Friday, November 16, 2007

rick warren's denial of faith alone?



Here's an interesting video montage. I understand these kinds of things can be misleading, especially if the quotes are taken out of context. The first part - where Rick is talking about faith and love - might be OK, if Rick is talking about a "said" faith vs. a "real" faith. The sort of explanation you'd get if you contrasted what James and Paul say about faith alone. Absolutely, a true believer will exhibit faith AND love; he can't help it!

Having said that, the phrase Rick uses that bothers me is "...it takes more than belief; it takes more than faith to really please God". God says without faith it is impossible to please him - not faith AND love.

Now, for the rest of the video... what Rick proceeds to do is lay his congregation under the heavy, demanding weight of the law. I used to sit under this type of preacing. The gospel was rarely if ever, explained as simply the good news that I'm forgiven in Christ solely on the grounds of Christ's sacrifice, and that I receive this solely by faith alone. I endured (as do Warren's flock) alot of what Rod Rosenbladt calls "golawspel" - gospel mixed with law. Pastors have to be VERY careful they don't confuse these two. The result is a congregation which feels they must DO DO DO to please God, and that his sacrifice wasn't quite enough. The other unfortunate result, is that the sheep get burned out. If it's always about me and what I do, then the savior, who cried out "It is finished" gets forgotten. "You have lost your first love" says Christ to one of the churches in Revelation.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Cool! You updated this quick!

Brian Ring said...

Yes, that's why they call me the "Quick Updater".

...not really.