If you have attended a Calvary Chapel for any length of time, you may know Roger Oakland of "Understanding the Times". Roger's ministry is " affiliated with Calvary Chapel movement and I have spoken at hundreds of churches and conferences by invitation of Calvary Chapel pastors worldwide". He considers "Understanding the Times" to be a discernment ministry.
He defends Calvary Chapel for pulling all of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life/Church materials from their distribution. His statement can be found here:
http://www.understandthetimes.org/commentary/c48.shtml
Oakland outlines four reasons that he believes CC has pulled Warren’s materials as:
1) Differences in beliefs on eschatology (Warren encourages focuses on establishing Kingdom of God now so that Jesus will return, Smith/CC focuses on the imminent return of Jesus),
2) Warren has endorsed the Emerging Church movement, Smith has been very outspoken against it,
3) Contemplative Prayer and Mysticism - CC movement has always been based on systematic teaching of bible not experience-based Christianity - Warren has clearly indicated willingness to investigate and even align himself with leaders in these teachings, and
4) Church Growth Philosophy - Smith does not promote church growth programs - and has stated on numerous occasions that the growth of CC is not by human effort or cleverly designed plans.
Now, this might be the end of the story, were it not for Richard Abanes, who wrote a book defending Rick Warren and PDL. He posted on a blog in reponse to Oakland's four points, and he said..
" ((1)) Differences in beliefs on eschatology (Warren encourages focuses on establishing Kingdom of God now so that Jesus will return, Smith/CC focuses on the imminent return of Jesus), ***FACT: This statement is incorrect. Warren/Saddleback DOES NOT teach establishing God’s kingdom to bring in Christ’s return. Warren/Saddleback is pre-mill, pre-trib, standard Southern Baptist eschatology. Warren/Saddleback, however, DOES teach that it is the responsibility of Christians to better the world by loving others, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and clothing the naked—quite biblical, actually. Read More.
1 comment:
Youre right, Rick is absolutly bang on with most of his doctrine.HOWEVER. There isnt attacks against him without reason.
For those who know the word it doesnt take much to see where he makes an error and there are many.I agree that many have twisted what he has said and taken it to the extreme,BUT,he has done his share of scripture twisting that is flat out wrong.Celebrate recovery is heresy. The beatitudes have nothing to do with recovery. The scriptures used to justify the steps are pitiful at best.Marriages have been destroyed by the 12 step and co-dependancy movement.Warren flat out lied,he stated that CR wasnt about psychology,its loaded from from to back.The leadership manual instructs leaders to invite psychotherapists to meetings.For someone who is so popular and has such a great influence he must be called to accountability when he makes grave biblical errors.
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