Don Veinot Withdraws Endorsment For Book “Rick Warren And The Purpose That Drives Him”

Bob Hawkins, Jr.
President Harvest House Publishers
990 Owen Loop North Eugene , OR 97402-9173

Dear Bob,

After a great deal of research and thought over the last month I believe I need to withdraw my endorsement of Rick Warren and the Purpose That Drives Him by Richard Abanes.

My concerns and the concerns of our Board of Directors and Advisory Board were over false accusations and misrepresentations of Rick Warren. Richard was aware that we in no way endorsed Rick Warren or the Purpose Driven Life . In fact, we had done an article titled “The Purpose Driven Claim”  in our Volume 10 No. 3, Summer 2004 edition (copy enclosed).

Subsequent to sending the endorsement to Richard we became further concerned with Rick Warren’s views that Roman Catholicism is not that far apart from Evangelicalism. As he stated on the Pew Forum of Religion, “And, you know, growing up as a Protestant boy, I knew nothing about Catholics, but I started watching ETWN, the Catholic channel, and I said, “Well, I’m not as far apart from these guys as I thought I was, you know?'”  The new Reformation he is currently pushing for is one which reverses the first Reformation.

There are a number of issues involved and the more we look into this the more concerned we become. I am concerned that my endorsement of this book will be viewed as an endorsement of Rick Warren and his teachings. I do not want to mislead others as there are a great many problems with Rick Warren which we will be addressing in the Journal in the future.

Please remove my endorsement as soon as possible.

Yours in His Service,
Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc. L.L.
(Don) Veinot Jr. President

Cc: Richard Abanes Carolyn McCready,
VP Editorial at Harvest House
Rick Warren MCOI Website