10 Concerns About Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life

Summary of

The “Wonderful” Deception of the Purpose Driven Paradigm

1) Rick Warren Cites New Age Leader 
In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren introduces his main themes of “hope” and “purpose.” Inexplicably, Warren chooses to introduce “hope” and “purpose” in his book by citing Dr. Bernie Siegel—a veteran New Age leader who claims to have a spirit-guide named George.

2) Rick Warren Sends Confusing New Age Message: “God is in everything”
Out of the fifteen different Bible versions Rick Warren uses in The Purpose Driven Life, he chooses to cite Ephesians 4:6 from a new translation that erroneously conveys the panentheistic New Age teaching that God is “in” everything. According to New Age leaders, this teaching is foundational to the New Age/New Spirituality.2 Yet of these fifteen Bible versions Warren uses in his book, he chooses the New Century Version that has potentially misled millions of Purpose Driven readers to believe this key New Age doctrine that God is “in” everything. Regarding God, Warren writes:

The Bible says, “He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything”3

3) Rick Warren and The MessageIn The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren cites Eugene Peterson’s The Message more than any other Bible version. The Message is laden with its own set of questionable New Age implications. In the first chapter of The Purpose Driven Life, five of the six Scriptures Warren cites come from The Message. Warren states that The Message is a Bible “paraphrase,” yet he frequently writes, “the Bible says” when quoting from The Message.5

One of the many examples of the New Age implications of The Message is seen in Eugene Peterson’s paraphrasing of the Lord’s Prayer. Where most translations read “in earth, as it is in heaven,” Peterson inserts the occult/New Age phrase “as above, so below.” The significance of this mystical occult saying is seen clearly in As Above, So Below, a book published in 1992 by the editors of New Age Journal. Chief editor Ronald S. Miller describes how the occult/magical saying “as above, so below” conveys the “fundamental truth about the universe”—the teaching that “we are all one” because God is “immanent” or “within” everyone and everything. 

4) The Purpose Driven Life’s Distorted View of Bible Prophecy
In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren strongly discourages the study of prophecy. He states that “in essence” Jesus told his disciples: “The details of my return are none of your business.”11 Contrary to what Warren writes, in Jesus’ discussion on the Mount of Olives, He tells His disciples that an understanding of the details of His return is very important. He provides much needed prophetic information so that His followers will not be deceived about the details of His return at the end of time.

5) Rick Warren and John Marks Templeton
Rick Warren unwittingly lent himself to the “purposes” of New Age sympathizer John Marks Templeton, as shown in Deceived on Purpose:

Even as I write, [New Age leader] Neale Donald Walsch’s New Age colleague Wayne Dyer is teaching the principles of the New Spirituality to an unsuspecting American public on a 3-hour PBS television special. His subject? The power of intention and purpose. While Dyer was cleverly presenting the New Spirituality by talking about the power of “purpose,” Rick Warren was judging a “Power of Purpose” essay contest for the New Age-based Templeton Foundation. John Templeton—with his strong New Age and metaphysical leanings—believes in a “shared divinity between God and humanity.”14

I pointed out that the late Templeton had been featured on the cover of Robert Schuller’sPossibilities magazine and was described as “my wonderful role model” by Neale Donald Walsch.

6) Robert Schuller’s Influence on Rick Warren
I discovered that Rick Warren had been greatly influenced by Robert Schuller and that he frequently used unattributed material from Schuller’s writings. In promoting his 2004 Robert H. Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership, Schuller stated that Warren was a graduate of his Institute.15 Furthermore, on an April 4, 2004 Hour of Power television broadcast, Schuller described how Warren had come to his Institute for Successful Church Leadership “time after time.”16 And Rick Warren’s wife, Kay, was quoted in a 2002 Christianity Today article saying that Schuller “had a profound influence on Rick.”17

In reading Schuller’s past writings, it soon became apparent that Schuller had indeed greatly influenced Rick Warren’s ministry and that Warren often used Schuller’s material without any attribution to Schuller.

7) Rick Warren and Robert Schuller’s “New Reformation” & “God’s Dream”Rick Warren’s proposed “New Reformation” and his “God’s Dream” Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan are strikingly similar to Robert Schuller’s proposed “New Reformation” and his “God’s Dream” plan “to redeem society.” The only real difference between their basic plans is that Schuller proposed his “New Reformation” and “God’s Dream” plan twenty years previous to Warren. In his 1982 bookSelf-Esteem: The New Reformation, Schuller called for a “New Reformation” in the church.23 To accomplish this New Reformation he frequently invoked the metaphor “God’s Dream” to describe God’s “great plan to redeem society.”24 Twenty years later, Warren was also calling for a “New Reformation” in the church.25 To accomplish his proposed New Reformation, Warren also invoked the “God’s Dream” metaphor that Schuller had used over two decades earlier to describe his New Reformation and his “plan.”26 Warren described his new reformational P.E.A.C.E. Plan as “God’s Dream For You—And The World!,”27 which also happens to resemble the PEACE Plan proposed by Neale Donald Walsch.

8) New Age Embraces Schuller’s New Reformation
In Neale Donald Walsch’s 2002 book, The New Revelations, Walsch and his New Age “God” praise Robert Schuller’s ministry and laud Schuller’s call for a New Reformation. Walsch describes how he and his “God” are also calling for a “New Reformation.” In fact, they commend Schuller and believe that Schuller’s New Reformation can merge with their plan to help bridge the divide between the Christian church and the teachings of the New Age/New Spirituality. They also present their New Reformation in the form of a 5-Step PEACE Plan29 that is similarly put forth in the form of an acronym—much like Rick Warren’s 5-Step P.E.A.C.E. Plan.30 In The New Revelations: A Conversation with God, Walsch, in a conversation with his “God,” states:

Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the American Christian minister who founded the famous Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, said twenty years ago in his book Self-Esteem: The New Reformation that what is needed is a second reformation within the Church, to move it away from its message of fear and guilt, retribution, and damnation, and toward a theology of self-esteem.31

9) The Implications of Schuller’s Influence on Rick Warren
It became evident to me that Rick Warren was incorporating Robert Schuller’s plans and teachings into the Evangelical church. Whether it is “God’s Dream,” God “in” everything, the “New Reformation,” or something else, the non-referenced writings and teachings of Robert Schuller have been gradually introduced into the Evangelical church through Rick Warren. In Deceived on Purpose, I wrote:

[I]t seemed that one of Rick Warren’s unstated purposes was to mainstream Robert Schuller’s teachings into the more traditional “Bible-based” wing of the Church. Many believers who seem to trust Rick Warren, ironically, do not trust Robert Schuller. Rick Warren’s “magic” seems to be able to make the teachings of Robert Schuller palatable to believers who would have otherwise never accepted these same teachings had they come directly from Schuller himself.43

Recognizing the overwhelming influence that Robert Schuller has had on Rick Warren and thousands of other pastors, I explain in Deceived on Purpose that “The Purpose Driven Church campaign to enlist every man, woman and child into its ranks to ‘do’ the P.E.A.C.E. Plan and to ‘do’ God’s Dream did not have its origins at Saddleback Church or in the singly inspired mind of Rick Warren.”44 The spiritual foundation of the Purpose Driven movement can be found in the writings and teachings of Schuller’s fifty-year ministry. While Warren and other Christian leaders and organizations “forge new Purpose-Driven alliances around the world, the real architect of this seemingly unsinkable Purpose-Driven ship sits quietly in his office at the Crystal Cathedral.”45

I found it very ironic that while evangelical pastors were studying and speaking at Schuller’s Institute for Successful Church Leadership, A Course in Miracles groups were also meeting in Crystal Cathedral classrooms. Apparently, these pastors “thought that Schuller knew what he was doing because he had a big ‘successful’ church, and they wanted one, too.”46

10) A Serious Concern—A Sober Warning
I concluded Deceived on Purpose by stressing that it is not too late for Rick Warren to recognize how he has been influenced by Robert Schuller and by New Age teachings that are taking the church into the New Spirituality. I wrote:

He [Warren] could open many people’s eyes if he started to expose the differences between biblical Christianity and the deceptive teachings of the New Age and its New Spirituality.47

However, I presented a sober warning regarding Rick Warren and other Christian leaders who remain in denial about the very real threat of this pervasive spiritual deception that will seriously endanger many who are trusting in their judgment. I explained:

Sadly, if Rick Warren and other Christian leaders fall for New Age schemes and devices rather than exposing them, they will take countless numbers of sincere people down with them. It will be the blind leading the blind, as they fall further and further into the deceptive ditch of the New Age and its New Spirituality. Undiscerning Christians, who think they are on “the narrow way” preparing the way for Jesus Christ, may discover too late that they had actually been on “the broad way” preparing the way for Antichrist. It is not too late to warn everyone, but it must be done soon before the deception advances any further.48

It’s Not About Rick Warren
When Deceived on Purpose was published in August 2004, I knew the book would be controversial. The New Age implications I had discussed—particularly in regard to Robert Schuller’s influence on Rick Warren—had not to my knowledge been raised before. As I stated in Deceived on Purpose, my concerns were not personal issues (Matthew 18) between Rick Warren and myself. Because Warren’s book was in the public arena and had been sold and distributed to millions of people, I was approaching Warren and his readers in that same public arena. I wrote my comments respectfully and backed them with Scripture and primary source material. In his previous book The Purpose Driven Church, Warren had written, “I try to learn from critics.”49 Therefore, I hoped he would seriously consider the New Age implications I had brought out regarding his Purpose Driven movement. Would he begin to see what the New Age was really doing? Would he make some adjustments in the way he was presenting things? Would he recognize the necessity to protect the church from the New Age/New Spirituality?

From http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=4124&zoom_highlight=purpose+driven
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