliness. Just a list of what we have gleaned in this short critique should convince the obedient child of God to steer clear of the motivational power-structure and clever instructions of such men. His world is one of slick professionalism, a contrived corporate culture, with a success formula which is as cold and bleak as winter! It “works” maybe, 10,000 bottoms on pews is a lot of merchandise, but is success really measured in numbers? Do evangelicals now have to “package the message to meet the demands of the marketplace.” Who are we Australian Christians, American corporation professionals?

Warren is an ecumenist, who associates with and honours apostate ministries of these latter days. Warren brings the world into the church, embraces even evil Rock music and its hypnotic beat. He does not seek to create a haven for the Christians where they can escape from the world, coming to worship God in a holy atmosphere. No, he aims his church service at the sinners, and invites then to bring their worldly “culture” right into the house of God! Warren replaces as top priority SUCCESS instead of GODLINESS and HOLINESS unto the Lord. Success, GROWTH of congregations takes top billing in his philosophy. Warren is an extremely gifted writer whose rhetoric is so convincing that even the elect could well be deceived. He is a dangerous man! He brings in to congregations a BONDAGE to leaders by his COVENANTS. Causing people to loose their God-given liberty in Christ Jesus, and causing them to disobey God by making signed vows and oaths. Warren subtly leads people away from their main purpose, which is to study, live in, be saturated in the Scriptures through Bible study.

May God lead us all to follow the Word of God more fully, to be holy and separated from the evil world culture, and to have great discernment as we encounter the deceptions of these sad days of decline from faith and standards. God save us all from public-opinion surveys and Laodicean religions, American-style!

“...I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing: and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind and naked:” (Rev. 3:16,17).
Footnotes:
Robert Schuller:
(1) Self-Esteem, The New Reformation (Word Books,1982), pp 14-15.
(2)Eternity, Nov.1983, Lloyd Billingsley, “The Gospel According to Schuller,” p.23.
(3) Los Angeles Times,May 29,1983, p.1.
(4) Christianity Today, August 10, 1984, pp.23-24.
(5) Ibid.
(6)Christianity Today, op.cit.

Richard Foster:
(1) Celebration of Discipline, p.36. Pub.Harper and Row.
(2) William L.Vaswig. I Prayed, He Answered pp.59, 88-89.
(3) Celebration of Discipline, pp. 16,22-27,36, 136, 169-70.
(4) Ibid., p.136.
(5) Sanford. The Healing Light. pp.98-113,142-43.

John Wimber:
(1) Signs and Wonders and Church Growth, Introduction (Vineyard Ministries International, 1985).
(2) Dennis Linn, Matthew Linn, Healing Life’s Hurts, Paulist Press, p.98.

For the whole article go to:
http://www.despatch.cth.com.au/Books_D/Rick_Warren.htm