Sound The Trumpet : Rick Warren's Confusion

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“Rick Warren's Confusion”
by Art Sadlier
March 4th, 2012

Rick Warren has undertaken to bridge the gulf between evangelicals and Muslims. He has partnered with a mosque in Southern California and is proposing a set of theological principles that includes the proposition that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

Such an idea is absurd. To begin with, Allah has three daughters while Jehovah has an only Son who is equal with Father and the Holy Spirit. The Koran says that Allah has no son, eliminating the gospel altogether and the possibility of the false notion that God and Allah are one.

If you compare the personality of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of the Hebrews and the Christians, with Allah, Islam's god, the contrast could not be more extreme.

The Hebrew-Christian God is characterized by love. The Islamic god is characterized by war and vengeance. The Hebrew-Christian God provides a clear path to redemption and personal salvation in a fallen world; through repentance. The Islamic god provides only one certain path to personal salvation; martyrdom which results from the killing of infidels.

The Hebrew-Christian God elevates the status of women. The Islamic god does the opposite. Christ commands men to love their wives as their own bodies. The Koran calls men to beat their wives.

Jehovah encourages His followers to be a light to the whole world. Allah encourages jihad on the non-Islamic world and calls for the death of unconverted Jews and Christians.

In the midst of such a contrast Warren proposes common theological ground. The absurdity seems to escape Warren. It would be comparable to seeking common theological ground between Christians and atheists. It would be comparable to seeking common theological ground between God and Baal.

Warren is involved in blasphemy against Jehovah when he compares Him to Allah. He is on a par with those Israelis of old which forsook the worship of Jehovah to worship false gods, which are no gods.

Warren is leading both Muslims and Christians astray by proposing that they are worshipping the same God. It robs both Muslims and others of the message of salvation through the death of Jehovah’s Son on the cross.

The effort by Warren to bridge the deep rift between Muslims and evangelical Christians culminated in December at a dinner at Saddleback attended by three hundred Muslims and members of Saddleback's congregation.

At that dinner, Abraham Meulenberg, a Saddleback pastor in charge of interfaith outreach, and Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs at a mosque in Los Angeles, introduced "King's Way” as "a path to end the 1,400 years of misunderstanding between Muslims and Christians."

The difference between Islam and Christianity is not a misunderstanding, it involves the identity of God and the way of salvation, how could such a gulf be bridged? It can only be bridged by denying the identity of God and denying His Word and rejecting the message of the gospel. That is a definition of apostasy.

The men presented a document they co-authored outlining points of agreement between Islam and Christianity. The document affirms that Christians and Muslims believe in "one God" and share two central commandments: "love of God" and "love of neighbour." The document also commits both faiths to three goals: Making friends with one another, building peace and working on shared social service projects. The document quotes side-by-side verses from the Bible and the Koran to illustrate its claims. Paul said, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them" (Ephesians 5:11).

The two men agreed they would not attempt to evangelize each other’s people. They stated that any sharing would not focus on conversion.

Saddleback representatives declined to make Warren available for comment.

Warren has faced criticism from some evangelicals for his outreach to Muslims. Late last year, he issued a statement flatly denying rumours that he promulgates what critics term "Chrislam," a merging of Islam and Christianity.

Warren says he is not promoting “Chrislam,” but his efforts to bring Christians and Muslims together for the sake of his Peace Plan is a movement toward the unity of all religions, which his PEACE Plan calls for.

Tom Holladay, associate senior pastor at Saddleback, said the outreach to Muslims is part of Saddleback's PEACE Plan, a wide-ranging effort to solve major world problems by mobilizing governments, businesses and faith communities. This is clearly the agenda of the harlot church as seen in Revelation 17. Warren is building a Tower of Babel that leads to temporary unity and ultimate destruction.

The root of this madness goes back several years to "A Christian Response to a Common Word between Us and You" This was a joint effort between Muslims and Christians to deepen dialogue and relations at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Pastor Warren was one of the signers, along with hundreds of other Christian leaders. They also acknowledged that neither Muslim nor Christian would try to evangelize each other. Just like that, evangelism evaporates in the minds of major Christian leaders.

One of the statements of this "Common Word" effort was that religious peace would bring world peace.

The truth is that only Jesus Christ can bring peace to a world in rebellion against God. We all long for peace in the world, but it cannot come by ignoring God’s Word, and what it declares, and what it requires of the followers of Christ. It cannot come at the cost of setting the gospel message aside.

These so called pastors and Christian leaders are ignoring what God has declared in His Word about His plan for this world.

They are blind leaders of the blind.

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13