In continuing my look into Rick Warren here at Apprising Ministries and his promoting the Roman Catholic Church as just another Christian denomination I draw to your attention an interesting piece from the July 21, 2003 edition of USA Today called “This evangelist has a ‘Purpose’” By Cathy Lynn Grossman. Within this article America’s favorite Mega-Pastor and Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren says, “I couldn’t care less about people coming to see me; I just want to build an army of the faithful.”

Grossman then tells us how, “Rick Warren aimed to first build one great church, then show others how to build theirs.” A noble idea but as one can clearly see from my article Southern Baptist Pastor Rick Warren Is Promoting Apostate Roman Catholicism “showing others how to build” their churches is not limited to actual Christian churches even though:

Warren is part of the ultra-conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and all his senior staff sign on to the SBC’s doctrines, such as the literal and infallible Bible and exclusion of women as senior pastors. Yet Warren’s pastor-training programs welcome Catholics, Methodists, Mormons, Jews and ordained women.

“I’m not going to get into a debate over the non-essentials. I won’t try to change other denominations. Why be divisive?” he asks, citing as his model Billy Graham, “a statesman for Christ ministering across barriers.” (Online source)

Now please understand no one is saying that Rick Warren considers the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) as a Christian denomination. But when Warren says, “I’m not going to get into a debate over the non-essentials,” while he is working to help Mormons build bigger churches, I do think we need to ask whether these “non-essentials” in Warren’s mind now include basic Mormon doctrine. Doctrine taught in this non-Christian cult such as God was once a man, Jesus Christ is the spirit brother of Satan, and in fact man himself can become God.

Then Warren goes on to say, “I won’t try to change other denominations. Why be divisive?” However, the thinking Christian will find it most peculiar that this evangelical “Protestant” openly embraces apostate Roman Catholicism as just another Christian denomination since this is the polar opposite from the Protestant Reformers. That said, we do get an inkling as to where Warren developed his ecumenical emphasis as we consider that he was mentored by Robert Schuller and then above Warren cites “as his model Billy Graham, ‘a statesman for Christ ministering across barriers.’”

As I have previously pointed out in my article Billy Graham’s Apostasy Is Older Than You Think:

Oct. 29th 1963 Dr. Graham admitted to the ‘Daily Journal’ of International Falls, Minn., that at a Graham Crusade in San Paulo Brazil the Roman Catholic Bishop stood beside him and blessed the converts as they came forward. Graham said that this illustrated ‘something tremendous, an awakening of reform and revival within Christianity’ was happening. (‘New York Times’ Nov. 9th, 1963). (Online source)

So we can see that from as early as 1963 Billy Graham, another Southern Baptist who turned his back on the Reformers, was already “ministering across barriers.” Or how about the following oxymoron, which is true for both the iconic Graham and the waffling Warren himself: “Compromising for Christ.” And we see another example of Rick Warren’s compromise brought to our attention by Tamara Hartzell while talking about his new reformation of “deeds not creeds” in her book In The Name of Purpose. Hartzell shares this Warren quote from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette:

“Now I don’t agree with everything in everybody’s denomination, including my own. I don’t agree with everything that Catholics do or Pentecostals do, but what binds us together is so much stronger than what divides us,” he said. I really do feel these people are brothers and sisters in God’s family. I am looking to build bridges with the Orthodox Church, looking to build bridges with the Catholic Church,… (Online source, emphasis added)

I had said elsewhere that I haven’t been going to SBC meetings so I hadn’t realized that apparently those letters now stand for “Slowly Becoming Catholic.” That noted, all of us should be able see that Rick Warren is taking it upon himself to reverse the Reformation so the real question now becomes:

Just how is it possible to be a minister in good standing with the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, while you openly deny what the Protestant Reformation was about by encouraging worship with the apostate Church of Rome?