Rick Warren Teams Up With New-Age Guru Ken Blanchard

Yo Krisp,Holy Spirit just recently directed me to order this book:Prophetic Untimelinessby OS Guinness Which pretty much says that the greatest idol in the Christian Church today is that of being/becoming "Relevant" ... So i'm not surprised by your post ... God sees, and Hes raised/raising up folk to shine His light into the gloom ... Check this excerpt out ...Denver JournalProphetic Untimelinessby OS Guinness http://www.denverseminary.edu/dj/articles2004/0400/0407.phpThe book is divided into three sections, which take up the challenge of responding to Guinness's distressing thesis: (1) The Tool That Turned Into a Tyrant, (2) Shorn of Our Secret Strength, and (3) Restoring the Archimedean Point. The first section brings what typically remains in the cultural background into the foreground: our sense of time. The modern Western sense of time differs radically from that of earlier ages and from some other cultures even today. Time is quantified ever more precisely by the mechanical clock; it is rendered precise and makes the coordination of events easier. Yet it puts us under pressure to meet its exacting demands. "Time is the ultimate credit card; speed is the universal style of spending". But in our rush for relevance we often forfeit wisdom. Moreover, we falsely think that the new is probably the true and being "progressive" is obviously better than being "traditional." C.S. Lewis referred to this as "chronological snobbery." We thus become historically myopic (if not oblivious) and fail to learn from the past, Christian or otherwise. Yet without an anchor in the past, we become prey to the passing fads of the present and so become unfit to face the future faithfully. As Daniel Boorstin put it, "Homo up-to-datum is a dunce."The gist of Guinness's second section, "Shorn of Our Secret Strength" is summarized by the lament that the faith-worlds of great Christian leaders such as Wesley, Edwards, Wilberforce, Spurgeon, Carl Henry, John Stott, and others is vanishing among contemporary evangelicals. "In its place a new evangelicalism is arriving in which therapeutic self-concern overshadows knowing God, spirituality displaces theology, end-times escapism crowds our day-to-day discipleship, marketing triumphs over mission, reference to opinion polls outweigh reliance on biblical exposition, concerns for power and relevance are more obvious than concern for piety and faithfulness, talk of reinventing the church has replaced prayer for revival, and the characteristic evangelical passion for missionary enterprise is overpowered by the all-consuming drive to sustain the multiple business empires of the booming evangelical subculture" (p.54). But what is the antidote?The last third of the book charts the way of radical faithfulness and biblical fidelity. It gives no formulas, since formulas are part of the problem for a church in captivity to contemporary culture. The summons is daunting: "Thinking and acting Christianly in the blizzard of modern information and change requires the courage of a prophet, the wisdom of a sage, and the character of a saint--not to speak of the patience of Job and the longevity of Methuselah" (p. 56). We must hear and heed the call of a transcendent God, not culture. We must turn from "sola cultura"--the implicit if not explicit creed of most evangelicals today--back to "sola Scriptura." In so doing, we must be willing to embrace loneliness, as did the Hebrew prophets and to stand "against the world, for the world" before "the audience of One." We need courage, faithfulness, and the Cross of Christ, which "runs crosswise to all our human ways of thinking" (p. 100).There is no better spokesman for this untimely but godly cause than Os Guinness. Ponder his words, however strange they may seem at first. Then lament over the worldliness and triviality of so much of evangelicalism. Then rise up and challenge the idols of relevance wherever they appear and counteract them by speaking the truth in love, come what may (Ephesians 4:15; 1 John 5:21).Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D.Professor of PhilosophyDenver SeminaryMay 2004i can't wait to see what He'll teach me out of this, but more importantly how He'll use me in it's message ... These are exciting times in the Christian faith to be living in!

Krispy quoted "Rick taps the best and most famous to help train church leaders to be like Jesus. He has hired Ken Blanchard .... to come to Saddleback to help train people how to be effective leaders." p. 193Thankyou for this post. In my first few years as a believer I was introduced to the teachings of church growth phenomenon and church leadership programs. John Maxwell was a major contributor to the training I was participating in at the time. I soon left my first church because of the worldliness of these teachings.In Christjeff

Ken Blanchard is far from a godly man. I just listened to a demo of one of his speaches and he used profanity....

PreachParsly wrote:Ken Blanchard is far from a godly man. I just listened to a demo of one of his speaches and he used profanity....Do you have a link to that speech?

I have read this article about megachurches and I have seen parts of the Joel Osteen interview (CNN, FOX News) and I am troubled by the these pastors happy-talk. I posted just a small part of the article, here is the rest:http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43946A pioneer of Christian happy-talkMore than 30 years ago, Vance Havner, in his book "Playing Marbles with Diamonds," offered the following insightful: "The devil is not fighting religion; he is too smart for that. He is producing a counterfeit Christianity so much like the real one that good Christians are afraid to speak out against it. … We are plainly told in the Scriptures that in the last days men will not endure sound doctrine and will depart from the truth and heap to themselves teachers to tickle their ears. We live in an epidemic of this itch, and popular preachers have developed ear-tickling to a fine art. Today, the angle is to avoid "negative" preaching and accentuate only the positive."Havner wrote at a time when the work of one of America's most influential pioneers of Christian happy-talk was fomenting what is still a powerful factor in the happy-talk world. A follower of Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller has become the face and voice of today's "Christian" self-esteem movement. Of course, there is nothing Christian or biblical about Schuller's self-idolatry message. It is clearly more akin to New Age thinking. Nevertheless, Schuller is one of America's most well-known TV preachers and authors, and is pastor of arguably the most famous mega-church of all time. In fact, as pastor of The Crystal Cathedral, Schuller claims to be the father of the mega-church movement. In the April 10, 2002, issue of The Christian Century, Schuller claims, "I launched the mega-church movement through the Institute for Successful Church Leadership in 1970." Many look to Schuller and his church as the model for achieving mega-church status. Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Bruce Wilkinson and scores of America's best-selling authors and most well-known pastors have either spoken at Schuller's Institute for Successful Church Leadership or attended the conference. Perhaps this explains why so many of these authors avoid in-depth discussions of man's total depravity, the biblical doctrine of repentance, the moral law, or the need to die to self and reject the lie of self-love.

2Co 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? Lev 21:7 They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband: for he is holy unto his God. Mar 7:16 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

I ask: Where has wisdom gone?

I ask: Where has wisdom gone?Jer 4:22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. (Sottish: Foolish or stupid)

What do you guys think of Warren's "Global P.E.A.C.E. plan"?On his church’s 25th anniversary, Rick Warren launched what he calls his Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan to “eradicate five giant problems that oppress billions of people” around the world with “five smooth stones of (P) - Planting Churches, (E) - Equipping Leaders, (A) - Assisting the Poor, (G) - Caring for the Sick and (E) - Educating the Next Generation.” The Baptist Press reported on the event held at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California on April 17th before a crowd of 30,000 Saddleback Church members. “Billions of people suffer each day from problems so big no government can solve them," said Warren, Saddleback’s pastor. "The only thing big enough to solve the problems of spiritual emptiness, selfish leadership, poverty, disease and ignorance is the network of millions of churches all around the world." The rest of the article:http://www.newswithviews.com/PaulProctor/proctor69.htm

Thanks for posting the link to Paul Proctors'article. Here are some other quotes from the article.So, if you bring good news, train leaders, help the poor, care for the sick and teach children, you are fulfilling the Great Commission? Isn’t that what the U.S. is doing right now in overseas, bringing good news, training leaders, helping the poor, caring for the sick and teaching children?... Isn’t it what liberals, socialists, communists, Marxists, Fascists and every other corrupt leader, regime and revolution throughout history claim they were all about, as well?And you thought all of the hippies, peaceniks and flower children from the 60’s had gone away. Hardly…“Go ye therefore and tackle the planet’s problems?” Is that the Great Commission? Did Jesus die on a cross to fix a broken world or deliver us from it? If you’re not sure, you may want to refer to James 4:4 where scripture says: “friendship with of world is enmity with God.”Regardless of how one feels about Warren, in my opinion, Mr. Proctor went too far here. God bless him and the Southern Baptists for their commitment to sound doctrine. Yet when sound doctine eclipses the heart of Jesus we have the making of modern day Pharisees. Having grown up in Lynchburg Virginia,(Baptistopia) it has taken years for me to recover from the American conservative superiority complex that has jaded many Christians of the bible belt. (Maybe I'm still a carrier of the virus...)Mr. Proctor would scare American Christians away from trying to solve the social problems of world by equating Christlike compassion with Marxism. He's too polarized.According to Mr. Proctor, being friends with the poor is "being friends with the world" and therefore being at enmity with God. He probably wrote this article right after lunch at his favorite resturaunt.I suggest he fast and read his bible. He might not be aware that Jesus approves of the following passages (as well as many others) on the subject of social compassion: Exodus 22:25-27Duet: 23:19-20Psalm 15:5Matthew 5:13-16Galations 2:7-10Galatians 6:9-10Hebrew 13:1-3James 2:8Psalm 144:14Matthew 6:11Matthew 10:42Mark 8:2-3Proverbs 23:6-7Micah 3:11-12II Corinthians 11:27-29Or read the book of Isaiah. He who sits on the throne endorses that book as well.(sigh)MC

God bless him and the Southern Baptists for their commitment to sound doctrine. Yet when sound doctine eclipses the heart of Jesus we have the making of modern day Pharisees. That just speaks volumes brother, not to mention all the rest here. Well said.

Thank you all for your post. I was just to give Rick Warren’s book for my unbeliver husband as a gift and you guys gave me time to re-think.Mek.

I don't know who this Proctor is but he does have good points about issues, maybe he was satisfied from that restaurant when he wrote this. The funny thing about the writing is that being outside of the U.S I tend to see things quite close to how he sees them. He did in all fairness say this:"And, just for the record, Jesus came to preach the Gospel, make disciples, comfort the poor, heal the sick and teach God’s Word to anyone who would listen. If you’ll notice, that’s markedly different from Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan."Does Warren think that churches in countries outside of the U.S haven't got any programs that takes into consideration the poor and needy the way the Bible teaches ? I don't know, but it seems to me that this Proctor has hit the nail on its head more often than not. Don't get upset, it's only an opinion.jouko