In the Foreword of William Webster’s very helpful 1996 book The Matthew 16 Controversy Dr. Tom Nettles, Professor of Historical Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes:

Recent years have seen an increase in serious attempts at achieving some reapprochement between Roman Catholics and Protestants…the current rapid breakdown in public morality has served as a fast-setting concrete poured into the cracks that still remain in the [Roman] Catholic/Protestant relationship…

[However i]gnoring differences, even temporarily, does nothing for the cause of truth in the long run and, in fact, gradually erodes the very moral foundation necessary for cultural righteousness. Pushing aside important differences makes the church more energetic about a moralism focused on man than true piety focused on God. This in turn creates a pragmatism, and eventually a relativism, that will destroy the love of truth and with it the sense of oughtness that gives perseverance to righteous action.” (10)

In this feature Apprising Ministries article you will see that this is precisely the flawed man-centered methodology that Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren is currently pontificating.

“I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. But if they had stood in My Council, they would have proclaimed My Words to My people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.” (Jeremiah 23:21-22)

Rick Warren Says A Great Awakening And A New Reformation Is Coming

The latest PD Encyclical from Warren in “Ministry Toolbox” at his Pastors.com, The five stages of renewal in the local church, gives us the following prophecy: “A great spiritual awakening is on the horizon.” The Purpose Driven Prophet then reminds us:

In the last three years, I’ve told you this several times: I believe God is preparing the church for another reformation. The first reformation focused on what the church believed; this one will focus on what it does.

For too long we’ve separated the Word of God from the work of God. As the church, we’re called to be the body of Christ – the whole body. (Online source)

I have already shown you here at AM, e.g. in “Bible Scholar” Rick Warren Is Reversing The Reformation, that Warren—in complete contradistinction to “what the church believed” in the Protestant Reformation—includes the apostate Roman Catholic Church in “the body of Christ” of which he is speaking above. And not only does Warren include apostate Roman Catholicism but as you can see in the AM piece Rick Warren and Jesus he also includes apostate mainline denominations long ago killed by what Southern Baptist Bible scholar Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989) called The Cult of Liberal Theology.

In fact in a Christian Post story about Warren we read:

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren suggested Sunday that mainline churches need to reconcile with evangelicals to counter its mounting problem of membership decline. “The reconciliation is that in a pluralistic world…we (Christians) need to be on the same team because we share the same savior,” Warren contended Sunday, as he spoke with the dean of the Washington National Cathedral, Samuel T. Lloyd III,… (Online source, emphasis mine)

There Is Never A Time For Unity With False Brethren

For a man who has an earned Doctor of Ministry Degree from Fuller Theological Cesspool Seminary (Onine source) Warren sure appears to be woefully ignorant of the issues which separate genuine Christians from apostates such as the Church of Rome and liberal mainline denominations. We “share the same savior.” Is he really this misinformed? Rome’s “savior” is still suffering and dying over and over again on its iniquitous crucifix.

Dr. John MacArthur brings out the heart of the matter for the Christian:

What was at stake is whether or not we evangelize Roman Catholics, that’s what’s at stake… Are Roman Catholics the mission field, or do we embrace them as fellow believers in Jesus Christ? The mood at evangelicalism today is to embrace them… Reclassifying the Pope, reclassifying the Roman Catholics as believers isn’t that simple…

It has massive implications that overturn centuries, if not millennia of martyrdom. In the long war on the truth, the most formidable, relentless and deceptive enemy has been Roman Catholicism. It is an apostate, corrupt, heretical, false Christianity, it is a front for the kingdom of Satan. The true church of the Lord Jesus Christ has always understood this. (Online source)

But then Warren says that we also “need to be on the same team” with those who not only ordain practicing homosexuals like “Bishop” Gene Robinson—who recently married his sodomite partner—but also place them in leadership over multiple churches? Really? And Warren says we are to “reconcile” with apostate Progressive Christians like Marcus Borg, and heretics like John Dominic Crossan, who deny the glorious Bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ and say His body was probably eaten by dogs? I think not.

And just what kind of “spiritual awakening” is Rick Warren talking about allegedly “on the horizon”? A move further back into the religious spiritual bondage of medieval Roman Catholicism through the corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism of spurious Spiritual Formation stealthily slithering deeper into the evangelical camp via The Cult of Guru Richard Foster, which Warren himself promotes? Frankly, from where I stand Rick Warren sounds more like a politician looking to get elected than he does a Charles Spurgeon.

Why do I mention Spurgeon? Is it because I idolize a man; because I look to follow him? Nope; I bring Spurgeon into this discussion because this is what Rick Warren himself does when his Saddleback apologist Richard Abanes enlightens us concerning an exhortation from Warren:

I am calling for a return to nineteenth-century evangelicalism. It’s more muscle and less mouth. It was the evangelicalism of Charles Spurgeon,… (Online source)

But then out of the other side of his own mouth Warren is also calling for evangelical non-protesting “Protestants” to reconcile with the Roman Catholic Church and liberal “Christianity”. For you see the highly ecumenical PD Pope has already instructed us, “I see absolutely zero reason in separating my fellowship from anybody” (Online source). Does Dr. Warren really not know that Charles Spurgeon vehemently opposed and denounced both Roman Catholicism and liberal theology, in addition to properly separating his “fellowship from” each?

Has Dr. Warren really forgotten the price Charles Spurgeon paid for his doing so in what is known as The Downgrade Controversy? Well, hear me good: I really couldn’t care less that so many leaders within evangelicalism remain content to perform their startling superior impressions of Rip Van Winkle today because I, for one, am not about to sit idly by as Rick Warren attempts to highjack the Church of Jesus Christ for his perverse “spiritual awakening” in this New Downgrade No-Controversy.

And so I will ask again: How is it that Rick Warren, a pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention—purportedly the largest “Protestant” denomination in the US—can continually teach things that run completely counter to the beliefs of the Protestant Reformation and yet no “names” within the SBC are calling Warren to account for his sin?

Answer: In my opinion, 1) they choose instead to cower behind their SBC Idol of Autonomy; and 2), Rick Warren is tickling evangelical ears by telling them exactly what they already wanted to hear. However, the Lord is not fooled…

See also:

SOUTHERN BAPTIST PASTOR RICK WARREN AND SADDLEBACK CHURCH OPENLY RECOMMEND CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY

SADDLEBACK CHURCH PASTORS USING ROB BELL TEACHINGS

POPE BENEDICT XVI TELLS RICK WARREN THAT WARREN DOES NOT PASTOR AN ACTUAL CHURCH

RICK WARREN AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC “CIRCUMCISION PARTY”

RICK WARREN AND A “BALANCED” REVERSAL OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

RICK WARREN: THE NEW CHARLES FINNEY

RICK WARREN AND THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE: DRIVING GOD AWAY