Rick Warren’s call for Christians and Muslims to “work together for the common good” and to inviting Muslims to work with Christians on Rick Warren’s “Global PEACE Plan” will produce the same miserable and failed results as working with the Soviet’s during World War II.
Back in the 1940’s the “global giant” that the world faced was Nazi Germany and the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union laid aside their differences for a few short years in order to work for the “common good” by defeating Hitler and Nazi Germany. But the Soviet Union, after the fall of Germany worked quickly to enslave half of Germany and all of Eastern Europe under their oppressive Communist system. The goal of “liberating Europe” was far from achieved as many nations that had been conquered by Hitler were then oppressively enslaved by the Soviet Army after the fall of Berlin.
But anyone who truly understood Soviet Communism could have easily predicted that outcome. Why? Because Global Domination was at the heart of Soviet Communism. Their clearly stated goal was to take over the world.
Rick Warren’s naive call for Christians and Muslims to “work together for the common good” is as equally doomed to failure as working with the Soviets to liberate Europe. Why? Because Islam is a hostile enemy to the Gospel and to the freedom to proclaim the Gospel in an open marketplace of religious ideas. In every Muslim nation Christians are persecuted and converts to Christianity have their very lives threatened and in many cases snuffed out. Islam is NOT concerned about achieving the “common good” for both Christians and Muslims. Islam’s goal is defeating Infidels and instituting Global Sharia. Muslims don’t want to coexist they want the unconditional surrender and submission of their "Infidel Enemies" and there are many global Islamist groups working toward that end.
Islam is an enemy of Christ and the True Gospel. It cannot be bargained with and it is merciless and ruthless in its attacks against Christianity, Judaism and Western freedom and democracy. Islam is NOT a religion of Peace it is a religion of Jihad and submission at the end of sword and Rick Warren’s call for Muslims and Christians to work together on his Global Peace Plan will accomplish nothing in removing the sword from the heart and center of Islam.
Christians are to boldly preach and proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus' Name to Muslims, rather than trying to find common ground with them in order to ‘work for the common good’. To abandon this Christian duty given by Jesus Christ to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus name and replace it with working for the common good is both naive regarding the true nature of Islam and rebellious to Christ’s explicit instructions given to the Church in Luke 24 and Matt 28.
Rick Warren’s shallow ideas will not only fail (they already have) they will take their place in the trash can of human history as just another man-made attempt at bringing peace that failed and failed big. Twenty years from now, no one will be talking about Rick Warren’s Global PEACE Plan and no one will be discussing the lasting Peace between Christians and Muslims that was fostered by Rick Warren’s coalition.
Rick Warren sucks
Posted by: Lisa | July 13, 2009 at 07:50 PM
The main question is why did Rick Warren speak at the ISNA conference? While I do not wish to offer an apologia for ISNA, I would refer you to multiple articles that describe the organization’s goals in reaching out to other faiths, including Judaism, and denouncing terrorism (Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the leader of the largest branch of American Judaism, addressed the convention two years ago; also see the AP story on July 1 by Zoll, and stories in the Christian Post, Church Solutions and even the Washington Times in the past week).
What I would like to clarify is Rick’s message and motive. I would like to assert that it is his lifelong agenda that led him to accept the invitation to speak at ISNA. You may have noticed that outside of Saddleback Church, and Rick’s 30 year Purpose Driven Ministry to pastors, he does very little speaking to Christian groups of believers. Instead, he invests his time speaking to groups of unbelievers that most pastors never get the opportunity to share with. He carefully considers the opportunities that God has given him to address these audiences. These are folks that Jesus died for, but would never enter a church to hear the Good News. Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Luke 5:31 (NIV) Rick believes strongly that if you want to actively demonstrate the love of Christ to others as He commands us to, then you have to reach out to a variety of audiences. No one is ever convinced of God’s love by labeling, condemnation, or anger. Rick strongly believes that if we want to behave in a Christ-like example, we must not waste any time judging others (Jesus didn't), but instead, do everything we can to build relationships of love and respect and trust with others.
In our secular culture, there are about a dozen different groups of influencers that we at Saddleback seek to serve and reach out to including those in academics, business, military, sports, health care, media, prisoners, entertainment, other faiths, and government. If we are to fulfill Jesus' Great Commission in the world, we must build bridges to all of these, and more. Just know the goal of every speaking engagement Rick accepts is always the same: The global glory of God. We seek to build bridges of love - from our hearts to hearts of even those we may disagree with - so that Jesus can walk across!
The theme of the session at which Rick spoke was “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” a theme most appropriate for a message on perhaps our country’s most sacred day, Independence Day. Rick gave a message appropriate to the values of the meaning of this day on what America and all Americans, not just Muslims or Christians, need to maintain our independence. As a pastor, Rick intimately understands these values, particularly the value of religious freedom, and will fiercely advocate for them unashamedly in front of any audience. But religious freedom means the right to practice the religion of one’s choice regardless of whether or not others agree with a particular religion’s tenets, and the freedom to associate for the common good of all Americans and for those less fortunate than us around the world. That is a value that is not only part of our heritage as Americans, but also a commandment of Jesus Christ.
I appreciate the opportunity to clarify Rick’s appearance before ISNA and would refer you to a recent issue of Rick’s “News and Views” in which he thoroughly discusses why he speaks to a variety of audiences.
http://www.saddlebackfamily.com/blogs/newsandviews/index.html?contentID=2625
Posted by: Cathie Underwood | July 14, 2009 at 12:26 PM
It is true about what you are saying. Granted, there are some moslems that don't want to return to the middle ages like many christians don't want to return to using the Justinian Law code which is also early middle ages to deal with heretics and non-believers. In fact Sharia law like Justinian law punishes those with death for leaving the proper faith and going to the non proper faith.
Posted by: Cynthia Curran | July 18, 2009 at 10:33 PM