Where Rick Warren’s Disciples Are

Some Possible Answers to Joseph Farah’s Question

www.discernment-ministries.org

If you haven’t been following the series of events unfolding on WorldNetDaily go over to these articles and read up on what Rick Warren has been doing. He took a trip to Syria on a global “P.E.A.C.E.” mission and got caught in the act of finding common ground. Here are the stories” ¦

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52969
http://www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52986
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53030
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53048

In an article posted at WorldNetDaily today (11/21/06) entitled “Rick Warren disciples: Where are you?” Joseph Farah expressed his perplexion and dismay about the overwhelming silence:

“Ever since I first pointed out the way he betrayed the persecuted church and our Jewish brothers and sisters living in captivity in the totalitarian police state of Syria, I have been expecting to get blasted.

“I thought for sure I would hear from these millions of well-educated, well-informed, biblically astute purpose-driven disciples.

“It has been six days. God created the whole universe in that amount of time. And, so far, I haven’t heard one cogent argument, apologia or rationalization for Warren’s actions by any of his flock.

“I’m told he’s got one of the best PR machines money can buy. He sure is not getting his money’s worth. “

Mr. Farah, welcome to the new world of purpose-driven mania. Things have been changing in the evangelical subculture since the advent of purpose-driven and now it is finally becoming evident to the rest of the world.

But will anybody care about these changes? That is indeed a scary question.

Only a handful of renegade discernment ministries with newsletters, Internet websites and blogs like this one — and only a remnant of evangelical writers like Warren Smith, and Tamara Hartzell — have dared to delve into this man’s grandiose global schemes.

Nearly a year ago (12/19/05) Rick Warren wrote an article for SBCBaptistPress entitled: “FIRST-PERSON: The church — the greatest force on earth” in which he said, “The Church will last for eternity, and because it is God’s instrument for ministry here on earth, it is truly the greatest force on the face of the planet.”

A quick study of the various uses of the term “force” leads one to the conclusion that in this article Warren meant it as “a group having a certain influence, power, etc. (a force for good)” or “any group of people organized for some activity (a sales force, a police force)” ( Webster’s). Warren goes on to detail eight ways that the Church can be this “force” for good in the world. His ideas are dominionist, in that he explained that there was already a pre-determined, man-centered, positive earthly outcome:

“6. The Church provides the strongest authorization.
God authorized the Church to take on global giants, such as spiritual lostness, egocentric leadership, poverty, disease and ignorance. With God’s authorization, the outcome is guaranteed to be successful.”

Commenting on this article, Paul Proctor wrote a few days later:

“Funny, I thought God’s Holy Spirit was the Greatest Force on Earth. Didn’t know that it was really The Bride of Christ. This is the group version of Robert Schuller’s self-esteem gospel at work. As you read Warren’s article, notice how he credits the church’s strengths, qualifications and attributes in a pride-filled motivational essay. (“largest, widest, longest, fastest, highest, strongest, simplest”) rather than Glorifying God, His Word, His Power and His strength through the weaknesses of humble, repentant and obedient men.”

Elsewhere on this Herescope blog there are detailed and documented explanations of Rick Warren’s dominionist beliefs, his influences and associations that propel him forward with a humongous and pompous plan to rid the planet of these “global giants” in the name of Christ. Simply search the blog (left hand corner search feature) on “Rick Warren dominionism” to grasp the full scope of this issue.

There is a nasty side to Dominionism and Joseph Farah just had a head-on collision with it. Like many believers he has been enamored of Dominionism Lite. Farah has been touting James Rutz for the past several years as someone who influenced his own life by unusual miracles. Rutz’ dominionism may seem soft-sell and mystical, but dig deeply into the people, groups and ideas represented on his website, and you’ll run into the darker side of dominionism.

You can’t have it one way or the other with dominionism. Buy one get one free. You can’t bring about a return to Genesis 1 paradise conditions on earth through some mystical Megashift without Rick Warren’s 2nd Reformation dominionist shoe leather. The two go hand-in-hand. It is the same plan. Two sides of the same coin. This new dominionist doctrine about the transformation of the planet is part and parcel of the “New Apostolic Reformation” — and has been interconnected for decades through personnel, agencies, and agendas. In fact, Rutz explains some of these elaborate interconnections at his website.

Purpose-driven critic Paul Proctor, in his NewsWithViews column in May 2005, “Megashift? More ‘Christian Happy-Talk,'” observed:

“If you go to the Megashift.com web site you’ll see much of the same transformational lingo you find at other CGM sites complete with pot loads of pitchman promises and psycho-centric silliness that made Rick Warren and Bill Hybels what they are today. Like Warren and his Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan, (a Christianized and regurgitated replica of The Peace Corp.) ‘Megashift’ currently focuses their falderal on the rather hard-to-verify continent of Africa where it is suggested by those promoting it, a ‘new reformation’ is being birthed and validated by miracles galore!”

But Farah wants to know why there is silence. Maybe because of Dominionism Lite. Dominionism Lite lulls people into thinking that they are doing good deeds when they are really working to create a new world order on planet Earth. Dominionism Lite dulls the senses. Every bad deed can be justified by “whatever it takes” (Rick Warren’s slogan) to build the kingdom of God on Earth.

But Dominionism Dark bites. In fact, it just bit hard where it hurts! Rick Warren went to Syria for “P.E.A.C.E.” and he responded defensively when challenged about it. And, worse, there was a cold, stony silence on the part of the purpose-driven church fans. Why is that, Farah pondered?

Perhaps it could be the mind-numbed robotic purpose-driven training, canned sermons and formulaic mantras that co-exist with the various 40-days of indoctrination. Or, could it be that Farah got it wrong when he wrote: “I’m told he’s got one of the best PR machines money can buy. He sure is not getting his money’s worth”? Isn’t it possible that Rick Warren is such a good PR guy — using all of the latest psycho-social techniques available to the advertising industry — that all he has to do is lift his little finger and everyone salivates like trained pigeons in lockstep? Or, is the answer more pragmatic — such as when everyone signs their church purpose-driven covenants? They all promise not to speak against the leadership. So do they all transform into passive little purpose-driven sheep?

Remarking on Farah’s strange infatuation with James Rutz’s deceptively virulent form of dominionism several years ago, Paul Proctor proposed a possible spiritual answer to Farah’s own question today:

“You see, the mere Word of God just doesn’t do it for us anymore. We need something to stimulate our senses, don’t we? Like the faithless Pharisees of old, we require a little magic show or two before we’ll throw in with somebody claiming to be the Messiah; and even THEN, it’s necessary that we LIKE what He has to say about us in front of our followers; so, we better have some flagrant flattery with that hocus-pocus, just to be on the safe side and protect our sacred business interests. Yeah, the antichrist is going to have a field day with these folks when he brings his bag of tricks onto the world stage.”

Dominionism isn’t nice. Dominionism isn’t pretty. Oh, yes, Dominionism Lite wears the veneer of “helping the poor” and “healing the sick” — even restoring paradise conditions on earth — but it has another more insidious agenda — and that is” ¦ DOMINION.

Earlier generations of the church were also fooled by this wolf in sheep’s clothing. One can read about it in Dr. Martin Erdmann’s ground-breaking book entitled Building the Kingdom of God on Earth: The Churches’ Contribution to Marshall Public Support for World Order and Peace, 1919-1945. Elsewhere on this blog (search for “Martin Erdmann”) you can read extensive quotes from this book.

Why is this relevant to today’s post? And how can this book help answer Farah’s question? Because Dr. Erdmann’s book happens to be one of the most scholarly, credible and highly-documented history of the CFR. The CFR purposefully crafted the dominionist theological mandate to “build the kingdom of God on earth.” As Joseph Farah wrote the other day, Rick Warren has admitted to being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Paul Proctor’s conclusion, in his critical article about Rutz’s Megashift, might help answer Farah’s question about why the silence. But it may trouble him further:

“The bottom line is this: Megashift.com is just more horizontally-focused, earth-centered, group-guided, psychology-based, therapeutically-managed, globalist gobbledygook, covered with a thick white sugary Christian glaze, forwarding the same old anti-traditional, amillennial, dominionist worldview that says WE are going to change this world and make it a better place for a largely unnamed ‘Christ’ to return to and reign over someday.

“The only difference I can see between the old CGM and the new, is that this upgraded version transitions us beyond the materialistic mega-church fad that, for the last decade or so, has successfully seduced, sidetracked and sucked the membership, faith and resources out of almost all of the nation’s small and God-fearing fellowships and taken the postmodern party from debt-ridden spiritual supercenters for the scripturally challenged, bought with borrowed money from the banks of ‘Mystery Babylon,'” and moved it into our own neighborhoods and homes for further dialectical processing and programming; thereby creating more sustainable communities of groupthink and global values for the New World Order.”

One can’t play footsie with Dominionism Lite without eventually getting burned by Dominionism Dark and Powerful. Historically, dominionism in the church always works that way. It starts out to create a heavenly utopia and ends up creating a hellish earth. The powerful always trod on the weak. One group always seeks to exercise Dominionism over another group. Human nature doesn’t change, and we can’t reverse the effects of the Fall in Genesis, despite the wacky esoteric doctrines of James Rutz.

The Truth

“Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” (Proverbs 6:27