Why the controversy?

...an interesting and valid point of view, deserving of thought - but would it be right to stand against these works of fiction if things were right in the church?

 

I agree Puritan.

 

I, too, agree with Puritan, though I don't have a problem with a mega-church just because it's a megachurch. (Heck, I'm from Southern California, where churches over 2000 people are a bit common).

 

The ABCs of first aid to a person is same as it is for a church:

A irway

B leeding

C irculation

If there's no airway, the person soon dies despite any other medical treatment(s).

If the bleeding isn't stopped, once there's a working airway, the person soon dies despite all other medical treatment(s).

If circulation isn't established, via natural heartbeat or CPR, if there's a working airway & bleeding controlled, the person soon dies regardless of any other measures.

Airway...PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST FULLY AND COMPLETELY. If this isn't done, the church is dead anyway till it IS done.

Bleeding...If true doctrines established by Scripture are allowed to "bleed" out, the church soon dies.

Circulation...The fire of Christ must circulate among the congregation, or the church soon grows cold and dies.

The ABCs must be established on a seriously-ill or injured person, or nothing else matters...the person dies. Once the ABCs are established, the treatment team addresses fractures, lacerations, gastric distress, & other painful but non life-threatening injuries/symptoms.

The ABCs must be established in a church that's never had them, or re-established in a church that has lost them, or they're/ will soon become dead churches.

I agree...Let's help clean up the churches' acts, one church at a time, THEN worry about HP, etc.

 

I think it's not just Baptist, but Christian's in general that does this, and I believe Jesus spoke of this, and it's as true today as it was then.


Mat 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Mat 7:4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [is] in thine own eye?
Mat 7:5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.


I believe all people, Christian's also, find it hard to think their doing anything wrong. So it's easy to point figers at others and not at yourself/themselves.

It's like the old saying go, 'Can't see the tree for the forest'.

Jamie

 

Could you please be more specific as to "unbiblical things"?

I have seen many who have spoken out against the heresy of Joel Osteen and Rick Warren.

 

I think the issue revolves around people being "prooccupied" with speaking out, and getting upset at others because some have chosen not to join their bandwagon.

 

I can show you plenty who do speak out against these things.

 

You're kidding, right? Are you actually, truly saying that fiction, because it is fiction, can have no influence in a person's life? That bad fiction should never be refuted? Good fiction never touted?

Remember that the parables of Jesus were a form of fiction, and then try again to say, "Fiction is fake by definition." Fiction is most certainly not "fake," it is a real form of story telling which can have a profound influence in a person's life.

If fiction could have no influence in a person's life, then the parables of Jesus were useless, Pilgrim's Progress is a time-waster, and the book In His Steps never produced the phrase "What Would Jesus Do?"

Can fiction do harm? You bet! My son, working in a factory to put himself through seminary, recently wrote of a young man he witnessed to who swallowed The Da Vinci Code hook, line and sinker, and was resistent to the Gospel because of it.

 

I can show you plenty who do speak out against these things. </font>[/QUOTE]And plenty who have no clue what they're talking about

 

I can't take anyone serious who says this. If you do believe the 5 areas of purpose for our lives RW outlines in his book are "false teaching", I would hate to see what you believe are "correct"

Read Acts 2-4 and tell me about the "falsehood" of the mega-church

 

What Rick says sounds good on the surface, and is even fairly sound on the surface. But, it's all lip service. The problems lie in the contents beyond the surface. That's where the poison is.

 

Come on, don't leave us hanging here - where's the poison??? That's about as serious a charge as you could make against a brother in Christ, so surely you can put up!

 

You could write several books on it, or even do a year's worth of radio programs on it, so I'll not re-hash the entire thing here, when others have done a very thorough job of it.

However, if you are truly interested, PM me and I will send you the link where you can download the audio free of charge. I don't think the rules permit me to post it here, since it is a non-Baptist link. (It's not only Baptists who can see the truth of Rick's work.) If I am mistaken about this rule, let me know, and I will post it here.

However, if you're not interested in taking the time to look and listen to them, some of the easier things to spot are the watering down of the gospels and the pop psychology that is rampant throughout.

 

Zero integrity

 

Hope of Glory.....Id like that PM if thats all right with you.

Why "zero integrity", guitarpreacher?

 

When you accuse a brother in Christ of writing/preaching/teaching poison but will not back up your accusation with first hand (in other words, quotes from RW himself) documentation, but rather refers everyone to another website (in other words, someone elses opinion of what they think RW said) that, in my humble opinion, is showing zero integrity.

 

Zero integrity would be not looking at the evidence.

Why duplicate the work of someone else who has done quite a sufficient job?

As an example, on another forum, someone was talking about Easter myths and about how much of a pagan holiday it really is. They simply linked the forum to a study that I had done. It did not bother me one bit, and there was no need for them to duplicate work that I had done that was quite sufficient.

Bapmom, the link is on the way to you.

As an addendum, I don't want anyone to misunderstand my original statement. I have no doubts about the sincerity of Rick Warren. I just take difference to what he teaches.

For example, he promotes the 12 step programs and his "Celebrate Recovery" program that he claims is "from the words of Jesus" is straight out of New Age nonsense.

How about a quote?

CR’s entire program content is marbled with psychobabble such as this “solution” from its Adult Children of the Chemically Addicted group’s dogmas:“The solution is to become your own loving parent….You will recover the child within you, learning to accept and love yourself.” This is biblical?! Honoring the psychologically contrived “disorder” of codependency, CR’s Codependency and Christian Living group made this humanistic and biblically false statement: “Jesus taught....A love of self forms the basis for loving others.”