Rick Warren’s new radio show aims to focus on hope and religious freedom. Napp Nazworth reported:
Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., announced Tuesday that he will begin a radio show the first week of April.
Warren said at a media gathering at Georgetown University today that he is doing the show to bring hope to a country that is in a discouragement period and that he wants to speak out more about the deterioration of religious freedom in the United States and around the world.
The show will be syndicated through Salem Communications and air for half an hour, Monday through Friday, in the 25 largest radio markets, he said at a press gathering hosted by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs’ Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. more >>
Religious freedom is certainly a privilege that many of us take for granted in this country. But Warren’s motivations for promoting religious freedom appear to be based on his desire for “inter-faith projects.” On March 7, 2011, Saddleback Church hosted the Peace in a Globalized Society forum with former UK prime minister Tony Blair. Rick Warren and Tony Blair discussed Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan and “Three Legged Stool Plan” in addition to Blair’s inter-faith Faith Foundation. Warren and Blair stated that the only way a global peace could happen in the future would be for all faiths to work for good together. Another term for this idea is New World Order. Warren’s reformation has little to do with the preaching of the Gospel, but much to do with all religions setting aside their differences in order to solve global problems.
In 2008 at Davos, Switzerland, The World Economic Forum hosted a “Faith and Modernization” session moderated by Tony Blair that included a prominent Catholic, Jew, Muslim, and Protestant, Rick Warren. Globalization and new world order was the focus. Notice Rick Warren’s pluralistic agenda when it comes to “religious freedom,” a topic of of his new radio show, in the following clip from Davos 2008:
In an interview on The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Warren discussed his P.E.A.C.E. Plan as follows:
“[W]hen Jesus sent the disciples into a village, he said, “Find the man of peace.” And he said, “When you find the man of peace, you start working with that person, and if they respond to you, you work with them. If they don’t, you dust off your shoes; you go to the next village.” Who’s the man of peace in any village—or it might be a woman of peace—who has the most respect, they’re open and they’re influential? They don’t have to be a Christian. In fact, they could be a Muslim, but they’re open and they’re influential and you work with them to attack the five giants. And that’s going to bring the second Reformation” (available: http://pewforum.org/events/index.php?EventID=80. p.16).
Warren stated on a PBS interview with Charlie Rose:
“When I go out and I start telling people, ‘Do you want to work with us on poverty, disease, AIDS, illiteracy, injustice?’ I often find people are more unwilling to work with us than we are willing to work with them. In other words, we’re saying, ‘You don’t have to change your beliefs for us to work with you.’ If you can only work with people that you agree with, then most of the world, you’re ruling out. Okay. I don’t insist that a Muslim change his belief for me to work on poverty. I don’t even insist that a gay person has to change their beliefs. They’re going to accept my belief, or I’m going to accept theirs” (Interview by Charlie Rose with Rick Warren. August 17, 2006. available: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5555324196046364882).
Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan includes unbelievers, Muslims, homosexuals, etc. setting aside differences and working together to fight poverty, disease, AIDS, illiteracy and injustice. This, according to Warren, will bring about the “Second Reformation.” Thus, Warren’s reformation is a social reformation rather than a spiritual reformation, based on behavior rather than beliefs, deeds rather than creeds.
An extreme example of this was Warren finding common ground with Eric Sawyer, the leader of a pro-homosexual AIDS activist group ACT-UP. He explained:
I just met with the president, the co-founder of ACT-UP—Eric Sawyer. And I said, ‘Eric, how can I help you get your message out? I know you care about people that are dying. How can I help you get your message out?’ He said, ‘Use your moral authority.’ I’m working with these guys (Interview by Charlie Rose with Rick Warren. August 17, 2006. available: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5555324196046364882#).
Record, “the national network of gay and lesbian evangelical Christians and friends,” displays a Spring 1997 Newsletter of Evangelicals Concerned, Inc. in which we read:
More than 80 gay and lesbian pastors and lay leaders from the Metropolitan Community Churches participated in this year’s Robert Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. Key speakers included the founders and pastors of evangelical super-churches such as Willow Creek Community, Saddleback Valley Community, and Skyline Wesleyan of San Diego. All three books on church leadership that the MCC’s monthly for March recommended are evangelical books, two from Zondervan and one from Thomas Nelson (available: http://ecinc.org/record-newsletter/spring-1997-2/).
Rick Warren apparently sees no problem in having solidarity with worldly entities, but Bible tells us to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11). Which one of the Apostles worked with homosexuals or false religions to advance the Kingdom of God?
WND reported on Warrens new radio show also saying that Warren “plans to speak out against infringements of religious liberty.” It continues:
He’s concerned about a “coarsening” of communication, particularly on the Internet.
“People are far more rude now than they used to be,” Warren said, “Our civilization is losing its civility. We just don’t know how to be nice to people.”
Regarding the erosion of religious liberty, Warren pointed to attempts to bar Muslims from wearing head scarves at school and prevent Jews from circumcising their children. He also cited the new health care law that requires companies and religious institutions to purchase health insurance coverage that violates their religious beliefs. . . .
Along with his popularity, he has many critics, including James Sundquist, author of “Who’s Driving the Purpose Driven Church?” Sundquist also was one of the voices in a video by producer Elliott Nesch called “Church of Tares,” which asserts Warren has built his many organizations on secular business management philosophies rather than the foundation of Jesus Christ, resulting in “a great compromise of the Great Commission.” (Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/rick-warren-to-host-daily-radio-show/#cIVlybtGJichPyxh.99)
Below is the film Church of Tares in entirety, which further documents the Church Growth movement, particularly Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven movement and P.E.A.C.E. Plan.