Evangelical churches and the pro-mask, pro-Vax narrative

[pbsmind]

https://www.foothillschurchrsm.com/

[Kokopelli]

Ouch. Thanks for sharing.

I never saw Rick Warren properly handling scripture from day one.

Sad.

When I heard him, he used "The Message" translation of the Bible.

I've been to Saddleback a few times for week long worship conferences. But that was back when Rick Muchow was the WL. My niece was baprized at Saddleback and got involved with international missions before she moved to Arizona.

Maybe Warren has alsheimers?

From the linked article:

^ I could not find a citation for Warren saying that using Google or Bing. Was it in some email Warren sent out?

[billvau]

When I heard him, he used "The Message" translation of the Bible.

I've been to Saddleback a few times for week long worship conferences. But that was back when Rick Muchow was the WL. My niece was baprized at Saddleback and got involved with international missions before she moved to Arizona.

Maybe Warren has alsheimers?

From the linked article:



^ I could not find a citation for Warren saying that using Google or Bing. Was it in some email Warren sent out?

I got my biggest (actually, saddest) laugh from Warren years ago when Southern California had one of their huge Santa Ana fires and many lost their homes. TV was showing some of these folks grieving, even crying over their lost homes.

Warren's comment was that losing their homes was a blessing in disguise because "Blessed are those who mourn..." Matt. 5:4. I think I screamed loudly at his blatant mis-interpretation of Scripture and saddened to think that their might be some that would believe that God would take their home just so that they would mourn and then be blessed for mourning (over the loss of an earthly thing that will be burned up anyhow!).

His "Purpose-driven" life not only doesn't give the full gospel (on the positive part, not the sin part), but pushes people away from fellowship with Christ (1 Cor. 1:9) / knowing Him more intimately (Phil 3:12-14).

[skilletboy]

If I hear another Fellow-Christian package their personal or political opinions as the proper or only way to "love your neighbor as yourself" I might donkey punch someone. It is so manipulative, inappropriate, and such a horrific misuse of scripture. It really angers me.

[skilletboy]

I wanted to add, there is a long history of the church kowtowing to evil ideas of tyrannical groups or governments, just as much as we've seen them stand up against them.

From the Catholic church with the Nazi's, to the American churches in the south with slavery, and countless other examples. Cowards come in all sizes. They will be judged by God and God alone.

[skilletboy]

wearing a mask in church signals the same thing as carrying concealed in church-

weak/no Christian faith

Except there was a time where Jesus even told his disciples to make sure they had swords with them because of the danger they would encounter in that season.

[Garand Hunter]

Correct skilletboy !

Psalm 1

[socal m1 shooter]

I read this Daily Wire piece, it is very sobering, a cautionary tale.

Regarding Rick Warren, I watched which makes a very detailed, methodical, and thorough case that Rick Warren is wrong about a lot of things (and not just Rick Warren, but also many other first-world evangelical luminaries who are on a similar path as Warren, such as Bill Hybels and Bob Buford). It is a long video; I think I watched it in four or five installments, but I found it to be very eye-opening, and I have shared it with some friends. Outside of reading one of his books, I'm not sure that I have even listened to an entire message by Rick Warren, so I'm not very familiar with his work, nor do I know much about Saddleback, so in a certain sense, I don't have a dog in that fight. However, since you had a strong connection to Saddleback for so long, it might resonate even more strongly for you, OP.

However, I do listen to Keller quite a bit, and his messages and his books have taught me many things. Pastors will sometimes admit that they preach what they, themselves, need to learn or hear. Keller has talked about division in the north American church and he specifically mentions a red/blue divide among American evangelicals (he talked about that in 20192 Kings 17:15
Psalm 115:8
Psalm 135:18
Jeremiah 2:5
Jeremiah 7:6

More to it, affluence can also lead to idolatry

What saddens me so much here is not just that this happened at Saddleback, I saw that coming but held out hopeful that I was wrong (you don't get invited to give the invocation at Obama's first inauguration, get invited to speak at Klaus Schwab's WEF twice, and brag to your church that you are a member of the Council on Foreign Relations without owing the globalists some payback). What makes this so much worse to me is that it appears to have happened to a significant share of the overall evangelical church apparatus in America. We tend to look at churches in Europe and make passing remarks about them being "dead", but how did they get there? Infiltration by the enemy is everywhere. It appears that a big and influential portion of the church in America is just walking dead, and millions are being deceived.

Do you think there is much correlation (if any) between being highly esteemed in first-world evangelical circles (the visible church), and being esteemed in the only place that really counts, the Kingdom of God (the invisible church)? I'm not convinced that there is. Scripture teaches very clearly that the human heart is incredibly deceitful, and that humanity is basically bad, yet many polls show that a majority of self-identifying Christians believe humanity is basically good. What are we supposed to take away from that?

If you accept that the letters to the seven churches in Revelation are also addressed to the church during various eras, and the the letter to the church at Laodicea is addressed to the modern church, how do you read Revelation 3:20I agree, nothing is impossible for God, He can save anyone, and He knows us all better than we know ourselves. Any of these luminaries mentioned in the OP Daily Wire article, including Collins, could repent, and I hope they do.

That Church of Tares video gets into how Warren was a disciple of Peter Drucker and used Drucker's philosophy to maximize growth. Did you watch it some time before? It was posted years ago.

[GM4spd]

[socal m1 shooter]

Church of Tares makes a few interesting observations regarding what can be seen in many false churches that have bought into the basic north American mega-church model. They tend to focus on numerical growth, and as a result the services at these churches are often more for attracting unbelievers than feeding the believers who attend and give. The pastor "casts a vision" for what that church is supposed to be (an unhealthy focus on a mission statement, like you noticed) and where that church is supposed to go and how that church is supposed to get there. It's almost like they incorporate the classic unbiblical aphorism "God helps them that helps themselves" into their standard operating procedures, and go off in pursuit of their own agenda (not God's agenda), incorporating other worldly practices as it seems good to them.

The organization I work for also has a mission statement and I would wager that hardly anybody, including the people who wrote it, could recite it from memory. It's fair to say that it is widely regarded as having little, if anything to do with what the worker bees are dealing with on a day-to-day basis, so no one cares about it, it is basically some meaningless leftist nonsense. Maybe because of my exposure to the culture of my workplace, I am a tiny bit disdainful of mission statements, yet the pastor at the church I attend (his politics are leftist) is big on the mission statement to the extent he even had parts of it posted on the walls around the church, almost like it is on the same level as scripture. He quotes from it repeatedly, but I don't want to compound on my sins, so suffice it to say, I find his apparent focus on it to be off-putting. I feel the same way about the rebranding of the church that he pushed through. I thought it was a solution in search of a problem.

However many complaints I have-- I'll be the first to admit, I'm always quick to sinfully elevate my own likes and dislikes, my preferences, to just at or below the level of scripture-- I have not caught any outright heresy coming from the pulpit, and I take it day by day, trying to keep first things first, and I try to worship in spirit and in truth, hallowing God's name, sticking to His agenda.

It almost goes without saying, but Church can be messy. Why this is a shock to people is hard to understand, because the church is composed of broken, sinful, fallen people (the only kind of people in this world). The closer you get to a church, or another individual, the messier it gets, and when you get involved in leadership, you learn all kinds of things about others that you never wanted to know. It is not easy to serve in leadership positions, and the opposition from Satan and his helpers to those willing to serve is sometimes greater than what rank-and-file believers face.


This is a separate issue, but it can be a controversial and divisive one. I don't want to take the thread sideways, but I'm sure money played a big role in getting us to the place described in the Daily Wire piece in the OP.

[Garand Hunter]

Of course money was big in this !

Psalm 1

[Wordupmybrotha]

Couldn't finish the article because of paywall.
Never heard Rick Warren's sermon so I don't have an opinion about him, but I do have an experience of changing churches because I noticed that the pastor misquoted the bible couple of times and misinterpreted the scripture.

[rp55]

If you look at Rick Warren's Wikipedia page you will see the below paragraph. It tells me everything I thing I need to know about him.

Warren has been invited to speak at national and international forums, including the United Nations, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the African Union, the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, TED, and Time's Global Health Summit. He has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) since 2005

[Cali-Glock]

Sadly Rick Warren is a wolf in Sheeps clothing.