Sound The Trumpet : World Vision Cries Reform

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“World Vision Cries Reform”
by Lighthouse Trails
July 6th, 2014

According to a recent article by Christian News Network (CNN) titled “World Vision Under Internal Reformation After Support of Homosexuality?,” World Vision appears to be taking measures to “reform” the organization after their recent decision and 48-hour reversal to employ homosexual couples. Since that happened, according to the article, World Vision has lost 10,000 child supporters (equaling over 4 million dollars annually). According to CNN, “World Vision is asking board members to formally affirm a statement that marriage is between a man and a woman.”

CNN also reports that some board member changes are taking place at World Vision as well:

Jacquelline Fuller, director of corporate giving at Google, and John Park, another Google employee, left the board after the dust-up. Three other board members rotated off due to term limits. Rich Stearns [WV president], whose salary is reportedly near $400k per year, remains as president despite some initial talk that he could be fired for the controversy.

While such reforms may appear to be commendable signs that World Vision wants to be seen as a Christian organization after all, something the CNN article says reveals that World Vision’s reforms may not produce the “fruit” they appear to be wanting to create. The article states that the new board members will include Leith Anderson (president of the NAE) and Jerry White, president emeritus of the Christian ministry Navigators. Both Jerry White and Leith Anderson have been the subject of Lighthouse Trails articles because of their roles in the emerging “new” spirituality. And most likely, they will bring their views to the newly formed board at World Vision.

Leith Anderson, former pastor of mega church Wooddale Church in Minnesota, is discussed in Roger Oakland’s book Faith Undone. Oakland, in showing Anderson’s role in helping to form the emerging church in the 90s, states that, “Anderson says that the Word of God is still being written, and today’s experiences can dictate what that Word is.” Anderson says:

The old paradigm taught that if you had the right teaching, you will experience God. The new paradigm says that if you experience God, you will have the right teaching. This may be disturbing for many who assume propositional truth must always precede and dictate religious experience. That mindset is the product of systematic theology and has much to contribute … However, biblical theology looks to the Bible for a pattern of experience followed by proposition. The experience of the Exodus from Egypt preceded the recording of Exodus in the Bible. The experience of the crucifixion, the resurrection and Pentecost all predate the propositional declaration of those events in the New Testament. It is not so much that one is right and the other is wrong: it is more of a matter of the perspective one takes on God’s touch and God’s truth.

This minimization of doctrine and exaggerated emphasis on experience is typical of contemplative/emerging teachers. As well, in an interview with Leith Anderson, Anderson’s ecumenical propensities show through when he states:

[I]n neighborhoods people who are Catholic and Presbyterian and Lutheran are praying together. They go to Bible studies together. And an amalgam of all kinds of religious ideas has taken hold of the grass roots. Whereas denominational leaders are increasingly saying, “Well, we’ve got to stand for our distinctives.” … Well, those denominational leaders are going down the wrong path! (source)

And in a PBS profile of Leith Anderson, Anderson says:

I think that around the world there is a great deal of fear. I think war and terrorism and other issues have made people frightened and that has often driven them back to their social, ethnic and religious roots. And that has distanced people more than it has brought them together. What I would desire and hope for is that we would find our common ground, be able to be respectful of our differences, and be able to fairly hear one another in terms of what are our beliefs, and persuasively speak on behalf of our beliefs.

We find it ironic that World Vision has brought in the services of Leith Anderson when it was this idea of ecumenism and “common ground” that got World Vision into trouble in the first place. As journalist Paul Proctor explains in his article “Relationships and Religious Agendas,” a terrible breach in biblical integrity has occurred in the Christian church for the sake of relationships and unity at all costs:

Having now put so great an emphasis on our relationships with one another and the results we covet, no longer do we turn to the Bible for answers to the issues of life, instead, allowing the counsel of the compromised to compel us along with their practical advise and benevolent ventures, assuming they are anointed and appointed by God to do so. It is a sweet seduction with eternal consequences and a spiritual short cut for the shortsighted and undisciplined.

Scripture is clear that we are to let our yes be yes and our no be no, and there is a special judgment for those who name the name of Christ but are lukewarm (Revelation 3:16). It should be noted that Leith Anderson was also among those appointed by the present White House administration for the interfaith advisory council. But this shouldn’t be too surprising as World Vision has strong ties to the US government. According to the CNN article, World Vision “received nearly $179 million in grants of food and cash from the U.S. government and other agencies” in 2013.

Anderson, president of the National Evangelical Association, was also one of the signers of a document named “A Common Word Between Us and You,” which was an evangelical response to a Muslim document asking for “common ground” to be recognized between the two religions. While a number of popular evangelical leaders also signed the document (Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller,Bill Hybels, Richard Cizik, and Jim Wallis), these leaders, including Anderson, appeared to be ignorant of the fact that the Muslim document contained a rebuke and an Islamic warning as Mike Oppenheimer explains in his article “Chrislam – The Blending Together of Islam & Christianity.”

As for World Vision’s decision to bring aboard the Navigator’s president emeritus, Jerry White, the Navigators (NavPress) has become one of the leaders in bringing in contemplative/emerging spirituality into the church over the last 15 years (see links below). White was international president of The Navigators from 1986 until 2005. While we cannot say whether White knew what was happening at The Navigators regarding the shift toward the emerging church, if he did not know, then this was a serious lack of discernment at the highest leadership level and could repeat itself when he becomes a board member of World Vision. As an example of this, in 2007, Lighthouse Trails wrote an article titled “CMA (Christian Management Association) Goes Contemplative,” where it was reported that Jerry White was at that time chairman of the board of directors at CMA (today he is not chairman but is still on the board). Our article explained:

CMA is promoting contemplative/emerging spirituality. In their recommended books section, they include several contemplative/emerging authors: Ken Blanchard, Bill Hybels, Leonard Sweet, Dan Allender, and Daniel Goleman (author of The Meditative Mind). Goleman, a staunch proponent of mantra meditation sees meditation as a common ground between all the world’s religions, and his book is a type of manual on the basics of mysticism. . . .

On March 12-15, CMA will be presenting their 30th Annual Conference in Palm Springs . . . Workshops will include Spiritual Formation (i.e., contemplative spirituality) and other workshop speakers include Nancy Ortberg (wife of contemplative John Ortberg), and Phyllis Hendry (President of Lead Like Jesus) . . .

Articles in CMA magazine back up the association’s affinity with contemplative. One article called “The Soul of a Leader” talks about being intimately connected to God through spiritual disciplines and recommends Richard Foster, emergent Tony Jones, and Dallas Willard as authors to read.

Some may be wondering how World Vision came to the place where they decided to begin employing homosexual couples. Such a radical shift away from orthodox Christianity didn’t happen over night. As Lighthouse Trails has reported on numerous occasions, World Vision has been engaging with the emerging church for a long time. For instance, in 2006, we wrote:

In the Summer 2006 issue of World Vision’s magazine Child View, there is a full-page article by emerging church leader, Brian McLaren. . . . We contacted Jocelyn Bell (of World Vision Canada) who is an editor for Child View and was involved with the McLaren article. We shared our concerns with her about McLaren being in the World Vision magazine, relating to her specific information about McLaren’s theology. Ms. Bell responded with, “We don’t have a problem with Brian McLaren’s viewpoints.” . . . Bell also told us that a weekly devotions group, which includes World Vision leaders and workers, was currently studying McLaren’s book, A Generous Orthodoxy. Ms. Bell told us that World Vision represents both Evangelicals and Protestants as well as Catholics. We asked her if it also included New Age Christians, of which McLaren is in that group. . . . Unfortunately, World Vision’s connections to contemplative/emerging do not stop with their promotion of McLaren. They also have a seat on the Board of Directors of the very contemplative Spiritual Formation Forum (Richard Foster and Dallas Willard) and are a Ministry Partner of the contemplative/emerging promoting Church Communication Network (originators of the Be Still project).

Another highly significant indicator as to where World Vision is heading came out in 2010 with the release of the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian state film With God on Our Side. Steve Haas, a VP of World Vision, was one of the strong proponents for the film, which was “aimed at changing the end-time views of evangelicals and the theology that says the Jews are God’s chosen people and have a divine right to the land of Israel," said Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries. And in a video clip on the Internet, you can watch Steve Haas talking in Israel to anti-Israel activist Steven Sizer. Haas talks about the financial support that World Vision has given through their program called Palestinian Church Engagement Initiative (PCEI) to help the Palestinian cause. We wonder how many World Vision donors realize that their donations have gone to hurt Israel.

World Vision is trying to reverse some of the damage they have incurred when they made their pro-homosexual announcement recently. Thus, some of the more “liberal” board members have left, with it looking like to the average Christian that they are replacing them with traditional evangelical Christians. While their testing of the waters to see how the church would accept their homosexual employee policy didn’t come out too well, rest assured that World Vision is not making any true reform. They are merely taking a few steps back and waiting until the time is right. Richard Stearn’s (the president of World Vision) book The Hole in Our Gospel proves that the organization is not about biblical Christianity. According to a book review we posted, Stearn’s book “is the newest danger to come against true Believers in the Church Age. It promotes a false gospel within a socialistic philosophy. It fails miserably in its hermeneutic, is ecumenical in focus, promotes human performance as a method of pleasing God, and believes people on earth can do good to ‘usher in the Kingdom.’”

So while World Vision is crying “reform” right now, and most likely this will be the story that the media, both secular and Christian, will pick up and run with, the real story behind the scene is that World Vision is part of the “new” spirituality/New Age “Christianity” that will help usher in the greatest deception this world has ever seen. And countless Christians’ tax-deductible dollars will help finance it.

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13