The Adulation of Man in The Purpose Driven Life

By Richard Bennett

To read this article in its entirety please click on: http://hissheep.org/catholic/the_adulation_of_man_in_the_purpose_driven_life.html

Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life “is more than a bestseller, it’s become a movement.”[1] In the words of the author himself his megachurch program is “Revival awakening or miracle…Over 12,000 churches from all 50 states and 19 countries have now participated in 40 Days of Purpose. Many of these churches have reported that it was the most transforming event in their congregation’s history.”[2] “Rick is also the founder of Pastors.com, a global Internet community that serves and mentors those in ministry worldwide. Over 60,000 pastors subscribe to Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox.”[3] On this Webpage he states, “Our Purpose is to encourage pastors, ministers, and church leaders with tools and resources for growing healthy churches…Every resource you purchase helps provide free resources to the over 1.5 million pastors and lay pastors in third world countries. God has allowed us through your support to reach over 117 different countries on all 7 continents.”[4] The movement is becoming a global empire. Warren asserts, “God is a global God…Much of world already thinks globally. The largest media and business conglomerates are all multi-national…Get a globe or map and pray for nations by name. The Bible says, ‘If you ask me, I will give you the nations; all the people on earth will be yours.’”[5] (Warren, however, has overlooked the fact that this promise was made uniquely to Christ Jesus, and not to megachurches seeking expansion). Even the business world is looking on with awe. Forbes.com in an article called “Christian Capitalism Megachurches, Megabusinesses” acknowledged that,

“Maybe churches aren’t so different from corporations…Pastor Rick Warren, who founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., in 1980, has deftly used technology as well as marketing to spread his message… No doubt, churches have learned some valuable lessons from corporations. Now maybe they can teach businesses a thing or two. Companies would certainly appreciate having the armies of nonpaid, loyal volunteers.”[6]

The empire of influence of which Warren boasts is echoed by thousands of pastors and Christian leaders around the world. At least eighteen million copies of his book have been sold since its release in September 2002. It is now selling in many translations. Literally thousands of churches have used the book and the materials that accompany it during special campaigns called 40 Days of Purpose. The book is divided into forty chapters purporting to explain in 40 days the five purposes of one’s life. Indeed, the thesis of the book is found on p. 136,

“He [God] created the church to meet your five deepest needs: a purpose to live for, people to live with, principles to live by, a profession to live out, and power to live on. There is no other place on earth where you can find all five of these benefits in one place.” [7]

Warren is dead wrong in his list of “deepest needs”. On the authority of the Bible, the first and foremost need of any man is perfect righteousness before the All Holy God. It is Christ Jesus’ righteousness alone that God will accept as a propitiation for any man’s sin and sin nature. This primary need of man is constantly shown in the Bible but Warren does not even mention this foundational truth in his list of “deepest needs”. Warren’s quick switch from God’s purpose to man’s methods falls under the first temptation ever recorded in the Bible. Satan offered to Eve the fruit as the way of achieving a spiritual purpose, “in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”[8] Warren teaches that God “created the church to meet your five deepest needs” just as the Roman Catholic Church says, “The Church is the mother of all believers.”[9] Warren, like Rome, has switched from obedience to the Word and Person of the Living God to submission to a church to achieve one’s needs. It is the oldest and cleverest temptation known to man.

Warren’s gospel, the root flaw
The Apostle Paul showed the need for the Gospel by the fact that whole the world is guilty before God. He declared, “now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”[10] All are “by nature children of wrath”[11], guilty before the all Holy God. To appear before Him, therefore, each needs a perfect righteousness. James summarizes the whole condition of man when he says, “for whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”[12] Guilt before God shows the need for the Gospel and as such is the basis for the Gospel. Conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit drives the sinner to trust truly on Christ Jesus alone, as the publican in the parable of the Lord cried out, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”[13] With Warren, this conviction of guilt is reduced by psychological terminology to the condition of “unconsciously punishing of oneself”. He states,