As braggart Rick Warren adjusts to the post-2023 SBC Annual Meeting, where Saddleback Church was disfellowshipped for allowing a bunch of lady “pastors,” he spends much of his days just making stuff up, such as his recent revelations on “the most important thing to remember when you’re praying for someone’s healing”
At a recent event, Warren, who is using a cane, explains:
The most important thing to remember when you’re praying for somebody’s healing. He told me the exact four words that were said to me by another friend that I asked the same question named John Wimber, who founded the Vineyard. John was a real close friend of mine and I asked John Wimber 10 years earlier, “John when you pray for healing, what’s the most important thing that you do? John Wimber and Oral Roberts said the exact same thing. ‘That people feel loved.’
We have no idea what Warren is talking about. Nowhere in the bible does it say this, which in a sense, is par for the course for anything to do with John Wimber. Wimber was a dangerous theological scoundrel who repeatedly lied and exaggerated his healing prowess. For example, in his book Power Evangelism, he claimed, “Today we see hundreds of people healed every month in Vineyard Christian Fellowship services … the blind see; the lame walk; the deaf hear. Cancer is disappearing!”
No it didn’t.
He also had strange, bizarre, idiosyncratic beliefs on a host of important issues, from healing to end times to the sufficiency of scripture and Pelagianism, resulting in some of the worst theology of any teacher we know. For this reason, we’ve no reason to believe that Wimber healed anyone, much less that he knew the most important thing about healing to remember, much less that this even is the most thing to remember, much less that Warren isn’t just spinning a yarn because he likes the attention.
Perhaps no single individual has done as much to stunt the spiritual growth of and sear the modern American evangelical conscience than Rick Warren. With his Peter Drucker-mentored corporatization of the church, his advocacy for purpose-driving, his Schuller-inspired, man-pleasing “gospel,” and his endless ability to taint every would-be solid minister on his way to becoming the king of dollar store, bargain-bin Christianity, Rick Warren’s career as the leader of the 25,000 members, 14 campus Saddleback Church has been nothing short of infamous. Warren’s brand of cheap, biblically-devoid, “I’m lovin’ it” Christianity has been the junk food that fattened up the American McChurch with so many empty spiritual calories, and he has been nothing if not boastful about it.
Q1: What is the chief end of man? A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. (Westminster Shorter Catechism)
As braggart Rick Warren adjusts to the post-2023 SBC Annual Meeting, where Saddleback Church was disfellowshipped for allowing a bunch of lady “pastors,” he spends much of his days whittling away on Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), that bastion for spiritual scoundrels and knaves, peddling his skin-deep and sugary sweet brand of Christianity with the hope that if he begs enough, someone will take a bite.
Perhaps no single individual has done as much to stunt the spiritual growth of and sear the modern American evangelical conscience than Rick Warren. With his Peter Drucker-mentored corporatization of the church, his advocacy for purpose-driving, his Schuller-inspired, man-pleasing “gospel,” and his endless ability to taint every would-be solid minister on his way to becoming the king of dollar store, bargain-bin Christianity, Rick Warren’s career as the leader of the 25,000 members, 14 campus Saddleback Church has been nothing short of infamous. Warren’s brand of cheap, biblically-devoid, “I’m lovin’ it” Christianity has been the junk food that fattened up the American McChurch with so many empty spiritual calories, and he has been nothing if not boastful about it.
In a clip posted by TBN to Instagram, Warren can be seen giving this unbiblical pronouncement:
Your number one purpose in life is to let God love you. Not for you to love God, but to let God love you. Now let me explain this; from cover to cover in this book, from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible says the whole reason the universe exists is God wanted a family. God wanted a family, okay?
He didn’t need a family. He wasn’t lonely. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in a relationship to themselves, in a love relationship. But he wanted a family. The Bible says God is love. Not that he has love, that he is love.
It’s his essence, it’s his nature, it’s his character. The only reason there’s any love in the universe is because God created us and he’s a God of love. If God was not a God of love, you and I would not have the ability to give and receive love. The only reason we have the ability to give love and receive love is we’re made in God’s image.
As braggart Rick Warren faces the gallows at this week’s 2023 SBC Annual Meeting- his church set to be defeated and personally disfellowshipped for possessing multiple lady impastors in contravention to the BFM2000- he continues to take potshots at Southern Baptists who disagree with his desperate attempts to turn the denomination egalitarian, lobbing insult after insult as he copes and seethes with his dramatic demise.
Keen on creating as much division as possible upon his exit, Warren castigates 30% of the convention as angry fighters looking for victims to demonize.
Explaining that he doesn’t expect to win in New Orleans, Warren laments he’s unable to “change the mind of any angry fundamentalist” – spitting out the acidic accusation as if ‘fundamentalists’ is a curse word bubbling in his own bile, and that these bitter-clinger Southern Baptists are weaponizing the confessions to coerce uniformity, being just a bunch of “fearful legalist showman.”
The self-immolation is stunning to behold. Even with a burnt and crispy finger pointed to heaven, he claims his reputational kamikaze and exegetical suicide is an act of ‘obedience to God’- a dying gasp after a life of delusion.
It doesn’t take much to remind ourselves how catastrophically bad a preacher and teacher Rick Warren is. Famous for peddling to the church the poison and spiritual strychnine that is The Purpose Driven Life for over thirty years- a damaging and unbiblical theology that has seeped into tens of thousands of churches, he was mostly dormant for a the last decade, but then has reinserted himself into the conversation as a warrior for women preachers.
We covered him recently after Saddleback announced they were having a “Blacks Only worship service” where no white members were allowed in, so the “black fold” could have a “safe space” to “heal,” and for blasting white Christians for having no discernment and not caring about black people.
In an interview with Russell Moore where he engaged in epic levels of bragging and bible twisting, a few things caught our eye. Apart from the lie that he looked at over 300 bible commentaries on Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. (Because the first 299 didn’t do?) is the casual way he lies about John MacArthur:
Peter says ‘in the last days I will pour out my spirit on all flesh’. All Flesh. ‘Your sons and daughters will prophesy.’ That’s different than the Old Testament. Russell, I’ve looked at over 300 commentaries on those verses and it’s interesting to me that almost everybody goes ‘yep in in the church everybody gets to play, everybody gets to preach, everybody gets to prophesy.’
And the people who don’t like that ignore that verse. John MacArthur doesn’t even cover that verse, he just skips over it.
It’s difficult to express how stupid it is to say that because Mary Magdalene gave a message to the apostles from Jesus about his resurrection, this means she was “preaching” and is sufficient prooftext to declare that women can be senior pastors, contra 1 Timothy 2 and Titus 1. If you want evidence that Warren couldn’t exegete his way out of a paper bag, well, there you go.
But to the point: John MacArthur’s whole ministry is verse-by-verse preaching through the bible. That’s this thing. He has his own study bible with a 200-word commentary on just Acts 2:17 with 18 contextualizing cross-references to other passages. He’s preached on it many times over the last 50 years, and in fact has a 33-book commentary on the New Testament, with a whole book on Acts alone.
John MacArthur has covered this verse in much more depth than Warren ever has and he’s gotten more out of it than simply an assertion that ‘young women will prophecy= they can preach to men and lead churches.’
But Warren is a liar, and his deceit should surprise no one.
Perhaps no single individual has done as much to stunt the spiritual growth of and sear the modern American evangelical conscience than Rick Warren. With his Peter Drucker-mentored corporatization of the church, his advocacy for purpose-driving, his Schuller-inspired, man-pleasing “gospel,” and his endless ability to taint every would-be solid minister from on his way to becoming the king of dollar store, bargain-bin Christianity, Rick Warren’s career as the leader of the 25,000 members, 14 campus Saddleback Church has been nothing short of infamous. Warren’s brand of cheap, biblically-devoid, “I’m lovin’ it” Christianity has been the junk food that fattened up the American McChurch with so many empty spiritual calories, and he has been nothing if not boastful about it.
He’s also just been appointed and installed as the “first-ever Chancellor of Spurgeon’s College,” a London-based Baptist Institution that “trains men and women for evangelism, ministry, and pastoral leadership,” according to a press release.
Founded in 1856 Charles Haddon Spurgeon when he was just 22 years old, during the esteemed Baptist preacher’s lifetime, nearly 900 pastors trained at the college, and almost 200 new churches were planted in Britain alone. Now, Warren will be the honorary and ceremonial Head of the institution. It is an official and ambassadorial role where the Chancellor will serve as “a vital advocate for the vision, gospel mission and values (nationally and internationally) of Spurgeon’s College.”
This is the epitome of downgrade. Commenting about the incident, the Dissenter was characteristically fiery, writing:
Charles Spurgeon was a beacon of evangelicalism and a stalwart of biblical truth. Yet, in one fell swoop, the college that bears his name defiles his legacy by aligning itself with a figure whose theology is as far from Spurgeon’s as East is from West. Warren’s ecumenical bent, his wavering from the steadfast road of biblical inerrancy towards a gospel of unity and compromise, is a flagrant betrayal of Spurgeon’s legacy.
(American Reformer) In May of 2022, Mike Law, pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Virginia, sent an email to the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. As the only full-time staff member of a church of about 100, he had never had any interaction with his national leadership before, so he began with a chipper greeting introducing himself and his congregation, followed by a straightforward question: Is a church that has a woman serving as pastor deemed to be in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention?
Home to some 47,000 churches and 13 million members, the SBC’s status as the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. is due in large part to its loose structure. Rather than a top-down hierarchy, it’s more of a casual association of churches who agree on doctrine and pool their money to fund missions, seminaries, and various charitable endeavors. Its leaders have no power to tell churches what to teach, where or how to operate, or who to hire. The only authority they have is to manage the billion-plus in unrestricted funds they receive and set the terms for who gets to be a member.
Though its contributions may have been small, Arlington Baptist was nonetheless a contributor in good standing. And its pastor was inquiring whether, since Article VI of the denomination’s statement of faith asserts that “the office of pastor is limited to men” based on 1 Timothy 2:9-14 and 3:1-7, a church could remain in the club if it violated this doctrine.
Law explained that his understanding was that…to continue reading, and trust me, you want to read the entire thing, click here.
This article was written by Megan Basham and posted at the American Reformer.
Last summer, Warren made a surprise appearance at the SBC 2022 convention and spoke for several minutes uninterrupted, using his time to list all the accomplishments he has done as the largest Southern Baptist church in the world in order to stave off criticism he has received for ordaining women pastors a year earlier, bragging about all his accomplishments while telling attendees they need to stop “bickering over secondary issues” like what gender the pastor is, and instead focus on the Great Commission.
Warren believed that his 25,000 members, 14 campus Saddleback Church was too important to disfellowship from, and he made it clear what the SBC would be losing if they walked away from him.
Because Southern Baptist gave me a passion for evangelism and mission, we baptized 56,631 new believers and as a Southern Baptist Church, sent 26,869 members overseas to 197 nations. Because Southern Baptist taught me the value of a membership covenant, 78,157 members of our church signed our membership covenant after taking a four-hour membership class.
Because Southern Baptist taught me to emphasize the priority of Bible study, we now have 9173 home Bible studies in homes in 162 southern California cities. Because Southern Baptist taught me the value of church planting…we planted 90 In Orange County alone, and literally 1000s around the world.
Because Southern Baptists taught me to honor and love the local church, I’ve had the privilege for 43 years of training 1.1 million pastors. Sorry, friends, that’s more than all the seminaries put together.
Not one to walk humbly in his accomplishments, earlier this year he claimed he had a better track record than Jesus because he himself has baptized 57,000 people.
“…I’m the only pastor our people have ever known. 70-something percent of the church, I baptized in the 43 years that I was pastor. I baptized 57,000 believers in the 43 years I’ve pastored. I don’t know any church that’s ever done that. In Acts it says, the Lord added daily to the church. That would mean 365 a year, at minimum. One a day. Well, in the 43 years I’ve pastored, we baptized five people every day for 43 years. That’s unheard of.”
With the news that the SBC voted to disfellowship, he fell back to his trademark move, saying that they’ll “respond to the #SBC in OUR time and way through direct channels” while dropping more accolades and accomplishments.
In a new nationwide survey released by George Barna for the Arizona Christian University, it’s revealed the majority of Christian pastors do not have a biblical worldview, with the Executive Pastor having the lowest that is on par with the culture at large.
Barna defines “biblical worldview” as believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today. They explain:
The proportion varies by the pastoral position held. Among Senior Pastors, four out of 10 (41%) have a biblical worldview—the highest incidence among any of the five pastoral positions studied. Next highest was the 28% among Associate Pastors. Less than half as many Teaching Pastors (13%) and Children’s and Youth Pastors (12%) have a biblical worldview. The lowest level of biblical worldview was among Executive Pastors—only 4% have consistently biblical beliefs and behaviors.
What is an Executive Pastor?
Bob Buford invented the role of the Executive Pastor after conversations with his mentor, business strategist Peter Drucker. Identifying churches as an area he wanted to impact, Buford formed Leadership Network in 1984, inviting pastors and senior leaders of large and burgeoning megachurches to join him for several brainstorming meetings, picking up the tab on the way.
Their goal was to figure out how to handle the complicated organizational structure of a megachurch, deciding that it would best be run similar to a corporation for the most impact and growth, eventually creating the new church role, called the Executive Pastor. He (or she) who would function as the CEO of the church, rather than the shepherd, and typically require business degrees in order to be hired. According to Stand up For the Truth:
Three key players are carrying forth Peter Drucker’s legacy: Rick Warren, Bob Buford and Bill Hybels, who all studied extensively under their friend, Peter Drucker, and are considered the Druckerite “trinity.” These three men more than any others are responsible for innovating the church by purposely changing congregations from a pastoral ministry model to a CEO / Innovative Change Agent leadership model.
What’s more, all of these innovations were strategically crafted under the careful eye of Peter Drucker himself. And all of these innovations were incubated, introduced, and injected into the church through the coordinated efforts of Drucker’s disciples through their different but intimately connected organizations; Leadership Network, the Purpose Driven Network and the Willow Creek Association.
Given the extensive harm and wide-ranging watering down these institutions have done to the church, including introducing church growth strategies like seeker-sensitivism to the world, it’s little surprise their biblical worldview is non-existent.
Newly minted SBC resident Bart Barber shared on social media how it came to be that Rick Waren addressed the convention at the SBC 2022 Annual Conference amid controversy and questions over his inclusion at the mic, given his fallout with the rest of the denomination.
They explained that while it is true that only men can hold the “office of pastor,” perhaps women can have the “title of pastor” without the office and therefore still be in cooperation with the Baptist faith and message. They note that “(we found)…little information evidencing the Convention’s beliefs regarding the use of the ‘title of pastor’ for staff positions with different responsibility and authority than that of the lead pastor.”
Given that Warren’s name has been bandied about for a potential expulsion, the purpose-driven pope made a surprise appearance at the SBC 2022 convention and spoke uninterrupted for several minutes. He used his time to list all the accomplishments he has done as the largest Southern Baptist church in the world, to stave off criticism he has received for ordaining women pastors, bragging about all his accomplishment while telling attendees that they need to stop “bickering over secondary issues” like what gender the pastor is and instead focus on the Great Commission.
While Ed Litton allowed Warren to speak for some six minutes uninterrupted, they cut off Jennifer Buck right away. They would not let her say her peace, further putting the lie that they care about abuse victims and being a stickler for the letter when the spirit of it is too inconvenient.
Ed Litton gave Rick Warren the floor to speak as long as he wanted, but they cut off Jennifer Buck. I thought they cared about women? What’s happening here is that have selective caring. What did they just do to Jennifer Buck? They shut her down. #sbc22https://t.co/M3l235Qnjc
Rick Warren made a surprise appearance at the SBC 2022 convention and spoke for several minutes uninterrupted, using his time to list all the accomplishments he has done as the largest Southern Baptist church in the world in order to stave off criticism he has received for ordaining women pastors, bragging about all his accomplishments while telling attendees they need to stop “bickering over secondary issues” like what gender the pastor is, and instead focus on the Great Commission.
This came after the Credentials Committee revealed that they were not going to remove Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church from their roles after he famously and unapologetically started to ordain women pastors, at least for now, and that they had to study the issue, resulting in resolutions being brought to the floor rebuking him and demanding that his church be removed.
By way of context, Rick Warren is the outgoing Lead pastor and overseer of the 25,000 members, 14 campus Saddleback Church who announced he was stepping down to be replaced by a husband and wife pastor team.
He is famous for peddling to the church the poison and spiritual strychnine that is The Purpose Driven Life for over four decades- a damaging and unbiblical theology that has seeped into tens of thousands of churches, becoming part of their identity.
Over the last few he raise eyebrows for announcing his church was having a “Blacks Only worship service” where no white members were allowed in, so the “black fold” could have a “safe space” to “heal,” and for blasting white Christians for having no discernment and not caring about black people.
In his speech, he tells the convention that he has no intention of defending himself against questions they might ask that would inevitably expose his biblical infidelity and inconsistency, comparing himself to Jesus being questioned by Pilate. He brags that he’s started two-thirds of SBC churches in his county, but if they’re anything like his church with his theology, that’s probably not a good thing.
Welcome to Orange County. Southern Baptists have 149 Southern Baptist churches here, 90 of them started by Saddleback Church.
You know, it’s customary for a guy who’s about to be hung to let him say his dying words. I have no intention of defending myself. I have taught my kids and grandkids for years: I am most like Christ when I refuse to defend myself. The Bible says ‘Jesus spoke not a word unto them’ when Pilate accused him of all kinds of things. So I have no intention.
I have most of you on my mailing list anyway, and I can write you and tell you what I believe about the ‘gift’ of pastoring as opposite from the ‘office’ of pastoring.
He then gives his credentials and pedigree- all done in a very Pauline way.
But I’m not here to talk about that…I wrote you a love letter and I’d like for my possibly, likely, last convention to read it to you. Kay and I could have not built Saddleback Church to its size and influence in any other denomination. I love Southern Baptists. I am a fourth-generation Southern Baptist pastor. My great grandfather was led to Christ by Charles Spurgeon and sent to America as a church planter.
Saddleback was sponsored by the North American Mission Board. I served on the staff of the California State Convention and the Texas state convention as a teenager. Billy Graham picked me up when I was 18 and for the next 52 years mentored me, because I started at 16 years old, hired by the California Convention to preach youth revivals, and I had preached over 120 harvest crusades before I was 20. Billy took this long-haired, skinny Californian and mentored me for the next 52 years.
Here’s my love letter to you, Because I really am grateful if this is my last convention, because of Southern Baptist polity, I was allowed to serve one church for life- that’s not possible in those denominations- and grew it to become the largest church in this convention.
Warren goes on to list all the numbers. Notice that he gets real specific here. When he announced he trained over a million pastors, he waited for applause, but didn’t find one, until a few people began awkwardly and uncomfortably clapping. More than anything, this supposed SBC pastor training a mullion other pastors explains the pathetic state the convention is in.
Because Southern Baptist gave me a passion for evangelism and mission, we baptized 56,631 new believers and as a Southern Baptist Church, sent 26,869 members overseas to 197 nations. Because Southern Baptist taught me the value of a membership covenant, 78,157 members of our church signed our membership covenant after taking a four-hour membership class.
Because Southern Baptist taught me to emphasize the priority of Bible study, we now have 9173 home Bible studies in homes in 162, southern California cities. Because Southern Baptist taught me the value of church planting…we planted 90 In Orange County alone, and literally 1000s around the world.
Because Southern Baptists taught me to honor and love the local church, I’ve had the privilege for 43 years of training 1.1 million pastors. Sorry, friends, that’s more than all the seminaries put together.
This is the twist. After Warren has listed his pedigree and accomplishments, he makes his pitch that ordaining women is not worth something dividing over, and that they’d be foolish to do it. The attitude is “given all I’ve done, and all I represent and bring to the table, do you REALLY want to divide with me over this? Kick me out and have this be my last convention?”
Warren chides them for bickering over “secondary issues” when Southern Baptist identity is shaped by secondary issues. His rebuke of “we need to keep the main thing the main thing” is what theological ghouls do in order to justify their aberrations and deviations from the scripture. The fact that Warren got up there and defended his defiance of the BFM2000, and people clapped for him, shows the sad state of downgrade the convention is in.
I owe you all so much, so I sincerely say ‘thank you, Southern Baptist, for shaping my life’. And in closing, I want to ask you to consider a couple of questions. You’re never going to find another Baptist who agrees with you completely on everything. There are Baptist brothers here today who don’t believe Jesus died for the whole world, but we somehow get along with them. So as Western culture grows more dark, more evil, more secular, we have to decide, are we going to treat each other as allies or adversaries?
Second, since this is the year 2022 That means we are 2022 years from the birth of Christ. Now we know Christ started his ministry at 30 years of age, Luke tells us that. Had a three and a half year ministry, Christ died in Ad 33. He was resurrected in AD 33. He gave the Great Commission in AD 33. He sent the Holy Spirit and started the church in AD 33.
That means in 2033, just 11 years from today is the 2000 anniversary of the Great Commission. I hope one of you -because I won’t be here next year- will make a resolution that Baptists take the next 10 years to finish the task of the Great Commission in our generation, before the 2000th anniversary of the church.
Are we gonna keep bickering over secondary issues? Are we gonna keep the main thing the main thing? We need to finish the task and THAT will make God smile. Thank you, everybody. I love you
This was not a love letter at all, but rather a note to remind the SBC that he doesn’t need you.
