Doing church

To achieve the goal of balance among the five purposes (fellowship, discipleship, worship, ministry, and evangelism), Rick Warren organized the Purpose Driven church around two concepts. According to Warren, the Life Development Process is the “what we do” at Saddleback. Circles of Commitment illustrate the “who we do it with.” Circles of Commitment contain four concentric circles surrounding a core. The goal is to move low commitment/maturity people from the outer circle to high commitment/maturity people at the core.[1]

In this concept of “who we do it with,” the outer circle represents the community or unchurched where the purpose of evangelism occurs. This is a pool of lost people that occasionally attend but have made no commitment to Jesus Christ or the church.[2]

The second circle just inside the outer circle is the crowd or regular attenders and who may be believers or nonbelievers. Their commitment extends only to attendance of a weekly worship service and fulfills the worship purpose of the church.[3]

The third circle is comprised of official members, called the congregation, that are committed to fellowship. To move into this circle, one must have received Christ, been baptized, attended the membership class, and signed a membership covenant.[4]

In the fourth circle as we move inward are the committed that take their faith seriously but are not actively serving in ministry within the church. They are dedicated to growing in discipleship which includes prayer and giving. To be in this group, one must take a spiritual maturity class and sign a maturity covenant card which requires a daily quiet time, tithing ten percent of their income, and being active in a small group.[5]

The central area surrounded by the four outer circles is the core group that is considered as having the deepest level of commitment to ministering to others. The requirements for admission to this group include a third level of training; completion of a personality, skills, and gifts assessment; having a personal ministry interview; being commissioned as a lay minister at Saddleback; and attending a monthly meeting of the core group.[6]

The Life Development Process (“what we do”) is designed to lead people from the outer circle to the core through education and assimilation. The process is visually described as a baseball diamond. Each base represents a level of commitment: first base is membership, second is maturity, third is ministry, and home plate is missions. Warren described the goal of his Life Development Process.

Our goal is to help people develop a lifestyle of evangelism, worship, fellowship, discipleship, and ministry. We want to produce doers of the Word, not hearers only—to transform, not merely inform…Our ultimate goal at Saddleback is to turn an audience into an army.[7]

To describe the Purpose Drive church and its methods, Warren is fond of using military metaphors such as army, target, strategies, front line, and mission, all of which are intended to connote activity, action, and movement. Driven is an action verb whose synonyms include pushed, propelled, urged, goaded, shoved, thrust, forced, coerced, maneuvered, and constrained. When driven is inserted between purpose and church, it is here we begin to see that the restless Purpose Driven march to do church is a reflection of the humanistic spirit of the world that values and exalts the Enlightenment ideal of progress. Progress implies movement, and in one sense it implies the importance of doing as opposed to being. But the frenetic doings of the Purpose Driven church pale in comparison to the serenity and communion with Christ found in the Christian walk even when that walk may take us into the valley of the shadow of death.

Being the Church

Over sixty years ago A. W. Tozer wrote insightfully and perhaps prophetically of the deep inner confusion caused by the antagonism between being and doing. He wrote that modern civilized society, particularly in the West, was firmly entrenched in doing as opposed to being.

We Christians cannot escape this question. We must discover where God throws the stress and come around to the divine pattern.

The tendency to accept without question and follow without knowing why is very strong in us. For this reason whatever the majority of Christians hold at any given time is sure to be accepted as true and right beyond a doubt.

This is why being has ceased to have much appeal for people and doing engages almost everyone’s attention. Modern Christians lack symmetry. They know almost nothing about the inner life. They are like a temple that is all exterior without any interior.

“The accent in the Church today,” says Leonard Ravenhill, the English evangelist, “is not on devotion, but on commotion.”…Externalism has taken over. God now speaks by the wind and the earthquake only; the still small voice can be heard no more. The whole religious establishment has become a noisemaker…The old question, “What is the chief end of man?” is now answered, “To dash about the world and add to the din thereof.” And all of this is done in the name of Him who did not strive nor cry nor make His voice to be heard in the streets (Matthew 12:18-21).

We must begin the needed reform by challenging the spiritual validity of externalism. What a man is must be shown to be more important than what he does.

We must show a new generation of nervous, almost frantic, Christians that power lies at the center of life. Speed and noise are evidences of weakness, not strength…The desire to be dramatically active is proof of our religious infantilism; it is a type of exhibitionism common to the kindergarten.[8] [emphasis added]

What is the divine pattern that God emphasizes? It is being his child, loving and being loved, and sharing the inner life of the Trinity forever. We have status as a member of God’s family. Status implies being, not becoming. Being is for eternity. Doing is time-bound and only for a season that is likened to a vapor. Therefore, the emphasis must be on being to which doing must always defer. The Church Growth movement became fixated on the doing to the diminishment or exclusion of being. As a result it became excessively one-sided and therefore lacked symmetry. It has become unbalanced, the exact opposite of what it so vigorously demands. As a result much of the Bible is not taught nor even given much thought. Here we see the fundamental flaw in the Purpose Driven model.

In spite of assurances and protestations to the contrary, the Church Growth movement’s teachings and methods do compromise the biblical message by ignoring or giving scant attention large sections of the biblical narrative, twisting biblical doctrines to fit the Church Growth movement’s philosophies and methods, and an over or under emphasizing of many aspects of the biblical record. Although of great importance, the outworking of the Great Commission has been molded and massaged to justify the teachings and methods of the Church Growth movement. As a result, the focus has moved from Christ’s atoning work on the cross to the felt needs and desires of Warren’s iconic target—Saddleback Sam and Samantha.

The seeker-sensitive formula

As noted in previous chapters, the orthodoxy of the Church Growth movement and its seeker-sensitive model for doing church were inspired by the writings of George McGavran during the 1950s (See Chapters 21 and 24). Its guiding principle is that sociological research and scientific principles can be blended with biblical truths to achieve numerical growth in American congregations. These scientific principles dominate and “selected” Bible verses are used to support those principles. Invariably, as we are told, these properly applied scientific principles will produce numerical growth in any type of organization including churches. But little if any thought is given to the kind of growth that is being achieved. The type of growth desired in businesses and other organizations is not necessarily desirable in the church.[9] We need merely to return to Chapter 3 to see that the kind of growth a church experiences is exceedingly important for its long-term survival. Because of Roman Emperor Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in 313 and its elevation to the official religion of the Western Roman Empire in 381, thousands joined the church, but many were Christians in name only as the narrow gate was made wide which allowed a flood of corruptions to flow into the church.[10]

In the end, Church Growth practitioners see numerical church growth as merely a product of effective marketing. Give the customer what he wants. Customer-sensitive in the business world became seeker-sensitive in the Church Growth world. Robert Schuller’s slogan became the mantra of the seeker-sensitive church, “Find a need and fill it. Find a hurt and heal it.” Being seeker-sensitive is the heart of Warren’s Purpose Driven model and essentially drives all of its activities. To be a seeker-sensitive, a church must survey the community so as to identify its needs. Next the church organizes all of its efforts around meeting the “felt needs” of its target audience.[11]

Warren justifies the satisfaction of people’s “felt” needs by which he means their “heart” needs because it can attract large crowds. He is correct. Churches do grow by appealing to and feeding people’s felt needs. He claims Jesus ministered to the felt needs of the people in order to attract large crowds. However, Jesus’s purpose was not to attract large crowds, but when crowds came anyway, he certainly did not preach a seeker-sensitive message. Jesus’ focus was on the will of God and not numerical growth.

In the seeker-sensitive churches, felt needs are assumed to be legitimate but are often merely diversionary measures used by Satan and his forces to defeat the human soul. As previously noted, the source of man’s felt needs comes from his heart, but the heart is a most unreliable source. As Jeremiah recognized, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” [Jeremiah 17: 9. KJV] This is contrary to the cry of humanistic psychologists, “Get in touch with yourself. Follow your heart.” Aren’t seeker-sensitive churches encouraging the same mindset by focusing on every hurt and whim of the audience?

The seeker-sensitive mindset of church leaders has effectively embraced the humanistic psychology movement of which Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was one of the principal founders. Maslow developed a hierarchy of human needs to which man must ascend to achieve purpose and happiness in life. According to Maslow, the pinnacle of human needs is reached and satisfied when one becomes self-actualized by achieving a maximum degree of their inborn potential. The next lower need is self-esteem which connotes confidence, achievement, respect of others, and respect by others. It is only when we descend to the third level do we see any mention of relational needs such as love, belonging, friendship, family, and sexual intimacy.[12] But his hierarchy of human needs fundamentally conflicts with the human universal of the primacy of relationships in motivating human beings.

Maslow’s theories of human motivation are based on the humanistic worldview. They fail as human motivators because they dramatically diminish the importance of relationship in favor of self. Apart from physiological and safety needs which are creational givens, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is upside down as it reflects human nature and leads to a false worldview. The societal disorder that permeates the entire planet is a result of this widely held humanistic worldview which has elevated self above relationship. The whole of the seeker-sensitive movement’s dedication to meeting the felt needs of people taps into the humanistic spirit of the world and its devotion to self.

The great god of entertainment

Not only does the seeker-sensitive church attempt to meet the felt needs of their audience, they also attempt to meet their felt wants. Udo W. Middelmann cuts to the heart of the matter in his stinging indictment of many evangelical churches in America.

In the course of a very few decades much of the church has embraced the way of mass culture in its drive to reduce everything to play and attractive entertainment. It has bowed to the demands of a consumer society and offers a message that more often distracts for the moment than comforts for the long run. Adjustments in content and form to match the perceived needs of future possible converts eat away at the content necessary to understand God, the fall of man, and redemption. Marketing priorities preside. The product is matched to the customer’s expectations. There is little room for the doctor to prescribe the medicine or for God to set forth judgment and conditions for redemption.[13]

In his book Storm, Jim Cymbala echoes much of what Middelmann said with regard to the reasons for the decline of the American evangelical church. Many blame the decline on forces outside the church including failed political solutions and a decaying secular culture that is increasingly hostile to the message of Christ and His followers.[14] Certainly these are contributing influences, but the Church has survived far worse in its 2000 year history. Therefore, the modern evangelical church cannot blame the world for the church’s failures because

…we simultaneously mimic the ways of the world in hopes of packaging our faith into “Christianity Lite”—a spiritual candy we can toss at nonbelievers rather than confronting the hostile reactions that can occur when we proclaim the real gospel of Jesus Christ. Pandering to the culture with prepackaged truth nuggets hasn’t made us more effective; it has made us ineffective. [15] [emphasis in original]

Tozer recognized this trend in the early 1950s and wrote that religious entertainment is in many places is rapidly replacing the serious things of God with the “full approval of evangelical leaders who can even quote a holy text in defense of their delinquency.”[16] Tozer compared these carefully-programmed services with the New Testament model.

So the fast-paced, highly spiced, entertaining service of today may be a beautiful example of masterful programming—but it is not a Christian service. The two are leagues apart in almost every essential. About the only thing they have in common is the presence of a number of people in one room.[17]

The battle between Christianity and the forces of Satan is described in Ephesians 6:12. It is a spiritual conflict with an army of evil spirits headed by their commander Satan. They are the spiritual rulers of the world who energize the ungodly, oppose the will of God, and attack the believers of this age. They are a vast and highly organized empire of evil. [18] With cultural decay abounding in every facet of society, there never has been a period in American history when there has been such a desperate need for mature Christians to do battle with the forces of Satan. But to our great harm and dismay, a vast number of believers have reverted “to spiritual childhood and clamor for religious toys.”[19]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing
House, 1995), pp. 130-131.
[2] Ibid., p. 131.
[3] Ibid., pp. 131-132.
[4] Ibid., pp. 132-133.
[5] Ibid., pp. 133.
[6] Ibid., p. 134.
[7] Ibid., pp. 143, 145.
[8] A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers, 1955, 1986), pp. 83-86.
[9] Marshall Davis, More Than A Purpose, (Enumclaw, Washington: Pleasant Word, 2006), pp. 23-24.
[10] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), p. 27.
[11] Davis, pp. 28-29.
[12] Neel Burton, M.D., “Our Hierarchy of Needs,” Psychology Today, May 23, 2012. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/our-hierarchy-needs (accessed September 18, 2014).
[13] Udo W. Middelmann, The Market Driven Church, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2004), p. 124.
[14] Jim Cymbala with Jennifer Schuchmann, Storm – Hearing Jesus for The Times We Live In, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2014), pp. 14-15.
[15] Ibid., p. 15
[16] Tozer, The Root of the Righteous, p. 33.
[17] Ibid., pp. 105-106.
[18] Commentary on Ephesians 6:12, The Full Life Study Bible, King James Version, ed. Donald C. Stamps, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1990), p. 439.
[19] Tozer, The Root of the Righteous, p. 34.

In The Purpose Driven Church Rick Warren writes that Christians are obligated to remain faithful to the unchanging Word of God but also must minister in an ever-changing world.[1] To accomplish this Warren developed a structure and process for doing church which he claims will allow it to continually adapt and adjust to a continually changing culture. These processes and methods are designed to be seeker sensitive, culture-friendly, and acceptable to the unchurched. As culture changes, old methods are disposed of and new methods are plugged in without harming or compromising the message. But is this true? If Warren is wrong, the widely-accepted assumptions and methods of the Purpose Driven Church will have critically if not mortally wounded evangelicalism in America and many other parts of the world.

Balance is everything in the Purpose Driven Church

Warren’s solution rests on creation of new churches and transformation of existing churches into new paradigm churches “that are driven by purpose instead of other forces.” The new paradigm churches must impose two essential elements. To become a new paradigm church, the first essential is that the church must be looked at through the lens of five New Testament purposes: worship, evangelism, fellowship, discipleship, and service. But mere recognition is not enough. He further states that God intends for the church to be balanced in advancing all five purposes. Therefore, the second essential requires the new paradigm church adopt a process for fulfilling the purposes of the church. When this process is followed, the church will focus equally on its five New Testament purposes. Warren assures those following his formula that “your church will develop the healthy balance that makes lasting church growth possible.” If a church becomes a new paradigm church, it will be healthier, stronger, and more effective by becoming purpose-driven.[2] In other words, the five-fold purposes of the church must be in equilibrium for the church to be healthy. For Church Growth practitioners, the details used to achieve the goal of equilibrium are found in the process of fulfilling the purposes of the church.

Preaching is an example of one of the processes used in pursuit of balance that dominates new paradigm churches. Warren advises pastors to “preach on purpose.”

To produce balanced, healthy believers, you need to plan a preaching schedule that includes a series on each of the five purposes over the course of a year. A four-week series related to each of the five purposes would require only twenty weeks. There would still be more than a half a year to preach on other themes.

Planning your preaching around the five purposes of the church does not mean you must always be teaching about the church itself. Personalize the purposes! Talk about them in terms of God’s five purposes for every Christian.[3]

Warren’s fetish for balance does not stop with preaching. Programs are designed to fulfill each purpose. Church departments are organized around purpose-based teams. Two months on the church calendar each year are dedicated to a special emphasis on each purpose. Staff members are hired to fill purpose-based job descriptions. Christian education is centered on creating a lifestyle that will focus on the five purposes of the church.[4]

During the church’s two thousand years of existence, one wonders why God did not reveal Warren’s techniques of balancing the five purposes of the church and his very precise and structured process for achieving those purposes in the church. Where is it found in scripture that the five purposes of the church should be balanced in both church organization and execution of its mission? Warren must supply unequivocal and biblically sound answers to these two questions to retain any credibility for his claims that church health is dependent on achieving this magical balance. But he has not done so for those answers do not exist.

What Warren cannot support with scripture he attempts to support by pointing to results. Here Warren endeavors to justify his claims by quoting the apostle Paul who said God will judge whatever we build on the basis of whether it will last. “The fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.” [1 Corinthians 3:13-14. Version not disclosed] Warren points to his own success as living proof that the principles of balance and process work because Saddleback church has not only survived but thrived.[5] He also points to the successes of other purpose-driven churches. But Warren speaks of crowds and financial success which are temporal. Paul spoke of the eternal. There are many churches and media ministries that have the appearance of success through attendance, revenues, and praise of men but in truth are spiritually and doctrinally bankrupted and will not survive time and eternity.

Christian pragmatism

Warren’s assurances that his success is evidence of God’s blessing lead us into the realm of Christian pragmatism. Pragmatism is a philosophy that states that the “test of truth is usefulness of the idea.” In this philosophy, truth or falseness is determined by the results or consequences of an idea when it is implemented. In other words, if it works it is good. If it doesn’t it is wrong. Warren’s Christian pragmatism fits comfortably within the philosophy of humanism which was described at some length in Chapters 12 and 16.[6]

Warren absorbed his Christian pragmatism while he was a student missionary to Japan. During that time he was profoundly influenced by the writings of George McGavran (See Chapter 21) who challenged the conventional wisdom about what made churches grow.[7] Based on a series of studies conducted while McGavran was a missionary in India, he developed the concept of receptivity to measure the positive or negative response to the gospel among certain people groups. McGavran then proposed that areas of high receptivity were to receive priority in the assignment of missionaries and resources.[8]

As stated in Chapter 21, this was a dramatic change with regard to making disciples, the first part of the church’s mission as outlined in Matthew 28:18-20. By adopting McGavran’s pragmatism, many denominations and missions organizations now use sociological and demographic studies as the deciding factor in assigning personnel and resources. Ministers and missionaries once called and led by the Holy Spirit are now dependent on receptivity studies for direction. Carried a step farther, Christian pragmatism is used to select the means and methods to reach the masses. Also, such studies allow practitioners of modern Church Growth methods to better craft their sermons to address the felt needs of the people as opposed to seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit regarding the message to be preached.

Evangelical Christianity was introduced to pragmatism in the 1950s through the writings of McGavran.

We devise mission methods and policies in the light of what God has blessed—and what he has obviously not blessed. Industry calls this “modifying operation in light of feedback.”…If it doesn’t work to the glory of God and the extension of Christ’s church, throw it away and get something which does. As to methods we are fiercely pragmatic—doctrine is something else.[9] [emphasis added]

Warren paraphrased McGavran when he said, “Our job as church leaders…is to recognize a wave of God’s Spirit and ride it [and] get off dying waves whenever we sensed that God wanted to do something new.”[10] But Christian pragmatism is nothing more than a convenient way to attract a crowd with worldly, sinner-friendly methods and inevitably leads to doctrinal compromise and diminished biblical authority in a hostile culture. Warren and other Church Growth leaders will vehemently deny this assessment, but nevertheless it is the end result of his message and methods. Norman Vincent Peale’s practical Christianity and Robert Schuller’s possibility thinking were unquestionably products of Christian pragmatism. Warren’s focus on purpose-driven balance and seeker-sensitive message is merely the latest version.

Seven churches of Revelation – Unbalanced and therefore unhealthy

Warren states that the key issue for churches in the twenty-first century is church health and not growth. Growth is a byproduct of a healthy church. An unhealthy church occurs because it is out of balance. He says that church leaders are charged with the task of discovering and removing from their churches “growth-restricting diseases and barriers so that natural, normal growth can occur.” [emphasis added] Amazingly, Warren claims that, “Many of these diseases are illustrated and identified in the seven churches of Revelation. Health will occur when everything is brought back into balance.”[11] [emphasis added] This is an astoundingly conceited, brash, and foolish statement. The problem of five of the seven churches was sin and not a loss of balance in achieving the churches’ purposes. A closer examination of the condition of the seven Asian churches makes it abundantly clear that sin cannot be conquered through man’s efforts to achieve some sort of equilibrium or balance of the church’s five purposes.

In the first chapter of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, while in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, John was given a vision and instructed to write what he saw in a book and send it to seven churches in Asia. One by one, John recorded the revelation of each of their works (good and bad) and the condition of their heart.

Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7) A typical first century church, they had many great works and had labored and endured without growing weary. Their sin was that they had left their first love. It was not a matter of rejection but neglect. Fervency and zeal for Christ were no longer present and without which they were in jeopardy. Their only hope was repentance and doing their first works again.

Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-11) Best described as the persecuted church. They suffered tribulation, poverty, and slander. They were encouraged to not fear the coming suffering, imprisonment, and for some even death because a crown of life awaited the faithful.

Pergamos (Revelation 2:12-17) It was labeled as the church where Satan dwelled. This church mixed with the world. They were faithful in spirit but filthy in flesh. They communed with persons of corrupt principles and practices which brought guilt and blemish upon the whole body. When those corrupt members of a church are punished, so too will the whole church be punished if they allow such corruption to continue.

Thyatira (Revelation 2:18-29) Although commended for their charity, service, faith, and patience, evil progresses and idolatry was practiced in the church. The church contained unrepentant and wicked seducers who drew God’s servants into fornication and offering sacrifices to idols.

Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6) It was representative of the church that is dead or at the point of death even though it still had a minority of godly men and women. The great charge against this church was hypocrisy. It was not what it appeared to be. The ministry was languishing. There was a form of godliness but not the power.

Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13) It was a church of revival and spiritual progress. The church had proved itself faithful and obedient to the Word. As its name implies, it was a church of love and kindness to each other. Because of their excellent spirit, they were an excellent church. They kept the word and did not deny His name. No fault was attributed to the church, only mild reproof for having only a little strength or power.

Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-19) The worst of all of the seven Asian churches, Laodicea had nothing to commend it. Its great sin was that it was lukewarm—neither hot nor cold. Its indifference arose from self-conceitedness and self-delusion. It believed itself rich and in need of nothing but in reality was wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Christ reminded them of where true riches may be found, without which severe punishment would follow.[12]

The seven Asian churches found in Revelation were not the only first century Christian churches. However, they were selected by God to give a timeless example and caution for His people throughout the centuries to the end of the age.

Although the Laodicean church is a description of the final state of apostasy which the visible church will experience in the last days, the reality is that all of the sins of the Asian churches have been present throughout the church age and are particularly evident in many evangelical churches and especially in the Church Growth movement in America. Fervency and zeal for Christ are fading in many churches. As a result they have replaced their first love with human wisdom in their efforts at doing church. Because of an accommodation of the spirit of the world, Satan has been allowed to find a home in many churches. Although many are faithful in spirit, they are filthy in the flesh. They commune with persons of corrupt principles and practices and have brought guilt and blemish upon the whole body. Some churches deliberately ignore unrepentant and wicked seducers and idolaters in their midst. Others are clothed in hypocrisy and maintain only a form of Godliness but not the power. Lastly, many are lukewarm and indifferent which arises from self-conceit and self-delusion.

How utterly absurd for Warren to blithely claim that the “diseases” of the seven churches of Asia Minor were due to lack of balance and that their leaders need only to discover and remove “growth-restricting diseases and barriers so that natural, normal growth can occur.” No sound-minded, biblically-literate Christian can seriously believe that Warren’s prescriptions of a balance of purposes and application of culturally relevant methods of doing church can somehow rid itself of sin and the spirit of the world with which the church has wrestled for two thousand years.

It is the church’s modern mindset of the victimhood of man from which it began calling sin a “disease.” From this mindset, the church embraces the illusion that a healthy (balanced) church using the right man-created processes and methods can treat the disease of sin to which man has fallen victim. This deluded mindset is the end result of the therapeutic gospel’s message and methods. True church health is a result of repentance, turning from sin, obedience to biblical doctrines, and rejection of the spirit of the world.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing
House, 1995), p. 55.
[2] Ibid., pp. 80-81, 107.
[3] Ibid., pp. 149-150.
[4] Ibid., pp. 141, 143, 147, 148, 150.
[5] Ibid., pp. 46, 80-81.
[6] Ibid., p. 29.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Stephen Parker, Church Growth Crisis – The decline of Christianity in America, (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Forever Family Publications, 2011), p. 27.
[9] Marshall Davis, More Than A Purpose, (Enumclaw, Washington: Pleasant Word, 2006), pp. 96-97.
[10] Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, pp. 14-15.
[11] Ibid., pp. 16-17.
[12] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), pp. 1970-1974.

Rick Warren published The Purpose Driven Church in 1995. Preceding the title page were forty-one endorsements written by many well-known luminaries spanning both the evangelical and non-evangelical spectrums. These included pastors such as Adrian Rogers, Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church, Memphis, Tennessee; Jack Hayford, Pastor of The Church On The Way, Van Nuys, California; Robert H. Schuller, Pastor of The Chrystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, California; and Eddie Gibbs, Associate Rector of All Saints Parish, Beverly Hills, California. Denominational officials included Ken Hemphill, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Jim Henry, President of the Southern Baptist Convention; Henry J. Schmidt, President of Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary; Archibald Hart, Dean, School of Psychology, Fuller Seminary; Thom S. Rainer, Dean, Billy Graham School, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Elmer L. Towns, Dean, School of Religion, Liberty University; Jerry Falwell, Chancellor, Liberty University; and Bill Bright, President of Campus Crusade for Christ International. Also endorsing the book was Leonard Sweet, Dean of Drew Theological Seminary.[1] Sweet professes to be an evangelical but is leading supporter of the New Spirituality, aka “New Age Spirituality”. Sweet has distilled the pantheistic teachings of many New Age leaders into what he calls quantum spirituality which “bonds us to all creation as well as to other members of the human family.”[2]

Two decades after the book’s publication, many are seeing the damaging effects of the Purpose Driven model of doing church on American evangelicalism. How can this be when only twenty years earlier, many respected and doctrinally sound leaders in the evangelical church placed a glowing stamp of approval on Warren’s book and his methods? First, we must remember that in 1995, Rick Warren was a rising star in the evangelical world; however, he and his methods were not widely known throughout the evangelical church. Warren’s Saddleback Church was growing rapidly, but most Christian leaders had not delved beneath the surface of his philosophies and methods to determine what drove its growth. Second, it is a natural and common practice for well-known Christian leaders to give a “hand-up” to energetic young pastors that appeared to be destined for stardom. Robert Schuller had a similar “hand-up” from each of the leaders of the two broad currents of American evangelicalism. In 1957, internationally renowned Norman Vincent Peale preached from the top of a concession shack for Robert Schuller whose church was located in a drive-in movie theater.[3] In 1970, while Schuller’s was still in the earlier and less doctrinally-deviant days of his ministry, Billy Graham encouraged Schuller to go on television with his ministry.[4]

Growing up on a dairy farm, I was naturally an expert on the freshness of milk. There were two tests to determine if milk was “blinky” which meant that it was close to being soured. The first test was to smell the milk. Although it may not have smelled sour, there were occasions when it still seemed that there was something just not quite right about the milk. This called for a second test—the milk had to be tasted. Although the milk may not have soured, the taste test would determine if it was blinky. A mere sip could cause one’s eyes to blink because of its assault on the taste buds. Another reason for the use of the term “blink” arose in more superstitious times when one supposedly blinked under the gaze of an evil eye. In those less enlightened eras, evil influences also were believed to have caused milk to be bewitched or turned sour by witchcraft.[5]

Twenty years ago Rick Warren’s purpose driven message and methods were not well-known but had been newly explained in his 400 page book. For many the book had passed the smell. Yet, some perceived that there may be something not just quite right about Warren’s message and methods but were inclined to give him the benefit of a doubt. In other words, they didn’t want to judge Warren’s work without all the facts. It deserved a taste test.

Blinky milk is not served to drink, but it is not thrown out either. It is used for making breads, biscuits, and cornbread but must be cooked at high temperatures that eliminate potentially dangerous bacteria. Although passing the smell test, it is almost certain that many of those endorsing Warren’s book did not totally agree with his message and some of his methods but were willing to withhold final judgement until a taste test could be done. Like blinky milk, if Warren’s message and methods did not pass the taste test, perhaps there may still be some potential for good to come from Warren’s efforts. In addition to fresh milk and blinky milk, there is a third stage in which milk becomes curdled or soured. Curdled milk has not only separated, but the solids have settled to the bottom of the container as curds. Curdled milk is harmful to humans and cannot be consumed. It must be thrown out or fed to the livestock.

After twenty years, it has become obvious to many that the Purpose Driven Church model has changed the direction of the evangelical church in America. There are some good things that have come from portions of Warren and the Church Growth movement’s message and methods, but there has been preaching and innovations which over time have proven to be misinterpretations or misapplications of scripture. Warren and his Church Growth peers have roused a lethargic and disinterested evangelical church that since the 1960s has slumbered through or ignored the message of Christ’s great commission because of a hostile, humanistic culture. But in their zealous effort to make disciples, they have failed to understand that the mission is to the sinner and not the unchurched. Warren and his peers have also called attention to the needs of the hurting masses outside the walls of the local church. But in practice this has often become a retro-social gospel focused on social justice, poverty, and building an earthly kingdom instead of building His kingdom that is “not of this world.”

Far more grievous and disturbing than misinterpretation and misapplication of the scriptures, Warren and other Church Growth ministries have allowed into the evangelical church the spirit of the world and many heretical New Age philosophies. These philosophies have mixed with and curdled the sincere milk of His Word. But the Bible says, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby.” [1 Peter 2:2. KJV] To understand what the Bible means by sincere, one need only look at its synonyms: genuine, honest, truthful, and authentic. Real kingdom growth comes from no other source.

The Church Growth-Purpose Driven message offers many counterfeits of the Bible’s doctrines and teachings. A counterfeit may work for a while but doesn’t perform as well as the genuine article. Over time defects appear that are not covered by a guarantee from its maker. The once-valued diamond and gold-plated ring is found to be merely a bit of glass mounted on a gold-toned band. The knife made of cheap metal quickly loses it edge. A cheap imitation of a hardened-steel wrench can’t stand the pull of the mechanic. But counterfeits are not only defective and disappoint, they can be life-threatening. So it is with the Christian whose eternal life with God is threatened by New Age counterfeits of biblical doctrines and teachings. It is in this area that the efforts of Warren and many others in the Church Growth movement have caused the greatest concerns. Because of the curdling effect of New Age poisons which have been mixed with the biblical message in many evangelical churches, the Church Growth-Purpose Driven message has greatly weakened or destroyed the integrity and effectiveness of those churches that have embraced its message.

The full title of Warren’s book is The Purpose Driven Church – Growth Without Compromising Your Message or Mission. But after much research and in light of the examinations and conclusions discussed in previous chapters, it is this author’s considered belief that Warren has compromised and damaged the mission of the church through misinterpretation and misapplication of scripture. Additionally, Warren’s strong associations and interactions with leaders of false religions and his associations with and endorsement of New Age leaders and their books have damaged the integrity of the church and given cultural legitimacy to the enemies of Christ and the church.

The statements of the author should not be taken at face value. Rather, the reader must do his own taste test of the Church Growth-Purpose Driven message and methods which will be conducted over the next several chapters. In performing this test we must follow the example of the Bereans and not the Thessalonian Jews. Acts 17:1-9 describes Paul and Silas’ days in Thessalonica. As was his custom, Paul went to the synagogue and for three weeks argued with the Jews from the scriptures that it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead. A great many were persuaded—some Jews, some Greeks, and not a few of the leading women. But other Jews who were jealous of Paul incited the wicked rabble rousers, gathered a crowd, and created havoc in the city. They eventually attacked the home of Jason, Paul’s host. The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away for their own safety. They went to Berea and again to the synagogue.

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few. But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people. [Acts 17:11-13. KJV] [emphasis added]

The Bereans did not uncritically accept what Paul preached to them but checked Paul’s message against the scriptures. In the next several chapters the philosophy, tenets, practices, and methods of the Church Growth movement as preached and practiced by Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and other Church Growth leaders will be examined in the light and context of the scriptures as has already been done with regard to the ministries of Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller.

This is not about Warren and Hybels. It appears that, like Peale and Schuller before them, they are sincere, good, and caring men with personal integrity and a professed love for God, but those things are for God to judge. However, the Bible tells us to beware of many seemingly well-intentioned men and women who for a variety of reasons bring heresy into the church and cause multitudes to go to hell for want of a truthful witness. We cannot beware unless we are aware of those coming to us with pleasing words but peddling a blinky or curdled message.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. [Matthew 7:15-23. KJV]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), pp. 1-4 (unnumbered).
[2] Warren B. Smith, A “Wonderful” Deception, (Magalia, California: Mountain Stream Press, 2011), pp. 103-104.
[3] George Mair, A Life With Purpose, (New York: Berkeley Books, 2005), p. 108.
[4] Robert H. Schuller, My Journey, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), p. 293.
[5] “blinky,” Word Wizard. http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18809 (accessed November 2, 2015).

Rick Warren is a fourth-generation preacher. His great-grandfather came to Christ in Charles Spurgeon’s church in England. Following training in Spurgeon’s college, Spurgeon sent him to America to become a circuit-riding preacher. Warren’s father was a lay-preacher who specialized in planting and (literally) building churches. Born in 1954, Warren spent most of his growing-up years in Redwood Valley, California, where during his teenage years aspired to be a guitar-playing rock star. While working at a Christian summer camp in 1970 just before beginning his junior year in high school, Warren began thinking that perhaps God wanted him to be a preacher. In 1972 he entered California Baptist University in Riverside and held many revivals and crusades throughout California during his college years.[1]

In 1973 Warren traveled to San Francisco to hear W. A. Criswell speak at a conference. Criswell was the pastor at the First Baptist Church of Dallas which at that time was the largest Baptist Church in the world. Warren met Criswell and cherishes the memory of his laying hands on Warren and praying that God would bless him.[2]

Warren married Kay Lewis in 1975, and upon graduation together in 1977, they moved to Fort Worth, Texas, to attend Southwestern Theological Seminary where he earned a doctorate in December 1979. During the summer before his final classes were to be completed in December, they had decided to plant a new church in California. They left Texas and arrived in Orange County’s Saddleback Valley on January 2, 1980.[3]

Robert Schuller and Rick Warren

Before their move, Rick and Kay Warren made one other trip to California in 1979 to attend one of Robert Schuller’s Institute for Church Growth seminars. Before going, Kay Warren was skeptical about Schuller’s non-traditional approach to ministry. But after arriving, she stated that Schuller won them over. “He (Schuller) had a profound influence on Rick. We were captivated by his positive appeal to nonbelievers. I never looked back.”[4] In later years Warren claimed the so-called “profound influence” referred only to Schuller’s creative ways in building a nontraditional church and some of Schuller’s statements about the unchurched. Warren repeatedly denies that the “profound influence” included being influenced by Schuller’s doctrinal teachings. Warren admits that he spoke at Schuller’s Institute three times. The first was to give his testimony in 1984/1985. The next two engagements dealt with church growth, but Warren stresses that he did not preach nor speak at any of the Crystal Cathedral’s weekend services. But in 1991 at the invitation of Schuller, the Warrens gave their testimony at a Sunday morning service at the Cathedral.[5]

Schuller and Warren would have other contacts over the years. In 1991, Schuller birthed the idea and helped found a coalition of major Protestant churches to provide food for the Russian people living in near-famine conditions. Schuller’s idea became the Churches United in Global Mission (CUGM) which sent eleven thousand food packages to Moscow which was followed by a second shipment in March 1992.[6] Warren served on the CUGM Council along with many other prominent church leaders.

In 1995, Schuller wrote a laudatory endorsement of The Purpose Driven Church.

I’m praying that every pastor will read this book, believe it, be prepared to stand corrected by it, and change to match its sound, scriptural wisdom. Rick Warren is one all of us should listen to and learn from.[7]

Warren breaks with Schuller

Warren’s biographer claimed that Schuller had always been supportive of Warren and that the mutual respect that each man had for the other was exhibited through numerous friendly conversations and expressions of best wishes. But on Warren’s side of the relationship, something happened to sour the friendship between Schuller’s 1995 endorsement and Warren’s open break with Schuller in 1998. Warren’s biographer described Warren’s professed reason for the break.

But by the late 1990s, Warren had begun to notice that something was amiss at Schuller’s church. As he told me, “I got a bunch of information about him, and then I also started seeing him have all kinds of nonbelievers speaking at this church.” Then, Schuller had bestselling author Stephen Covey—a Mormon—speak at his church. This shocked Warren: “I thought, This isn’t right. How am I supposed to explain to all the ex-Mormons in my congregation why in the world Schuller has a Mormon up there talking?”[8] [emphasis in original]

The 1998 break with Schuller began with Warren’s resignation from the CUGM Council. “I must resign from the CUGM Council, I am afraid that the Crystal Cathedral’s ministry is going in a very different direction than Saddleback Church”[9]

When the break came, it had been nineteen years since Warren first attended Schuller’s church growth conference in 1979. Warren had spoken at three subsequent conferences and at the Crystal Cathedral in 1991. He also served on Schuller’s CUGM Council until 1998. Warren claims that the break with Schuller occurred because he had been noticing something “amiss” at Schuller’s church, had gotten “a bunch of information” about Schuller, started seeing many non-believers speaking at his church, and finally was “shocked” to find a Mormon had spoken at Schuller’s church. Had Schuller’s doctrines, actions, and church really changed that much and had “gone in a different direction than Saddleback Church” in a short span of time between the book endorsement in 1995 and the break 1998? Either Schuller had made a remarkably fast divergence from what Warren viewed as sound doctrine or Rick Warren was exceedingly disingenuous in denying that he had an earlier understanding of Schuller’s suspect theology. In either case, Warren was guilty of being incredibly naïve or lacking in even the smallest degree of spiritual discernment as to Schuller’s doctrinal positions given their long friendship and interaction. This raises the question as to the real reason for the 1998 break.

Schuller’s connections with various New Age spokesmen and promoters were well known before the 1980s and prior to Warren’s 1979 attendance at Schuller’s Church Growth school. One example was Schuller’s widely known and publicized association with prominent psychiatrist Gerald Jampolsky, a well-known teacher and practitioner of the New Age based “A Course in Miracles.” Jampolsky appeared on Schuller’s Hour of Power television broadcast on several occasions where Schuller introduced him as a fellow Christian. Jampolsky claims that his own spiritual awakening came as the result of an encounter with Indian guru Swami Baba Muktananda.[10] It is undeniable that the foundational teachings of “A Course on Miracles” are New Age and pantheistic in origin.

• The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.
• When God Created you He made you part of Him.
• There is no sin; it has no consequence.
• For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognized.
• The journey to the cross should be the last “useless” journey.[11]

In his 1982 book, Self Esteem-The New Reformation, Schuller praised Jampolsky for his “profound theology.”

I am indebted to Dr. Gerald Jampolsky, a guest on our “Hour of Power,” for helping me to see what is not only great psychology, but is profound theology. Obviously, there can be no conflict in truth—when psychology is “right on” and theology is “right on,” there will be harmony and both shall be led to higher levels of enlightenment.[12]

Also obvious is that Schuller had no problems with Jampolsky’s “A Course in Miracles” theology and its New Age-pantheistic teachings. In 1985, “A Course in Miracles” study groups were meeting in Crystal Cathedral classrooms at the same time as evangelical ministers were being taught the principles of Church Growth at Schuller’s Institute for Successful Church Leadership. It also must be remembered that Warren was first invited to speak at the Institute in 1984/1985.[13] Schuller’s involvement with Jampolsky and his New Age beliefs was a long and public association covering a quarter of a century from his first appearance on the Hour of Power before 1982 to after an appearance on October 2004.[14]

A second example of Schuller’s involvement with New Age teachers is his connection with well-known surgeon Bernie Siegel who worked with the terminally ill. In Love, Medicine, and Miracles, Siegel wrote that he had an “inner guide” named George who helped him with his work. George was a bearded, long-haired young man who Siegel claims to have met while in a session of directed meditation. Siegel was on the board of Jampolsky’s Attitudinal Healing Centers and had endorsed “A Course in Miracles.” The opening page of Schuller’s 1995 Prayer: My Soul’s Adventure With God included Siegel’s warm endorsement of the book which Siegel said “…reaches beyond religion and information to what we all need—spirituality, inspiration, and understanding.” Writing in The Purpose Driven Life in 2002, Warren also quoted and praised Siegel as “one who has found the true purpose of life.”[15]

The Ken Blanchard Episode

Rick Warren also had his own entanglements with New Age advocates. One such occurred in 2003 when Warren introduced his 5-step-Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan in which Saddleback Church would focus on “…bringing a blessing to the entire world” through Planting churches, Equipping Leaders, Assisting the poor, Curing the sick, Educating the next generation.[16] To accomplish the “E” or equipping leaders step, Warren solicited help from two well-known authors, one of whom was Ken Blanchard, famous author of The One Minute Manager and founder of Lead Like Jesus. According to Warren, Blanchard would be “helping train us in leadership and how to train others to be leaders all around the world.” Warren called Blanchard a fellow Christian, and Blanchard himself pointed to people like Norman Vincent Peale and Bill Hybels who were instrumental in helping him turn his life over to the Lord in 1987-1988.[17]

But something Warren did not tell his congregation was that Blanchard was undeniably a New Age sympathizer and had endorsed and written the forewards to many New Age books in the years following the claimed turning of his life over to the Lord. As the P.E.A.C.E. Plan was being implemented and publicized over the next two years, Blanchard’s involvement as Warren’s go-to guy for training leaders became more widely known and some in the evangelical community began questioning Warren’s involvement with Blanchard and his New Age leanings.[18] Even after being publicly made aware of Blanchard’s New Age beliefs and endorsements, Warren attempted to separate Blanchard’s past from his current efforts on behalf of Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan.

Ken is a new believer—a new creature in Christ. He should not be held accountable for statements or endorsements he made before he became a Christian. And he’s just learning now.[19]

Warren’s defense contradicts Blanchard’s own statements that were known to Warren. Two weeks after Warren had introduced his plan to the Saddleback congregation in November 2003, he appeared with Blanchard at a Lead Like Jesus celebration and listened as Blanchard described how he became a Christian fifteen years earlier.[20]

In 1998, Warren had sought to distance himself and the Purpose Driven movement from Schuller and his obvious connections to the New Age. Now, through Warren’s own decisions and efforts to advance his P.E.A.C.E. Plan, he had once again linked the Purpose Driven movement with New Age leaders and their doctrines just as Schuller had done throughout his ministry. Schuller remained unapologetic and true to his beliefs. However, for Warren it was imperative that his claimed evangelical and doctrinal credentials remain spotless and not thought of as compromising the message and mission of the church.

Before The Purpose Driven Church exploded in popularity following its publication in 1995, Rick Warren was just another Church Growth guy who had been successful at building a mega church. But now he ascended to a new level and became the mega-star spokesman for the Church Growth movement. His every word and action would be open to scrutiny. Within three years after his book’s publication, it becomes apparent that Warren’s long association with Schuller and his blatant New Age beliefs and doctrines would damage Warren and the Purpose Driven movement. Thereafter, he sought to distant himself from Schuller.

Five years later Warren’s association with Ken Blanchard was but one of a series of events and issues that called attention to a much larger threat to his Purpose Driven empire. These events were being described in several books published in 2004-2005 which forcefully and accurately described the Purpose Driven movement’s connection with the New Age. Not all of the books were critical of Warren and the Purpose Driven movement.

The Most Inspiring Pastor of Our Time

There are many stories of famous people who have had their portraits painted but wish to destroy the finished canvas because it reveals something beyond the outward likeness. Even if the likeness is astonishingly accurate, the sum total of the painter’s efforts, unconsciously perhaps, may reveal an unflattering characteristic or nature of the subject.

As an author, George Mair had this same experience but in book form. Mair is an author of numerous books, a syndicated newspaper columnist, radio talk show host, and broadcaster. While attending Saddleback Church for over two years, he wrote a highly flattering biography published in 2005 and titled A Life With Purpose – Reverend Rick Warren – The Most Inspiring Pastor of Our Time. Good biographers attempt to give perspective by placing the life of the subject in the flow of events, interaction with his contemporaries, and amidst the history of the times. Mair did this in his biography of Warren by talking about the church in America, the Church Growth movement, the influences of Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller, the New Paradigm Church, and modern religion in America.[21] Upon completion and before the book went to press, Mair claims to have contacted Saddleback’s “chief attorney.” Mair stated that he had wanted the manuscript to be made available to Warren for review. After waiting several months and receiving no response from the attorney, the book was published by Berkeley Books, a subsidiary of the Penguin Group.[22]

Shortly after Mair’s book was released, Lighthouse Trails Press picked up on the association of Warren with Ken Blanchard. On April 19th 2005, Lighthouse Trails issued a press release that raised serious questions about the wisdom of Warren’s association with Ken Blanchard and its New Age implications. On May 31, Warren emailed Lighthouse Trails and expressed his great displeasure with their April 19th email in particular and George Mair and his book in general.[23] Within a few hours, Richard Abanes, Warren’s soon-to-be new biographer and apologist, had posted Warren’s email on the Internet. What followed was a campaign by Warren and his associates to discredit his critics, and George Mair became the target of the massive Purpose Driven forces. Although Mair had attended Saddleback for two years, Warren’s now public email was a surprising and brutal blow to Mair.

George Mair, an unbeliever, evidently wanted to make a quick buck turning out a book on me, at the peak of the popularity of The Purpose Driven Life…Since he is not even born again, he certainly wouldn’t understand theology, what I believe, or even the basics of our ministry.[24]

Warren’s critics answered

Immediately, Warren turned to a former staff member of his church to write a book addressing the claims of his critics. The small 142-page Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him – An Insider Looks at the Phenomenal Bestseller was written by Richard Abanes and published before the end of the year. In reality, the book was not about Warren’s best sellers but a defense of Warren and the Purpose Driven movement as shown by the single endorsement at the front of the book.

Abanes has done a great service by setting the record straight on Rick Warren and Saddleback. Warren has a strong commitment to the core doctrines of the Christian faith and an unmistakable passion for reaching the lost, equipping pastors, and strengthening local churches. “Purpose-driven” is not New Age, it’s New Testament.” James K. Walker, President, Watchman Fellowship, Inc.[25]

In his 1998, Warren supposedly learned a “bunch of information” about his long-time friend and who had been having a number of non-Christians speak at his church. Nothing was said about the New Age influences that had been evident for many years. However, the endorsement on the very first page of Abanes’ book revealed the real reason for Warren’s break with Schuller—fear that the Purpose Driven message would be associated with Schuller’s strong links to the New Age. But by 2005, those New Age influences on the doctrines and methods of the Purpose Driven movement could no longer be hidden as several books were published which documented those New Age associations.

The concerns about the teachings of the Purpose Driven movement extend far beyond infiltration of New Age and Eastern religions’ teachings and practices into evangelical churches. But the greatest threat remains the influence of the Purpose Driven movement’s humanistic worldviews on the leadership of many evangelical churches in America.
______

In Chapter 3, it was noted that the enormous importance of doctrine (dogma, creed, belief, principles, and teachings) can be seen throughout the 2000 year history of the Christian church. Warren also recognizes the importance of doctrine as he keeps reminding us of his reverence for the unchanging doctrines of the Christian faith. However, Warren is highly sensitive and resentful when there is a thoughtful examination, comparison, or criticism of the teachings and methods of The Purpose Driven Church, and he and his defenders are prone to attack the character and Christianity of professed fellow Christians who attempt to do so. This is not a biblical approach because the scripture tells us that we should compare spiritual things with spiritual things [See: 1 Corinthians 2:12-13] This we shall do over the next several chapters with regard to the teachings and methods of The Purpose Driven Church.

This is not about Rick Warren but the biblical soundness of his Purpose Driven movement. It is vastly important that Christians make this examination because of Warren’s tremendous influence upon American evangelicalism and the importance and influence of those same American evangelicals on the rest of the world’s Christian churches.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Richard Abanes, Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him, (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2005), pp. 36-38, 40, 46.
[2] Ibid., p. 40-41.
[3] Ibid., p. 41, 45-46.
[4] Warren Smith, Deceived On Purpose, Second Edition, (Magalia, California: Mountain Stream Press, 2004), pp. 103-104.
[5] Abanes, Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him, pp. 100-102.
[6] Robert Schuller, My Journey, (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), p. 264.
[7] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), p. 3 (unnumbered).
[8] Ibid., p. 102.
[9] Abanes, Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him, pp. 102-103.
[10] Marshall Davis, More than a Purpose, (Enumclaw, Washington: Pleasant Word, 2006), p. 154.
[11] Warren B. Smith, Deceived On Purpose, pp. 88-89.
[12] Robert H. Schuller, Self Esteem-The New Reformation, (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1982), p. 123.
[13] Warren B. Smith, A Wonderful Deception, (Magalia, California: Mountain Stream Press, 2004), p. 28.
[14] Smith, Deceived On Purpose, pp. 97-98.
[15] Davis, p. 155.
[16] George Mair, A Life With Purpose, (New York: Berkeley Books, 2005), pp. 186, 190-194.
[17] Smith, A Wonderful Deception, pp. 52-54.
[18] Ibid., p. 55.
[19] Ibid., p. 61.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Mair, p. iii (unnumbered).
[22] Smith, A Wonderful Deception, p. 68.
[23] Ibid., pp. 55, 59.
[24] Ibid., p. 60.
[25] Abanes, p. 1 (unnumbered).

In his flattering 2005 biography of Rick Warren, George Mair identified the principal founders of the Church Growth movement: C. Donald McGavran, Gilbert Bilezikian, and Robert Schuller. The son of two missionaries, McGavran was born in India in 1897. While serving as a missionary to India, McGavran studied 145 churches between 1938 and 1955 to discover why some churches grow very slowly.[1] From these studies he developed the concept of receptivity to measure the positive or negative response to the gospel among certain people groups. McGavran then proposed that areas of high receptivity were to receive priority in the assignment of missionaries and resources.[2]

This was a dramatic change with regard to making disciples, the first part of the church’s mission as outlined in Matthew 28:18-20. Missionaries are called by the Holy Spirit and most are also led by the Holy Spirit with regard to which countries and areas they were to go. Now, the deciding factors for many denominations and missions organizations are dependent on sociological and demographic studies. Receptivity studies not only identify receptivity but also allow modern Church Growth practitioners to better craft their sermons to address the felt needs of the people as opposed seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit regarding the message to be preached.

Gilbert Bilezikian was born in Paris, France, and grew up under the Nazis just before World War II. He immigrated to the United States in 1961 and became a minister and teacher at Wheaton College where he developed his thoughts on building mega churches through small groups and a strong emphasis on servant ministries.[3] Both concepts have merit when used and practiced correctly. But the Church Growth movement has misused these natural biblical practices as an integral part in achieving their quest for success in church growth. As a result the Church Growth model’s hyper-organized and structured methods and focus comes at the expense of other aspects of the church and its purpose. Church life tends to become fragmented, misdirected, and regimented to such an extent that it becomes a new version of the liberal social gospel.

Norman Vincent Peale was the inspiration for the modern Church Growth movement, and he developed much of its theology and pioneered many of its practices. Robert Schuller was perhaps Peale’s greatest admirer and practitioner of Peale’s methods. However, it was Schuller that is widely considered to be the father of the Church Growth phenomenon. Schuller was the great popularizer and evangelist for the movement. Although other mega churches predated Schuller’s church, he was the first national voice, evangelist, and teacher for the Church Growth movement.[4]

Robert Schuller was born on September 26, 1926 to poor parents on a remote farm in Sioux County located in Iowa’s northwest corner near the Minnesota and South Dakota borders. Of Dutch ancestry and living in a Dutch colony, the Schullers attended the local Dutch Reformed church. In 1943 Robert attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Upon graduation, he enrolled in Western Theological Seminary located across the street from Hope. Hope and Western were both Calvinist in orientation and affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. In 1950 Schuller graduated from seminary with a bachelor of divinity degree, married Arvella DeHaan, a young lady from a farm near his boyhood home, and moved to his first pastorate in Chicago.[5]

In 1955, upon an invitation from church elders, he moved from Chicago to start a new work in Orange County, California. He began by renting a drive-in movie theatre for $10 per Sunday. He preached from the top of the tar-paper covered concession shack to his audience sitting in their cars. Garden Grove Community Church founded in a drive-in soon relocated to nearby land where the famed Crystal Cathedral was eventually built and dedicated twenty-five years later.[6]

Two books profoundly impacted Schuller’s theological views and his preaching style: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. The message of these books transformed his ministry, and he began to “preach positive.” But more than the books, it was Peale himself who would have the greatest impact on Schuller’s life. Perhaps on impulse, Schuller invited Peale to fly to California and preach at his fledgling drive-in church. Schuller and much of the religious community were stunned when the internationally known Peale accepted. On June 30, 1957, standing next to Schuller on the roof of the concession stand shack, Peale delivered his trademark message of positivity. Schuller closely patterned his message and style to that of Peale. Peale’s “positive thinking” became Schuller’s “possibility thinking.”[7]

Schuller’s interest in wrapping the gospel in a positive message began in the late 1940s while at seminary. For his bachelor of divinity thesis, he chose to write the first topical and scriptural index of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin was a powerful force in the Reformation and founded the Reformed Church. Schuller recalled that in writing his thesis he first encountered the conflicting positive and negative interpretations of scripture. Schuller believed that Calvin’s “total depravity” of man had been dangerously misinterpreted by negative extremists who used it to cause “a strong, guilt-generating, humiliating consciousness of ‘sin’.”[8] In the course of his discussions about his belief, one professor counseled Schuller with these words.

There’s much good in many if not all humans. Every human needs help in dealing with life’s negative realities. Sin, evil, selfishness, injustice—these are life’s realities. So man isn’t totally depraved, but he’s totally incapable of saving himself from these realities! Every person needs the divine forgiveness and grace that only God can offer—and that He generously offers to all.[9]

But Schuller eventually developed his own interpretation of Calvin’s theology of sin.

I would come to define sin as primarily a condition rather than an action (though that condition is often revealed in action); an inborn absence of faith more than a turning from faith. As a result of these conclusions, I deduced that if I focused not on generating guilt, but on generating trust and positive hope, I would be preaching against sin via a creative, redemptive approach. Then I would be preaching the “Good News”…Eventually they [Schuller’s conclusions] would lead me to emphasize that we’re “saved” not just to avoid “hell” (whatever that means and wherever that is), but to become positive thinkers inspired to seek God’s will for our lives and dream the divine dreams that God has planned for us. We are “saved” so that we can go on to do good works and thus truly learn to live our lives for the glory of God. This to me was an exciting, proactive approach to the problem of sin—and it became the basis for my possibility thinking message…[10] [emphasis in original]

Here we find the bones of Schuller’s possibility thinking that also mirrored Peale’s practical Christianity. As Schuller fleshed-out those bones of possibility thinking, it embodied what was to beome the philosophy and teachings of the fully-formed Church Growth movement. Inborn sin is a condition to be dealt with therapeutically as opposed to an action requiring repentance and a turning from sin. The act of faith itself absolves sin without the necessity of an ongoing faith walk—a daily dying to self and sin. The purpose for one’s salvation is to do good works rather than having a right relationship with God. Therefore, hell is minimized or ignored altogether. Positivism emphasizes divine dreams in this life as opposed to man’s eternal destination. Through reason, methods, techniques, and pandering to self, man can proactively overcome sin whereas Schuller’s professor saw the need of every person is “divine forgiveness and grace that only God can offer.”

Essentially, the theology of Robert Schuller was centered on the self whereas the great themes of the Bible are about man’s relationship with God. Just how far Schuller’s theology of self had evolved since his seminary years is evident from Schuller’s 1982 book Self Esteem-The New Reformation.

A major world problem since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 is that Christian thinkers have not formulated a well-rounded, full-orbed, honestly integrated systematic theological system. What we need now is an integrated systematic theology that will allow for a naturally evolving, noncontrived, and nonmanipulated spawning of second generation theological positions. The evolving theologies must reveal (not contrive) viable, nonvariable principles relating human problems beyond the salvation of a solitary immortal soul.

I contend that most, if not all, of the social, political, and religious problems facing our world reflect theological defects. The imperfect theology of the Protestant Reformation was really interested primarily in the “salvation of shameful, sinful, wicked, rebellious souls from eternal hellfire.” Salvation was offered, very correctly, by divine grace, not by human works. When our theology started with the salvation of a human commodity called “a soul” from “hellfire,” we found ourselves sincerely unable to relate that doctrine of salvation to other human conditions that demanded theological answers.[11]

Schuller believed the church should understand and be committed to meeting the deepest felt needs of human beings. He was correct in saying that the deepest of all human needs is salvation from sin and hell. However, he defines sin as, “Any human condition or act that robs God of glory by stripping one of his children of their right to divine dignity.” He elaborates by saying, “Sin is any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self-esteem.” He further describes “hell” as the “…loss of pride that naturally follows separation from God—the ultimate and unfailing source of our soul’s sense of self-respect.”[12] Schuller has said self-esteem is “pride in being human” and is the “single greatest need facing the human race today…When a human being’s self-esteem is stimulated and sustained…in a redemptive relationship with Christ, we are truly saved from sin and hell.”[13]

What Schuller was saying is that man is saved from sin and hell through self-esteem and pride in being human. But if by a redemptive relationship he means that man was saved through the atoning work of Christ, Schuller cannot at the same time mean that man was saved through stimulating and sustaining his self-esteem and having pride in being human.

In an attempt to distinguish between what Schuller called theological positivism and theological negativism, he contrasted the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. He said that, “Paul railed against sin, but if you read your New Testament as I did, you’ll see that Christ never called anyone a sinner. His ministry was the teaching of peace, love, and joy.”[14] Based on his belief that the style and content of Christ’s preaching and teaching were superior to Paul’s, Schuller has undeniably implied that some portions of the scripture are more inspired, more infallible, more reliable, and more truthful than other portions. But the Paul said, “All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” [2 Timothy 3:16. KJV] Perhaps if Christ had said these words instead of Paul, Schuller could have accepted the so-called negative theology of doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.

How does Schuller reconcile his beliefs that contradict the Bible? Schuller claims that the Eternal Word transcends the written Word, and that, “Christ is the Word made flesh. Christ is the Lord over the Scriptures; the Scriptures are not Lord over Christ.” He states that biblical inerrancy is not the most critical issue facing Christianity but a distraction from a higher, healthier issue: the Lordship of Jesus Christ…So Christ must be accepted as Lord over the Scriptures.”[15] But the Bible, the written Word, tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [John 1:1. KJV] Said another way, the Triune God is the Word, and God cannot be higher than Himself.

Schuller prescribes an evolving, second generation theology that goes beyond salvation to supply answers to “other human conditions.” In spite of his assertion that salvation comes by divine grace and not human works, he immediately prescribes an evolving theology dependent on the works of man.

Schuller’s doctrinal heresies are legion throughout his many books. Schuller’s claims and prescriptions are amazing if not breathtaking for most Christians and especially students of the Bible. The Protestant Reformation was centered on the authority of the scriptures alone and that men are saved by faith in Christ alone. Schuller’s call for a new Reformation sweeps all of that aside as he essentially questions the sufficiency of the Bible to answer the basic questions of life and the power of the atoning blood of Christ for the salvation of man.

Schuller’s call for a New Reformation has been echoed by other leaders in the Church Growth movement. As one reads and researches the teachings and theology of the leaders of the Church Growth movement and their respective churches, it becomes very evident that Robert Schuller’s beliefs have heavily leavened their doctrines, teachings, practices, and techniques. This has occurred not only through his many widely-read books but especially through the Robert Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership.

In 1969, Schuller began teaching other ministers his Church Growth concepts through a series of lectures at the Institute. He taught that big churches were better at winning lost people. Small churches were better at serving the churched members and denominational purposes. His message was that regardless of the denomination, his methods could be applied and church growth would follow. He encouraged churches to drop denominational labels and call themselves community churches. Services, sermons, and activities were to be programmed to appeal to the spiritual needs of the unchurched. “Mission theology doesn’t begin with ‘good’ believers teaching ‘bad’ unbelievers how sinful they are!…What they need to learn from us is that we can and will help them by introducing them to Jesus Christ. He will then lead them in becoming persons of positive-thinking faith, hope, and love!”[16]

Many insist that if Robert Schuller’s methods for building mega churches work, they must be approved by God. Certainly, his methods have worked in many churches. His success and that of his students in building mega churches is not disputed.

*Bill Hybels – Willow Creek Community Church, Illinois
*Rick Warren – Saddleback Community Church, California
*Bishop Charles Blake – West Los Angeles Church of God in Christ, California (one of the largest black churches in the world)
*Frank Harrington – Peachtree Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia (largest Presbyterian Church in America)
*Sundo Kim – First Methodist Church, Seoul, Korea (largest Methodist Church in the world)[17]

By many standards, the Church Growth movement has been wildly successful. But the doctrinal underpinnings and methods of Peale’s practical Christianity, Schuller’s positivity thinking, and the philosophies and teachings of many mega church pastors such Bill Hybels and Rick Warren are heretical in many respects. These deviations from sound biblical doctrines and practices will be examined in some detail in the following chapters.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] George Mair, A Life With Purpose, (New York: Berkeley Books, 2005), pp. 65, 101.
[2] Stephen Parker, Church Growth Crisis – The decline of Christianity in America, (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Forever Family Publications, 2011), p. 27.
[3] Mair, p. 103.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Robert H. Schuller, My Journey, (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), pp. 3, 6-7, 125-126, 147.
[6] Mair, p. 106-107.
[7] Ibid., pp. 106, 108.
[8] Schuller, My Journey, p. 126-127.
[9] Ibid, p. 127.
[10] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
[11] Robert H. Schuller, Self Esteem – The New Reformation, (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1982), pp. 145-146.
[12] Ibid., pp. 13-14.
[13] Ibid., pp. 19-20.
[14] Schuller, My Journey, p. 126.
[15] Schuller, Self-Esteem – The New Reformation, p. 45.
[16] Schuller, My Journey, pp. 291-292.
[17] Ibid., p. 472.

Norman Vincent Peale and the Church Growth movement

Norman Vincent Peale’s practical Christianity is often credited with being the forerunner of the of the modern Church Growth movement. The popularization of his philosophy and methods was left to a later generation. Peale’s philosophy and methods grew out of his wholehearted belief in the humanistic concept of the perfectibility of man.[1] As seen in the previous two chapters, Peale’s theology was heavily imbued with his belief that through his own efforts man could improve his life and overcome life’s obstacles either through self-realization or through getting in touch with the god within. Although he believed in the perfectibility of man, Peale’s ministry was focused on discipling rather than perfecting members. He believed that people should be brought into membership “in anticipation that education would subsequently reveal to them the fuller implications of a richer, more self-conscious faith.”[2]

The major focus of Peale’s ministry was winning members. This involved door-to-door canvasing, use of various advertising techniques, weekly radio broadcasts of his sermons, rented auditoriums for special services, and adoption of other business techniques to further church development. Sunday services were planned to perfection. His messages were upbeat, theologically liberal, inspirational, and sprinkled with references to Emerson and the social environment. Although altar calls gradually disappeared, the message continued to point to the transforming result of a personal relationship with Jesus and the church.[3] For Peale, it is apparent that his listeners were to find that personal relationship, “a richer, more self-conscious faith,” through education as opposed to repentance and forgiveness of sin at an altar.

Church Growth movement and the mission of the church

Christ said at the time of his ascension forty days after His resurrection, “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always to the close of the age.” [Matthew 28:19-20. RSV] There are three parts: evangelism, baptism, and teaching. Evangelism is making disciples through preaching (and witnessing) the gospel of Christ. Baptism is a public statement that one accepted Christ as his savior and has surrendered his life to Christ. Teaching is follow-up which is accomplished by preaching, teaching, and worship.

Disciples are not made by the effort of evangelism but by the Word of God. Evangelism is the tool or means of delivering the life transforming message (good news) of Jesus Christ. But at some point in the mid-twentieth century there arose a belief that the original biblical concept of evangelism could be improved upon. New methodologies and strategies were developed to sharpen the tool of evangelism in making disciples for Christ. This came to be known as the Church Growth movement. It is not a single group, organization or denomination but a set of ideologies that have been adopted by the majority of evangelical churches in America.[4] This ecumenicalism is possible because the churches and ministers who subscribed to the Church Growth movement are interested in methodologies and strategies for accomplishing the mission of the church as opposed to doctrine. Their message is that a church can adopt Church Growth methods and practices to grow their individual churches while keeping their doctrines. This sounds good, but a closer look reveals the devil is in the details.

Paul told the Corinthians that it was the gospel by which they were saved (See 1 Corinthians 15:1-2). But when the Church Growth movement attempted to sharpen the tool of evangelism, it fundamentally changed its focus from delivering the transforming power of the Word to growing the church through human efforts.[5] This resulted in a major change in definition of the mission of the church from making disciples to growing the church.

Defenders of the Church Growth methods and strategies may claim this distinction is merely a matter of semantics—that the end result of growing the church is the same as making disciples. This is not so. Recall what happened to the early church in the fourth century (See Chapter 3). Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire and became the professed religion of Emperor Constantine. Christianity was now seen as the avenue to material, military, political, and social success. Thousands joined the church, but many were Christians in name only as the narrow gate was made wide which allowed a flood of corruptions to flow into the church.[6]

A second defense by the advocates of the Church Growth movement is that their methods are effective in attracting people to their churches so that the gospel can be delivered and people can be saved, baptized, and taught. They cite impressive numbers with regard to membership, attendance, and participation in various church activities to prove the effectiveness of their methods and strategies. But in the final accounting of a person’s life, it is not their church attendance, membership, or participation that determines their eternal destiny.

The problem with many churches using Church Growth methods and strategies is that it is often accompanied by preaching that is watered-down, incomplete, or inaccurate. Christ’s call to a death to self and sin at the foot of the cross is often masked by feel-good messages of love and forgiveness with little or no cost and without a call to holiness. As a result, the lives and lifestyles of many Church Growth “converts” bear little evidence of change or conformance to the teachings of Christ. Many seekers falling into the all-inclusive nets of churches following the Church Growth model resemble the unregenerate second generation Puritans of the late 1600s. These Puritans were not in full communion but remained members in a halfway covenant which resulted in a mixed membership that had lost the purity of a separated regenerate church.[7]

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with many of the Church Growth methods and activities in themselves. Christian fellowship, breaking of bread, and concern for the needs of one’s fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is normal and biblical. Some of the Church Growth activities and methods have been used by traditional churches for decades and were not intended to be the high-powered generators of church growth in themselves. To be successful, Church Growth practitioners must add a large measure of accommodation of the spirit of the world that injects subtle but fundamental changes to the preaching, teaching, and doctrines of the New Testament.

The culture-driven church

The Church Growth movement continually attempts to find better ways to accomplish the redefined mission of the church—church growth rather than making disciples. Church Growth advocates say churches must use the right bait to attract and capture members. As the tastes and interests of a culture change over time, the church must change the bait to match the new tastes and interests of both its current members (consumers) and target audience outside the church. Hence, the focus and message of the church is dictated by the prevailing culture as opposed to the timeless prescriptions of the Bible. As culture changes, the membership-oriented church must change in order to accommodate and stay relevant to the culture. Over time the parade of changes accumulate to such an extent that the church loses its Christian identity and becomes a powerless, syncretic form of Christian paganism.[8] In his letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul wrote of the coming apostasy in the last days in which men and women who once knew Christ would reject or abandon their faith. Paul described these Christians-in-name-only of the last days as “holding the form of religion but denying the power of it…” [2 Timothy 3:5. RSV]

The therapeutic gospel

In the last chapter we examined the beginnings of the therapeutic gospel through Norman Vincent Peale’s blending of psychology and New Age practices into a religious mix aimed at healing the soul through self-help and the works of men. Here we look deeper into the meaning and workings of the therapeutic gospel as it has grown within the evangelical church over the last seven decades.

The American psyche has been branded with the humanistic concept of the perfectibility of man and anything less than personal perfection is thought unacceptable. As a result, billions of dollars are spent annually on psychological techniques and therapies of self-help and counseling. Once thought of as help for physical problems, therapy is now applied to a host issues that are now considered psychological problems which range from personal relationships and self-esteem to the ultimate purpose and meaning of life. This concern for psychological problems has inevitably become a large part of religious thinking and concern within the contemporary church as a result of the philosophy and growing influence of the Church Growth movement.[9]

Craig Gay writing in The way of the (modern) world called this preoccupation with psychological problems very disturbing because the focus of therapy is upon “immediate relief and rehabilitation,” and the only acceptable measure of relief is “the subjective experience of well-being.” [emphasis in original] However, the therapeutic approach “provides no serious discipline for the soul.” Therapy as a means of dealing with the stresses of life often stands at odds with the formation of character and one’s duty to God and his fellow man. The therapeutic use of religion and religious faith are not the same. In the therapeutic use of religion, the individual is essentially in charge of his or her journey to a sense of well-being within. But the Christian faith focuses the believer on obedience to God and the Bible as opposed to pleasing the self. Gay summarizes the difference by quoting Philip Rieff, “Religious man was born to be saved. Psychological man is born to be pleased.”[10]

Christians may vehemently deny the humanists’ belief that this life is all there is so one ought to be happy, grab all the pleasure that one can, and live as if there is no tomorrow. However, many Christians’ affirmation of the afterlife often do not match their actions as they reach for a therapeutic fix to ease the pain of the moment when what they may really need is obedience to God and His higher purposes. Many modern Christians have acceded to the cultural wave of humanism and are preoccupied with the present experience and a quest for comfort instead of accepting the pain of self-denial and obedience to God which is linked to their eternal destiny.

It is a deception when Christian concepts and terms are employed to justify therapeutic “feel good” measures as a substitute for obedience to the Christian faith in matters of healing and rehabilitation. Gay wrote, “Faith in God through Jesus Christ and by the power of the Spirit is not a means, but is, along with hope and love, the end purpose of human existence.” [emphasis added] However, Gay cautions that the problem does not lie in therapy as such. Specific therapies are often of real benefit, but the difficulty arises when therapy is viewed as a means of dealing with the problems caused by the human condition.[11] Put another way, man is a fallen creature, and although religious therapy may make him feel better about himself for the moment, it will not change his eternal destination.

New Paradigm churches v. traditional churches

We’ve talked about the origins of the Church Growth movement and its philosophies, methods, and techniques. We’ve also described the culture-driven therapeutic gospel. But how does all of this look when it comes together in a Church Growth-oriented evangelical church in the twenty-first century?

New paradigm churches are growth-oriented, culture-driven, and therapeutic in outlook. These churches have a philosophy of ministry intentionally focused on numerical growth through the use of demographic studies from which well-defined market strategies are crafted and then implemented by modern business techniques.[12] Being market-driven, their first step is to study the demographics of the market to determine what the consumer wants as opposed to the traditional evangelical church that is soul-oriented, biblically driven, and eternal in outlook.

In “Choosing My Religion” published in 1999 by Advertising Age, Richard Cimino described the factors Americans consider when seeking a church. Cimino’s observations on the desires of consumer-minded Christians had been discovered decades earlier by Church Growth leaders. What Cimino and earlier church leaders found was that mainstream Americans had begun shopping for a God to fit their humanistic beliefs and lifestyles. As a result, their preferences had shifted from “religion” to “spirituality.”[13]

Behind this shift is the search for an experiential faith, a religion of the heart, not of the head. It’s a religious expression that downplays doctrine and dogma, and revels in direct experience of the divine—whether it’s called the “holy spirit” or “cosmic consciousness” or the “true self.” It is practical and personal, more about stress reduction than salvation, more therapeutic than theological. It’s about feeling good, not being good. It’s as much about the body as the soul…This being the United States, where consumerism is the closest thing we have to state religion, it’s very much about marketing, packaging, and promotion.

Today…religion and spirituality have become just another product in the broader marketplace of goods and services; congregants care as much about a church’s childcare as its doctrinal purity, pay more attention to the style of music than the pastor’s theological training.

Church leaders across the nation are using computerized demographic studies and other sophisticated marketing techniques to fill their pews. “Mainline churches don’t have to die,” says church marketing consultant Richard Southern. “Baby boomers think of churches like they think of supermarkets…They want options, choices, and convenience. You don’t have to change your theology or your political stance.”[14]

This shift from religion to spirituality has occurred because of the rise and eventual dominance of the humanistic worldview in all facets of American culture during the last half of the twentieth century. Whereas the dominant Christian religion in America through the end of the nineteenth century meant relationship with and obedience to a loving God, the humanistic worldview denies God’s existence and replaces Him with the god of self and its quest for happiness. However, humanism is a false philosophy and its prescriptions fail to answer the haunting questions of life. It is man’s natural inclination to seek God to find order, meaning, and purpose to life, and it is through religion he seeks to find Him. But through the seductions of secular humanism, Americans have become saturated with the consumer mentality and the belief that customer is always right. In vain, they seek a do-it-yourself, designer religion that will supply a sense of temporal well-being instead of eternal truth that only comes from the God of the Bible.

The God of the Bible demands that men die to self in order to live the life eternal. This is not a message that can be scientifically packaged and promoted by new paradigm churches focused on attracting members instead of winning the lost.

Decades ago, A. W. Tozer foresaw the eventual outcome of popular evangelism we now call a new paradigm.

If I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom of a self-assured and carnal Christianity. The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.[15]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Arthur Gordon, One Man’s Way, (Pawling, New York: Foundation for Christian Living, (1972, 1958), p. 143.
[2] Carol V. R. George, God’s Salesman – Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 56.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Stephen Parker, Church Growth Crisis – The Decline of Christianity in America, (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Forever Family Publications, 2011), p. 13.
[5] Ibid., p. 32.
[6] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), p. 27.
[7] Eddy, p. 55.
[8] Parker, p. 39.
[9] Craig M. Gay, The way of the (modern) world, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), p. 185.
[10] Ibid., p. 186.
[11] Ibid., pp. 187-189.
[12] Gary E. Gilley, This Little Church Went to Market, (www.xulonpress.com: Xulon Press, 2002), p. 20.
[13] Richard Cimino, “Choosing My Religion,” Advertising Age, April 1, 1999.
http://adage.com/article/american-demographics/choosing-religion/42364/ (accessed October 23, 2015).
[14] Gilley, This Little Church Went to Market, p. 59.

Satan was a rebel against God’s crown and glory and a fallen creature before God created man. Matthew Henry wrote that Satan “…knew he could not destroy man but by debauching him. The game therefore which Satan had to play was to draw our first parents to sin, and so to separate them and their God. The whole race of mankind had here, as it were, but one neck, and at that Satan struck.”[1] The strike would be through man’s freewill. One of the deceptions Satan crafted through the ages was spiritual humanism to which man’s freewill was particularly susceptible. As Satan had once diverted Eve’s gaze from God to self, so Satan continues to divert man from God and His plan of redemption to self by substituting spiritual humanism’s counterfeit solutions drawn from pantheistic religions, ancient traditions, pagan cultures, and modern-day psychology (see Chapter 16).

The New Age in Christian clothing

To make spiritual humanism culturally relevant in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Satan painted a modern face on it, dressed it new clothes to fit the modern spirit of the age, and called it the New Age. But spiritual humanism’s beliefs, objectives, deceptions, traits, and characteristics remain the same, and its ancestry traces directly back to Eastern and other pagan religions.

An examination of African traditional religions presents a summary of those traits and characteristics shared by substantially all pagan religions, elements of which have seeped into some modern evangelical churches.

• Very pragmatic and oriented to providing for the temporal needs and wishes of their followers.
• Not based on consistently applied and understandable doctrines, rules and regulations.
These religions depend largely on existence, experience and feelings.
• Polytheistic, impersonal mystical powers, hierarchy of spiritual beings and powers.
• Religion based on power.
• May incorporate elements of Christianity as part of their religions.
• God is manipulated (as opposed to being praised in Christianity).
• Words have innate power in themselves (curses, chants, incantations, etc.).
• Use magic to manipulate the spirits and world around them.[2]

In pantheistic Eastern religions, there is no personal and loving God (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism). The impersonal, uncaring god of the pantheists does not love mankind or care about their sufferings so man is left to his own devices to find answers to life’s questions and find peace on this earth. For pantheists, these answers and peace can only be found by being reunited with the impersonal universal spiritual essence/force from which they believe man is an insoluble part.[3] Notice that most characteristics of pagan religions from the above list focus on the efforts of man: first, internally through mental exercises, and second, externally through power and manipulation. Since these religions seek and serve a non-loving God, it is only natural that the marks of their faith are centered on the self as opposed to Christianity’s focus on other-directed loving relationships with humans and a personal, loving God.

In the absence of help from a non-caring, impersonal God, New Age teachers and practitioners offer a plethora of solutions and assistance in becoming reunited with the impersonal universal spiritual essence/force to which man is an insoluble part. One of those solutions is purported to be found in New Thought.

The New Thought movement

The New Thought movement began in the late 1860s and is essentially pantheistic. It teaches that man is divine and has unlimited potential. The movement developed from the teachings of Phineas Quimby.[4] He believed that the thoughts of the human mind determined whether the body was healthy or sick.

Physical diseases are caused by wrong thinking or false beliefs. Disease is merely an “error” created “not by God, but by man.” Eliminate false beliefs, Quimby taught, and the chief culprit for disease is thereby removed, yielding a healthy body.[5]

The New Thought movement expanded Quimby’s teachings to include a belief that humans can use their thoughts to determine the conditions of their lives and thereby experience not only good health but success and a full life. This occurs because of the “law of attraction” which is the concept that one’s thoughts attract the things a person wants and expects. From this movement several “mind” science religions were founded including Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science.[6]

According to the law of attraction, a person’s life and circumstances are a physical expression or indicator of his thought life. In other words, whatever a person thinks he attracts. But the question arises as to how a person can control and direct his thought life. People have many thousands of thoughts every day that supposedly determine what they attract. One cannot corral, examine, and mold each of those thoughts to assure that he attracts only the good. According to the law of attraction a person’s feelings are a filter by which one can know what he is thinking and attracting to his life. Therefore, a person must get in touch with their feelings because good feelings create a good future, and bad feelings create a bad future. By practicing the law of attraction, a person can receive their desired future by simply seeing themselves in that future and believing it will happen. The law of attraction assures that it will come about.[7] The law of attraction is deeply rooted in humanism’s exaltation of self and accounts for the great emphasis placed on having a good self-esteem (feeling good about one’s self).

Peale and New Thought

By the end of the 1950s, Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale each headed one of the two distinct branches of evangelical Christianity. Graham remained true to the five fundamental doctrines held by the populist evangelical churches since the early 1700s which were expressed in a series of books published in 1910 titled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (see Chapter 14). Unlike the fundamental and unchanging doctrines of Christianity preached by Graham, Peale’s practical Christian living was designed to be a “new Christian emphasis…attuned to the inner life…[and] was a better solution to the needs of modern Americans.”[8] As has been the case throughout the history of Christianity and the church, the contest for the soul of American evangelicalism once again centered on the age-old quest for truth and doctrinal purity.

But Peale’s claims of a “new Christian emphasis” were not new but based on spiritual humanism’s false and failed answers to the basic questions of life. Peale’s answers were uncomplicated and based individual initiative. If people’s troubles lay within themselves, then the answers were there too. They merely had to tap the divine energy stored within the unconscious. The essence of Peale’s work is based on “the belief that through the mind and subconscious, utilizing techniques of positive thinking and affirmative prayer, one can achieve spiritual harmony and personal power.”[9]

Peale began reading literature about New Thought and mental sciences about 1928, but these philosophies did not became the most important and recognizable part of his public message until the late 1940s.[10] With the publication of The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952, Peale fully incorporated New Thought concepts into his message and ministry.

The Power of Positive Thinking was Peale’s master work and described the essence of practical Christian living. In reality, Peale’s practical Christianity was a modernized and Christianized version of New Thought in which the human mind has extraordinary potential through mental and spiritual realities to shape material or physical events. In other words, physical realities experienced by man originate in the mental and metaphysical (beyond what is perceptible to the senses). Through prayer and positive thinking, one can see the spark of divinity in one’s self and bring it into alignment with God (the divine spirit of the universe) which makes possible healing and worldly wealth.[11]

The origins and teachings of New Thought are indisputably New Age. Although there has been some controversy regarding the sources Peale used in his New Thought writings, it is also indisputable that Peale introduced, championed, and popularized these New Age practices throughout the American evangelical church.

Florence Scovel Shinn (1871-1940) was a New Thought teacher and writer.[12] The first of four books she published was The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925) and the second was Your Word is Your Wand (1928). Her third book, The Secret Door to Success, was published in 1940, the year of her death. The Power of the Spoken Word was her fourth book published posthumously in 1945.[13] Shinn’s The Game of Life and How to Play It was reissued in 1986, and Peale wrote a glowing endorsement printed on the front and back covers of the book.

The Game of Life is filled with wisdom and creative insights. That its teachings will work I know to be fact, for I’ve long used them myself.

By studying and practicing the principles laid down in this book one may find prosperity, solve problems, have better health, achieve good personal relations-in a word, win the game of life.[14]

In 1995, nine years after his endorsement of the book, Peale was accused of plagiarizing some of Shinn’s work in his famous book The Power of Positive Thinking. An article in one publication spoke of startling similarities with the writings of Shinn, “an obscure teacher of Occult science.” Shinn drew upon material of earlier occult writers and religions dating as far back as the ancient Egyptian philosopher Hermes Trismegistus.[15] In most of these New Age writings of whatever era, there tends to be certain words, phrases, and terms that are commonly if not universally used. Peale certainly admits to having read Shinn’s work, and he may have done so as far back as 1928. But it is doubtful that Peale had consciously plagiarized Shinn’s work or would have needed to, given his extensive reading and research on the subject. If Peale had concerns about plagiarism, it is also unlikely that he would have endorsed the book only nine years earlier. Both Peale’s and Shinn’s books had been available for decades.

The New Age heresy that men must evolve mentally and spiritually by awakening the god who sleeps deep within each human is a false philosophy which the Bible explicitly condemns. “…Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the Lord…The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” [Jeremiah 17:5, 9. RSV] In Acts we find that Jesus is the only source of our salvation, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4:12. RSV]

Psychologized religion

Beginning about 1900, mainline liberal pastors and churches began to experiment with the use of psychotherapeutic theories and techniques in pastoral care and counseling. From the very beginning of his ministry at Marble Church, Peale devoted eight to ten hours each week to counseling individuals. Eventually, the burden became too great, and the church hired Dr. Stanley Blanton, a Freudian-trained psychiatrist, to assist Peale. In 1937, Marble Collegiate Church Clinic was established in the basement of the church. By 1940, Peale withdrew from day-to-day operations and work in the clinic because of an increase in speaking engagements. Blanton became director of the clinic and other church staff worked in the clinic along with part-time psychologists and psychiatrists.[16]

After Peale’s departure from active involvement, Marble Church sustained the clinic while its identity attained more of a “religio-psychiatric” orientation. The new professionals embraced psychological theories from the works of neo-Freudians (Jung, Alfred Adler, and Erich Fromm) and later post-Freudians (Harry Stack Sullivan, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Carl Rogers). In 1951, the clinic became the American Foundation for Religion and Psychiatry, an independent and fully licensed clinic in its own right with a new location and organization.[17]

Christian Smith credits the acceptance of psychology within mainline, liberal Protestant churches during the 1920s as one of the six major contributors of the secular revolution that transformed American culture.

The secular revolution transformed the basic cultural understanding of the human self and its care, displacing the established spirituality and morality framed Protestant conception of the “care of souls” (over which the church and its agencies held jurisdiction), and establishing instead a naturalistic, psychologized model of human personhood (over which therapists and psychologists are the authorities.)[18]

In the 1920s, a psychological concept known as “self-realization” began to be taught in mainline Protestant churches and seminaries. Self-realization occurs when the entity of self achieves fulfillment and full potentiation. Because of the importance placed on self-realization, the supreme goal of the spiritual life is to be fulfilled and reach one’s full potential. George Albert Coe was a professor at Union Theological Seminary and pioneered the self-realization movement by introducing psychology into pastoral care and counseling, seminaries, and Sunday school classes. As a result pastoral care and counseling sought to help people adjust and adapt in service of the self by focusing on a person’s interests, preferences, and yearnings for self-realization.[19]

Proponents of traditional American Protestantism and the early psychologists were competing for cultural authority in the early twentieth century. Feeling incapable of defending the faith of their ancestors in the age of Darwinian scientific progress, the mainline Protestant establishment chose to accept psychology as a means of explaining God, man, and the religious experience.[20] Out of this abandonment of traditional Christian theology, the therapeutic gospel was born.
______

Norman Vincent Peale’s practical Christianity was unique in that it blended humanistic psychology with the occult beliefs and practices of the New Age. Both were intended to heal the soul of man—one through self-realization and the other through getting in touch with the god within. To these ministrations, Peale added a third ingredient to his practical Christianity—the introduction of church growth methodologies and practices focused on “…‘discipling’ rather than ‘perfecting’ members—that is, bringing them in in the anticipation that education would subsequently reveal to them the fuller implications of a richer, more self-conscious faith.”[21] All of the ingredients in Peale’s practical Christianity served the god of “self” and have been adopted by many American evangelical churches in the twenty-first century.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), P. 8.
[2] Gary E. Gilley with Jay Wegter, This little church had none, (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: EP Books, 2009), p. 71-72.
[3] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), p. 148.
[4] Gilley and Wegter, p. 73.
[5] Ibid., quoting Ron Rhodes, The Challenge of the Cults and New Religions, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001), pp. 104-105.
[6] Ibid., pp. 73-74.
[7] Ibid., pp. 65-66.
[8] Carol V. R. George, God’s Salesman – Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 85.
[9] Ibid., pp. viii, 6.
[10] Ibid., p.134.
[11] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion – How We Became a Nation of Heretics, (New York: Free Press, 2012), P. 184.
[12] “Works of Florence Scovel Shinn,” Internet Sacred Text Archive. http://www.sacred-
texts.com/nth/shinn/index.htm (accessed October 13, 2015).
[13] Florence Scovel Shinn, The Complete Works – Florence Scovel Shinn, (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2010).
[14] Warren B. Smith, A Wonderful Deception, (Magalia, California: Mountain Stream Press, 2012), p. 41.
[15] Ibid., pp. 40-41.
[16] George, pp. 89-91.
[17] Ibid., pp. 91-92.
[18] Christian Smith, “Introduction: Rethinking the Secularization of American Public Life,” The Secular Revolution, ed. Christian Smith, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 3, 27.
[19] Keith G. Meador, “My Own Salvation,” The Secular Revolution, ed. Christian Smith, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 295-296.
[20] Ibid., p. 272.
[21] George, pp. 56-57.

There were three major voices that stoked the fires that led to the reemergence of American evangelicalism in the late 1940s and 1950s. Two were of the preaching-revivalist tradition and principally concerned with the eternal destination of their listeners: Baptist evangelist Billy Graham and Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen. The third was Norman Vincent Peale. Although he called himself an evangelist that adhered to evangelism’s implicit call for conversion, Peale’s educational and theological development eventually led him to embrace a “new Christian emphasis.” In later years he called it practical Christian living which was “…attuned to the inner life…[and] was presumed to be a better solution to the needs of modern Americans.”[1] Out of Peale’s theology centered on practical Christian living arose the therapeutic gospel that was adopted by many evangelical ministers and churches over the last half of the twentieth century and dominates American evangelicalism in the first decades of the twenty-first century.

Peale occupied a unique position on America’s religious landscape during the two decades following World War II. Peale was politically conservative and therefore perpetually at odds with the liberal establishment, both political and theological. Yet, by his own admission he was theologically liberal. Peale was not enamored by the liberal social gospel as well as their neglect of the practical work of the ministry. Even though personally a theological liberal, in 1924 he critiqued his seminary education and said the school had failed to adequately link the scripture with “the knowledge of the present…to enable me to go out and preach—to strengthen and amplify the message which I feel I have.” Although he claimed to champion the “old-fashioned gospel story,” he significantly altered its message with humanistic principles and practices, both secular and spiritual. When issues or conflicts arose within the church, his theological perspective was consistently revealed as he sided with the liberals rather than fundamentalists.[2]

Norman Vincent Peale was born in 1898 to a minister father and his wife in Bowersville, Ohio. Clifford Peale had been a successful physician and at one time was the health minister for Milwaukee. Having once felt the call to the ministry, he ignored it for a while, but his health broke and required an operation that left him near death. Peale survived and believed the Lord had spared him. Encouraged by his mother, Peale left the practice of medicine and became a Methodist minister. He served in a number of pastorates in small Ohio towns and moved to Cincinnati in 1902 when Norman was four. In 1913, the Peale his family moved from the Cincinnati suburb of Greenville to the small town of Bellefontaine, Ohio, where Norman graduated from High school in 1916. In the fall his parents took him to Ohio Wesleyan University, a Methodist college in the small town of Delaware.[3] Norman Peale received his B.A. degree in June 1920. Following fifteen months working as a reporter for the Detroit Journal, Peale enrolled at Boston University, and upon feeling an affirmation of his call to the ministry, he soon switched his enrollment to the university’s seminary.[4]

As a child Norman was very sensitive and painfully shy. To help their son overcome his extreme bashfulness, Norman was often asked to recite poems for family gatherings or groups of friends. But his extreme shyness caused Norman to frequently hide in the attic when he saw visitors arriving at the Peale home.[5]

Peale’s shyness continued to plague him in high school and followed him to Ohio Wesleyan. One professor approached Peale about his shyness and told him to ask Jesus to help him overcome his shyness and to also read the works of well-known psychologist William James. Another professor suggested that he read the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. One biographer wrote that Peale’s discovery of James and Emerson “…eventually became part of his mental equipment and then a lifetime fascination…[They] remained lasting intellectual companions because they counted for something in Peale’s own life,” and he often sought validation for his own ministry in their views.[6]

Emerson’s Transcendentalism and its spiritual humanism was a comfortable fit with Peale’s practical Christianity. Emerson outlined Transcendentalism in Nature, published in 1836 and was credited as being America’s first native-born philosophy. Historian Paul Johnson described Transcendentalism as “a Yankee form of neo-platonism, mystical, a bit irrational, very vague, and cloudy.”[7] The philosophical message of Transcendentalism links the source of all knowledge to the inner self of intuition and imagination.

People, men and women equally, have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that “transcends” or goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel. This knowledge comes through intuition and imagination, not through logic or the senses. People can trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right.[8]

Peale linked Emerson’s belief that knowledge about man and his world comes from the mystical intuition and imagination found within man to James’s secular humanism which promoted the practical and experiential science of psychology. James is known as the father of American Psychology and wrote its seminal text in 1890, The Principles of Psychology. Eventually, James, his colleagues, and his students at Harvard developed American psychology as a science which emphasized the self as opposed to the soul. It was a pragmatic and experiential science of the mind that could be channeled along therapeutic lines to benefit mankind. The Christian concept of habits is the particular ways of living that define man in relation God. However, through psychology James redefined habits “as a process of personal and social growth toward an ever-better, ill-defined, integrated personality.”[9]

Through the work of James and his fellow psychologists, psychology infiltrated and eventually overwhelmed mainline Protestantism. Keith Meador described this development as a baptism of Protestantism in psychological rationalism and practicality.

In the 1920s, mainline Protestant seminaries began teaching the concept of “self-realization,” which conceived of the self as an entity whose fulfillment and full potentiation were paramount within the spiritual life. As a result, helping people “adjust” and “adapt” in service of the self became the goal of pastoral counseling. Through continual adjustment and adaptation, people would grow in their perceptions and come closer to the ultimate goal of self-realization.[10]

Although Peale did not wholly embrace James’s or Emerson’s views, those views became important reference points for Peale’s practical Christianity and its therapeutic gospel message expressed through his ministry of preaching, teaching, lectures, speeches, magazines, and books.[11]

While at seminary, Peale’s shyness, fear of speaking before classmates, and feelings of inferiority continued to haunt him. Yet, away from seminary, Peal expressed great joy on weekends when preaching as a student to “a church full of dedicated people.” But when he returned to seminary on Sunday nights, he wrote that, “My conflicts returned, my inferiority reasserted itself and I froze up until the next Friday I went happily off to my church again.”[12]

While still at Boston University’s seminary, Peale became a student pastor at a church in Berkeley, Rhode Island in 1922. Upon graduation from seminary in the spring of 1924, Peale was called to St. Mark’s Church in Brooklyn which was later relocated and renamed King’s Highway Methodist Church. In April 1927 Peale was invited to University Avenue Methodist Church in Syracuse, New York. There he met and married Ruth Stafford who would be his wife for sixty years. In March 1932, Norman and Ruth made their final move to the Marble Collegiate Church, a Reformed Church in America congregation with a history dating back to 1628. Located on New York City’s prestigious Fifth Avenue, the imposing and elegant 1500-seat church surrounded by skyscrapers had declined to only 200 regular attendees but had a huge endowment. The move to Marble Church necessitated that Peale make a theological shift from Methodist Arminianism to the hard determinism of Calvin within the Reformed Church. In her biography of Peale, Carol George wrote that Peale never truly left his Methodist roots but created and perfected a unique ministry and syncretic message that cut across many denominational lines.[13]

With a handsome salary, lifetime tenure, three-month annual vacation, and duties that required only preaching three times each week and service as the senior administrator, Peale saw Marble Church as an opportunity to create a personalized ministry. This included two small books written by Peale in 1937 and 1938 (The Art of Living and You Can Win) which were products of his immersion in the literature and beliefs of metaphysical spirituality (religious science).[14]

Beginning in 1942, while still serving as senior pastor of Marble Church, the pace of Peale’s life increased dramatically as he was continually called to speak before various religious, political, business, and industry gatherings around the nation. Peale founded Guideposts magazine in 1944 which became the most influential transmitter of Peale’s message, an “organ for a great, positive Christian movement” which summarized his ideals of “Americanism, free enterprise, and practical Christianity.” In 1950, the Foundation of Christian Living became the center of the Norman and Ruth Peale’s religious empire.[15]

By the 1950s, the painfully shy little boy born in 1898 in the small Ohio town of Bowersville had become a nationally celebrated churchman, social commentator, self-help guru, author, and spokesman for a vast constituency of Americans. It was Peale’s 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking that propelled him to the pinnacle of his already amazing career. The book was perfectly timed to capture the uplifting wave of Christianity in America during the late 1940s and 1950s. The book emphasized self-empowerment and peace of mind which was especially appealing to generations attempting to “catch up” with life following almost two decades of turmoil caused by the Great Depression and World War II.[16]

The Power of Positive Thinking resonated with a vast and diverse audience of businessmen, middle-aged women, and the unchurched. Carol George summarized one reviewer’s favorable opinion of the book, “It was friendly, unpretentious, and concerned about the misery cause by spiritual poverty. In its ebullient, upbeat tone, it belonged more to the success genre of New Thought literature than the inspirational variety…” The book provided a remedy for many people who believed they were sick and in need of care. Believing they could not be fully productive contributors to society, they willingly embraced Peale’s practical Christianity and its therapeutic message of positive thinking.[17] Peale’s book landed on the New York Times bestseller list in 1952, the year of its publication, and stayed there for 180 weeks.[18]

By 1957, Peale was reaching an estimated thirty million people through his preaching, syndicated newspaper column, weekly radio program, Guideposts magazine, three published sermons monthly, and his book sales.[19] Peale’s thirty million was the same number as the weekly television audience reached by Bishop Fulton Sheen’s at the show’s height during the late 1950s.[20]

While Sheen was reaching the millions through the medium of television, Peale and Billy Graham were using an array of media to reach their millions. Graham, the neo-fundamentalist, had little in common with Peale, the neo-modernist. The one thing they had in common was that both were preaching to a much wider audience than just their professed denominational adherents. Although having a wide and somewhat overlapping audience, their respective platforms were seemingly at opposite ends of the field. Graham was an unrepentant premillennialist, political conservative, and fundamentalist who believed in the authority of the scriptures, Christ’s virgin birth, the atoning death of Christ, His bodily resurrection, His second coming, and salvation by faith through grace. Peale’s theology was far closer to modernism. Peale was initially suspicious of the younger evangelist but had a change of attitude following their first meeting in Switzerland in 1955. Peale became a supporter of Graham’s Manhattan crusade planned for 1957 and served on the blue-ribbon committee with other clergy and prominent citizens that helped organize the crusade which lasted sixteen weeks (see Chapter 15). Peale was delighted with the results of the crusade as were most of the participating clergy.[21]

A fascinating incident happened during one of the nights of the crusade. At the end of the service, Peale joined hundreds of others as they moved toward the platform in response to Graham’s invitation to make another “commitment” to Christ. Peale later called his renewed commitment that night as a “second blessing” in which he “went deeper” into the faith.[22] This was reminiscent of a similar commitment made twenty-four years earlier when Peale and his wife were vacationing in England. Peale had completed two years at Marble Church and was exceptionally discouraged. While sitting in a lovely hotel garden in Keswick, Norman felt himself a failure and expressed to Ruth his doubts about continuing his ministry at Marble Church. He felt his message was not “getting through” to the congregation and despaired at his lack of results in the church’s growth. Ruth Peale waited a few moments before she spoke. When she began talking to her husband, she did not coddle or sympathize with him but spoke words of encouragement that he so often had spoken to thousands of others. Peale listened to his wife, was encouraged, and agreed that he should stay at Marble Church. He called his renewed commitment at Keswick a “rededication” and often fondly remembered that moment as one of the most profound and rewarding experiences of his life.[23]

Peale retired from Marble Church in 1984 after fifty-two years of service and fifty years after he almost quit while at that small hotel garden in Keswick.[24] He died on Christmas Eve in 1993 at the age of 95.

Norman Vincent Peale appears to have been a good and decent man. He cared deeply for his fellowman and accomplished much that was good. However, his theological perspectives and prescriptions were flawed because they were fundamentally opposed to the doctrines and teachings of the Bible. As will be seen in the next two chapters, Peale’s practical Christianity left a dual legacy to the evangelical church of New Age spiritual humanism and the therapeutic gospel of the Church Growth movement.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Carol V. R. George, God’s Salesman – Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 85.
[2] Ibid., viii, ix., 46, 49, 50-51.
[3] Arthur Gordon, One Man’s Way, (Pawling, New York: Foundation for Christian Living, 1958, 1972), pp. 4, 9-10, 19, 33, 39, 45.
[4] George, pp. 39, 40-41.
[5] Gordon, p. 21.
[6] George, pp. 33, 36-37.
[7] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), p. 405.
[8] “Transcendentalism, an American Philosophy,” U.S. History. http://www.ushistory.org/us/26f.asp (accessed October 9, 2015).
[9] Keith G. Meador, “My Own Salvation,” The Secular Revolution, Christian Smith, ed., (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 271, 283, 294.
[10] Ibid., p. 295.
[11] George, p. 37.
[12] Ibid., p. 52.
[13] Ibid., pp. 54-56, 58, 66, 68-69, 76.
[14] Ibid., pp. 75, 86.
[15] Ibid., pp. 103-104.
[16] Ibid., pp. 128-129.
[17] Ibid., p. 137.
[18] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion – How We Became a Nation of Heretics, (New York: Free Press, 2012), p. 52.
[19] George, p. 131.
[20] Douthat, p. 41.
[21] George, pp. 147-148.
[22] Ibid., p. 148.
[23] Gordon, pp. 172-176.
[24] George, p. 238.

Positive confession and prosperity gospel

Since the middle of the twentieth century a great many Eastern religions and New Age practices and beliefs have been absorbed into Western society. Almost simultaneously, preaching and teaching that emphasizes health, prosperity, and happiness are available to all Christians have infiltrated many evangelical churches. These churches are usually found under the banner of the Word of Faith movement and tend to be independent or have a loose affiliation with other churches with a similar message. The closeness to which individuals and churches adhere to the doctrines and practices of the positive confession movement (or prosperity gospel as some have called it) spans a broad spectrum ranging from those with marginal associations with the movement to those who fully embrace and center their lives on the Word of Faith message and its tenets. Therefore, one must use care and look beneath the Word of Faith label to determine the biblical soundness of their respective teachings and practices. Many preach a faith message that is doctrinally sound.

The acknowledged founder of the Word of Faith movement was Kenneth Hagin who had a spiritual vision during the 1950s that he described in How To Write Your Own Ticket With God. Hagin wrote that Christ had revealed certain things to him during vision, and this revelation became the foundation for the teachings and practices of positive confession.

…you can receive anything in the present tense, such as salvation, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, healing for your body, spiritual victory, or finances. Anything the Bible promises you now, you can receive now by taking these four steps…

Step 1: Say it…In my vision, Jesus said, “Positive or negative, it is up to the individual. According to what the individual says, that shall he receive.”…

Step 2: Do it…Jesus dictated to me during my vision. “Your action defeats you or puts you over. According to your action, you receive or you are kept from receiving.”…

Step 3: Receive it…It is like plugging into an electrical outlet. If we can learn to plug into this supernatural power, we can put it to work for us, and we can be healed…

Step 4: Tell it…Jesus said to me, “Tell it so others may believe.”…

…You said if anybody anywhere would take these four steps, they would receive from you anything they wanted.[1] [emphasis in original]

The principal teachings of positive confession are that there are both positive and negative aspects to confession. It is believed that the pleasant circumstances of life can be enjoyed through expressing positive statements that align with specific scriptures. The unpleasant is avoided by refraining from negative statements. Effectively, what a person says is the determinant of what he will receive and what he will become. Therefore, positive confession is a tool with which one can banish poverty, disease, sickness, and other afflictions of life.[2] The growth and success of churches in the positive confession movement have occurred because it is very appealing to most people in modern America’s prevailing culture and fits well with its humanistic emphasis on self-esteem, self-improvement, success, and materialism.

However, positive confession is doctrinal deviation and fails to align with a proper and complete biblical understanding of faith at several levels. Advocates of positive confession effectively treat God (and His Word) as a mechanical dispensing machine. They may soften the message, but it is essentially saying that one need only to select the right scripture verse, speak the right confession, act upon it, and receive you request.

Teach the entire gospel

Proper interpretation of the Bible requires that we consider each scripture in light of all other scriptures relating to a specific matter. Paul was very specific when he gave this instruction to the Corinthian church.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. [1 Corinthians 2:12-13. KJV] [emphasis added]

In other words, the best support and understanding of a particular scripture occurs when comparing it with other applicable scriptures—comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. Matthew Henry described the alternative when he wrote, “…if the principles of human art and science are to be made a test of revelation, we shall certainly judge amiss concerning it.”[3] Advocates of positive confession are in great error when they teach that the words spoken by Christians can somehow serve as mechanical triggers to release positive or negative outcomes in their lives. Sound doctrine cannot be built on isolated portions of scripture taken out of context but must be built on the total teaching of God’s Word.

One must ask how the adherents to the teachings of positive confession would have fared during the first three hundred years of the persecuted Christian church scattered throughout the Roman Empire. How do believers in positive confession reconcile the disconnection between what they teach and the lives of the apostles? All the apostles were greatly persecuted and eventually executed except John who was exiled to Patmos. Paul was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, and imprisoned numerous times and eventually beheaded. He died with the thorn still in his flesh which he had asked God to remove three times.

And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. [2 Corinthians 12:7-9. KJV]

The truth of God’s word applies universally to all cultures and all ages. Nevertheless, positive confession appears to appeal to and find ready acceptance where people are already living in an affluent society. It is also apparent that positive confession’s teachings do not have the same acceptance in those parts of the world where faithful Bible-believing Christians continually face extreme poverty, persecution, and possible martyrdom.[4]

God’s will

God’s will must always be superior to a believer’s wants and desires. Yet, the positive confession doctrine states that the believer can have whatever he says. To decide which of these two irreconcilable positions is correct or must be amended, we look to the scriptures. We have already mentioned Paul’s thorn in the flesh. In that situation, God’s will was higher than Paul’s need for the removal of the thorn. Paul received two things because he accepted God’s will above his own—pride was crushed and the power of Christ rested upon him. Even as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane the night prior to his crucifixion that the cup might be removed, His desire deferred to the will of the Father when he said, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine, be done.” [Luke 22:42. KJV]

The desires of the believer’s heart are important to God, and He may bless accordingly. However, as we pray for our desires, we must also seek to know His will regarding those desires. James said, “Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” [James 4:15. KJV] But there are occasions when believers may not know what to pray for. In those situations the believer needs to continue to pray and recognize the Holy Spirit makes intercession for him according to the will of God. Here we must heed Paul’s words for he said that when we do not know what we should pray for “…the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” [Romans 8:26b-27. RSV]

Pride and self are difficult adversaries and firmly rooted in the free will of man. The seductive doctrine of positive confession, unchecked by seeking the will of God, adds considerable fuel to the quest for desires and pleasures burning in the heart of man.

Positive confession v. importunate prayer

In one sense, positive confession distances the believer from the Father. Over time it often becomes easy for practitioners of positive confession to slip into a mode of prayerlessness through repetitious quoting of scriptures and confessions as opposed to seeking God’s desire for their lives. Too often we see Christians (not just positive confession adherents) approach God the way many children approach their parents. “Hey, Dad. I need several things. Here’s my list, and make it quick, will you? I have plans and won’t be around for a while. We’ll talk later.”

Importunity has many synonyms including several that have undesirable connotations: demanding, persistence, supplication, entreaty, appeal, petition, plea, insistence. Yet, Jesus emphasized the importance of importunate prayer. Its importance is revealed in Christ’s parable of the persistent friend who came asking for bread at midnight. Christ summarized his teaching in a single verse, “And I tell you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” [Luke 11:9]. In Luke 18:1-8 we see the parable of widow who constantly sought justice from an unjust judge. Christ’s teaching in this parable was that the believer ought always pray and not lose heart.

The believer may not understand the “why” of unanswered prayers, and God’s reasons for not answering may never be known. Yet, Jesus encouraged importunate prayer. It is not a sign of a believer’s doubt or impatience with God. When we approach God with humility, love, and deference to His yet-to-be-revealed will, importunate prayer is a reflection of the believer’s obedience and faith.

Positive confession in a fallen world

Advocates of positive confession imply that its adherents will reign as kings in this life. Kings dominate, and the implication is that believers practicing positive confession are not be dominated by circumstances such as poverty and sickness. Although perhaps unconsciously, the kings of this world have become the role models for many in the positive confession movement. As a consequence, their desires naturally tend to focus on the things that worldly kings value and seek.[5]

The primary role model of the Christian should be no other than Christ. And the life of Christ incarnate was far from the trouble-free life of those Christians seeking dominion on this earth. “…The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” [Luke 9:22. RSV] Christ makes clear that the way of His followers must be the way of the cross, and the way of the cross requires death to self.

But pain, suffering, and death to self appear to be foreign concepts to many in the modern church and especially to those caught up in the positive confession message. Although we live in a fallen world, many try to use the Bible as a “get out of pain and suffering free” card to be used as needed and which gives the believer an aura of self-sufficiency. But self-sufficiency is the deadly enemy of the surrender of self to God. As C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain, “This full acting out of the self’s surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey, in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination. How impossible it is to enact the surrender of the self by doing what we like…”[6]

Positive confession v. the sovereignty of God

A favorite verse of positive confession adherents is found in John’s gospel, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” [John 14:13. KJV] Taken alone, it seems to imply that God has abdicated his sovereignty. But it has been noted above that Paul admonished Christians to compare spiritual things with spiritual things. Therefore, what John wrote in Chapter 14 must be tempered and understood by what he said in Chapter 5. “This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” [John 5:14, 15. KJV] [emphasis added] Therefore, a request must be within God’s sovereign will. God’s will limits the authority of the believer. However, the positive confession movement focuses on commanding or compelling God and little time or thought is devoted to discovering His will regarding a request.[7]

Positive confession – Enemy of contentment

Another favorite verse of positive confession adherents is found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” [Philippians 4:13. KJV] But Paul was not talking about “doing or commanding circumstances to change” but “being.” Paul had learned to be content in whatever situation he found himself. Whether in abundant prosperity or extreme need, he had learned to be content through Christ’s strength. But, for many in the positive confession movement, contentment is not an option when life deals them a season of hardship, sickness, financial reverses, or other trials. Yes, these needs should be matters of prayer. We should ask and believe, but we do not demand or command. And if the answers don’t come, we must not berate ourselves for our supposed failure to believe, utter the right commands, or pull the right levers to operate our mechanical God. Like Paul, we must be content knowing Christ’s strength will lead us through the valley.
______

In the first chapter of this series it was stated that the diminution and/or abandonment of the Bible as the infallible and inerrant truth of God is occurring in varying degrees in many evangelical denominations, churches, fellowships, and organizations across America. In this chapter we have examined the Word of Faith movement that arose in evangelical churches during the 1950s.

Many of the Word of Faith ministers and members are highly valued and much loved brothers and sisters in Christ. As is the case in all evangelical churches, others in the movement are Christian in name only and have brought great harm and reproach to the church of Jesus Christ through the positive confession gospel’s false beliefs and doctrines.

No man has a perfect understanding of the mind of Christ and His Word. However, we are charged to study God’s Word to show ourselves approved. Upon sober reflection following a holistic study of the scriptures, many Christians who hold to the view that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God have found the beliefs and teachings of the positive confession movement violate the biblical rules of interpretation.

Although many in evangelical churches may hold varying interpretations of numerous doctrinal issues, most differences have minimal eternal consequences. However, the beliefs and teachings of positive confession mirror anti-biblical elements of the New Age and Eastern religions. In many instances these beliefs and teachings have caused great harm and reproach to the Kingdom as some believers have lost out with God or have drawn away the great truths of God’s word.[8]

Whatever the failings and errors of the positive confession and prosperity gospel, we must reiterate that the Bible is a message of faith and contains many great truths which affirm that in our day God does heal our bodies, provides for our needs, that believers are given authority, and that a disciplined mind is important for victorious living. But all biblical truths must be examined, understood, and followed in light of the total teaching of scripture.[9]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Kenneth E. Hagin, How To Write Your Own Ticket With God, Kindle Cloud Reader, (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Rhema Bible Church aka Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1979).
[2] “The Believer and Positive Confession,” The General Council of the Assemblies of God, August 19, 1980, p. 2. http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Position_Papers/pp_downloads/pp_4183_ confession.pdf (accessed October 6, 2015).
[3] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1960), p. 1805.
[4] “The Believer and Positive Confession,” The General Council of the Assemblies of God, p. 8.
[5] Ibid., p. 6.
[6] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain from The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, ( New York: Harper One, 2002), pp. 607-608.
[7] “The Believer and Positive Confession,” The General Council of the Assemblies of God, p. 7.
[8] Ibid., p. 9.
[9] Ibid.

The great contest between God and Satan is for the allegiance of men and women. At stake are their eternal relationships with God. Mankind is fallen and lives in a fallen world. In order to restore a right relationship with God and live eternally with Him, man must accept the atoning sacrifice made by God’s Son on the cross at Calvary. But Satan does not sit idly by and let that happen. The earth is Satan’s lair and reflects his spirit. The spirit of the world has plagued mankind since Satan tempted Eve in the Garden. It has been Satan’s tool of choice by which he attempts to prevent or destroy man’s relationship with God. In Chapter 1 it was said that the spirit of the world is Satan’s chameleon—always refining its outward allure to match the demands and desires of the present culture, but however it transforms itself to please man, it remains unchangeably corrupt within. Whatever the outward manifestations of the spirit of the world are in any age, at its core we find humanism—the ultimate deception by which Satan attempts to displace God in the heart of man and his affairs.

In the course of human history the spirit of the world has predominantly presented itself in two forms: spiritual humanism and secular humanism. Both promote an exaltation of self. For the last three hundred years in Western civilization, the humanistic spirit of the world has shown its secular face, and it was secular humanism that presented the greatest challenge to the American church (See Chapter 10). According to Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers of the late seventeenth and all of the eighteenth century, the ideal society was to be achieved through the never-ending progress of man and society. The tools of progress were science and reason which are used in an attempt to destroy faith in a supernatural God. But secular humanists failed to understand the true nature of man which Alexis de Tocqueville described over 180 years ago.

…the imperfect joys of this world will never satisfy his heart. Man alone of all created beings shows a natural disgust for existence and an immense longing to exist; he despises life and fears annihilation. These different feelings constantly drive his soul toward the contemplation of another world and religion it is which directs him there. Religion is thus one particular form of hope as natural to the human heart as hope itself. Men cannot detach themselves from religious beliefs except by some wrong-headed thinking and by a sort of moral violence inflicted upon their true nature; they are drawn back by an irresistible inclination. Unbelief is an accident; faith is the only permanent state of mankind.[1]

This natural inclination of man to religion and the hope that it offers presented a problem for the secular humanists. Therefore, Satan did what he always does when challenged by the truth. He resurrected a counterfeit called spiritual humanism to satisfy man’s irresistible yearning to know God.

In the twentieth century secular humanism’s promises died in the ashes of two world wars and the Great Depression. In the 1960s there was a growing alienation and restlessness, particularly among the young. Although man’s faith in progress and reason still dominates the leadership and institutions of Western civilization, many became disillusioned and sought elsewhere for answers to the basic questions of life. For those disheartened by the religious barrenness of secular humanism, Satan resurrected spiritual humanism, painted a modern face on this ages-old spirit of the world, and dressed it new clothes to fit the spirit of the age. Out of spiritual humanism was born the New Age movement.[2]

Just as secular humanism touches every institution and facet of modern life, spiritual humanism endeavors to conform every aspect of human experience and society to its counterfeit solutions which draw upon various pagan cultures, ancient traditions, Eastern religions, and modern-day psychology. To implement these solutions which claim to address the ills of modern man, New Agers promote the tenets of spiritual humanism in their “…desire to create a better society, a ‘new age’ in which humanity lives in harmony with itself, nature, and the cosmos.”[3]

The New Age movement is multifaceted and often appears contradictory, but there are common elements that connect the highly diverse array of New Age organizations and their agendas. The fundamental underlying goal is the complete revolution of society in the United States and ultimately the entire world to create a one-world federation and “planetary citizenship in the global village.”[4]

To properly describe spiritual humanism (and the New Age movement) as it attempts to entice men and infiltrate the evangelical church, we must look at the common elements of its philosophy and beliefs in comparison with the Christian worldview. To make this comparison we must examine how well the two worldviews identify and align with truth in answering the basic questions of life. These questions fall into three categories: Creation – Every worldview must begin with its ultimate origins. Where did the world come from? Who are we? How did we get to the present day? Fall – How does the worldview explain evil and suffering? What has gone wrong? Redemption – If life is to have meaning, purpose, and hope, it must address the consequences of the fall. How does each of these worldviews propose to reverse the fall, that is, to set the world right again? Without consistent answers to these questions, a worldview can offer no hope for redemption.[5]

Creation

Few men or women have more clearly or succinctly contrasted Christianity and humanistic philosophies of all varieties than C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian writers and apologists of the twentieth century. He began by dividing humanity into two groups: one that believes in some kind of God (theists) and the other that does not (atheists and agnostics). The next division separates those that believe in God by the type of God they believe in. Lewis separates this group into two categories. The first group believes their god(s) (typically polytheistic) is beyond good and evil. This system of beliefs is called pantheism which is compatible in varying degrees with the beliefs of most Eastern religions. The second group believes their God (usually monotheistic) is “definitely ‘good’ or ‘righteous’, a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred, who wants us to behave in one way and not another.”[6] Christianity resides in this second group.

In the Christian worldview, God existed before the universe was created, and then God created the universe and all that is within including the laws that govern that creation. God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity (i.e., relationship). Man’s chief end is to glorify God (worship, reverence) through love and obedience (devotion, Godliness) while communing with God forever. Unlike all of the other elements of His creation, man was created with a free will. But creating man with a free will meant the possibility of rejection of God and His love. In other words free will carried with it the potential for rejection of God, but free will was necessary for the possibility of love.

Monism of the Eastern religions differs from creationism of Christianity. Monism’s view is that there is only one kind of ultimate substance and that reality is one unitary organic whole with no independent parts.[7] With monism as its foundation, Eastern religions teach the doctrine of pantheism in which humans progress through multiple reincarnations in their journey toward their divinity and ultimate oneness–a state in which one is oblivious to care, pain, or external reality.

In pantheistic Eastern religions, there is no personal and loving God (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism) but a Divinity that is attributed to “…a nonpersonal, non-cognitive spiritual force field.” Ultimate pantheistic reality (truth) is a “unified mind or spiritual essence pervading all things.” The supreme goal of Eastern religions centers on a reprieve from the burden of self by losing the individual spirit as it unified with the pantheistic One. Again, the pantheistic God is not a personal Being (no consciousness or desires) but a nonpersonal spiritual essence of which everyone and everything is a part.[8] Pantheists believe God animates the universe and that the universe is almost God. If the universe did not exist, then God would not exist. Therefore, everything in the universe is a part of God.

In summary, pantheism teaches that God is everything and everyone. Therefore, everything and everyone is God. They attempt to use the Bible as support for their belief and point to David’s words in Psalms. “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up unto heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” [Psalm 193:7-8. KJV] But David is speaking of God’s omnipresence. God is everywhere but he is not everything or in everything. If pantheism were true, everything is God (including man) and worthy of worship. But things worshiped apart from God are idols, and the Bible clearly and frequently warns against idolatry.

Fall

In the Christian worldview, mankind’s free will allowed man to think and act in ways that are contrary to God’s will and plan for His creation. When man violated God’s laws (truths) through disobedience, it was called sin, and as a result decay and death entered and affected not only man but all of God’s creation. The problem of evil and suffering results from man’s rebellion and subsequent separation from God.

In pantheistic Eastern religions, sin and separation arise because “…we don’t know we are a part of god. We think we’re individuals with separate existences and identities. This is what gives birth to greed and selfishness, conflict and warfare.”[9] In other words, the individual is separated from the One, that nonpersonal spiritual essence, and sin and suffering result because the person has not merged himself into or been absorbed by this godly essence or substance. However, in the Christian worldview, sin and suffering arise because of man’s rebellion which causes a broken relationship and separation from God, not because he fails to see himself as a part of God.

Redemption

Man’s rejection was not a surprise to an omniscient God. He knew that man would sin before He created him. God still loves man but was separated from him by sin because God is just and holy. Justice requires man to atone for his sin, but he was incapable of righting the wrongs of his rebellion. Because God is a loving God, He created a way through His son, Jesus Christ, which allows man to bring order to the chaos caused by his separation. Therefore, Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross made possible man’s redemption and return to a right relationship with God. But man continues to have free will and must choose to accept or reject Christ’s work of salvation.

Since Eastern religion pantheists believe that man and all of creation are part of god, their solution to the problem of evil and suffering in the world is reunite the individual with the god within. The impersonal, uncaring god of the pantheists does not love mankind or care about their sufferings. Help must come from the Eastern religions and New Agers who offer seekers assistance in being reunited with the impersonal universal spiritual essence/force which they believe we are an insoluble part.[10]

One practitioner has described New Age spirituality as an internal experience through which one answers the inner call of his or her Spirit—the god within. The internal experience is achieved through a combination of humanistic psychology, mystical and esoteric traditions, and Eastern religions.

The inner calling is your Spirit. Your Spirit is the part of you that is connected to and is a part of God. Your Spirit is the part of you that calls for you to take action and claim your joy, your bliss, and your abundance. It is the real you and your Spirit demands to be heard. This is what your journey is about. It’s finding that inner calling, answering it, and releasing the authentic YOU into the world![11] [emphasis in original]

To answer the call of one’s spirit and be reunified with the god within, Eastern religions and New Age pantheists offer an amazing variety of tools, practices, and techniques to help people recover a sense that they are all gods: spells, chants, transcendental meditation, crystals, centering, tarot cards, diets, self-esteem, guided imagery, positive thinking, yoga, visualization, and many more. Unfortunately, the distance between these practices and some of the things that occur in some American evangelical churches are not that far apart as we shall see in the chapters to follow.[12]

New Age movement

Following years of studying Eastern mystic religions, Randall Baer became a professional New Age teacher, holistic health practitioner, and activist. Before age 30 he had written two widely acclaimed books published by a mainstream publisher, developed a large teaching and research facility, and was a headliner on the New Age lecture circuit. Following a horrifying New Age experience with devouring darkness and demons, Baer was able to recover from the encounter, extricate himself from the New Age movement, and become a Christian. In his Inside the New Age Nightmare, Baer defines and describes its seductions.[13]

Baer labels the New Age movement as a product of spiritual humanism whose cornerstone is the belief that “…man is divine in nature, and is therefore essentially “God” or an enlightened “God-man.” Secular humanism displaces God with “…scientific rationalism, self-generated truth, and self-generated destiny” whereas spiritual humanism “…assigns man to a throne that spans the heavens and the earth in a divine heritage of universal lordship, omnipotence, and self-created glory.” While secular humanism denies Deity and proposes that man can find true meaning in life through exalting his own intellectual, creative, and moral powers, spiritual humanism affirms Deity in which man is deemed a race of cosmic gods with god-like powers.[14] However, both branches of humanism rely on man, through his own abilities and nature, to ascend and occupy the throne of self that is built on a foundation of either reason and science or self-proclaimed divinity from where he proposes to rule over a self-created heaven on earth.

Secular and spiritual humanism are two faces of Satan’s spirit of the world which work hand-in-hand to subvert man’s relationship with God. During the years 1870-1930, the American church surrendered to secular humanists much of its power and authority to direct and influence culture. Beginning in the 1960s, the culture was eventually conquered by secular humanists and faith was substantially driven from the public square and confined within the churches and the muffled voices of its members. Subsequently, Satan has intensified his attack from within American evangelical churches. As evangelical churches have accommodated the world as a means of survival, a measure of spiritual humanism has infiltrated many of these American churches. Therefore, it is imperative that evangelical Christians identify and understand the beliefs and practices of spiritual humanism and the New Age movement if they are to effectively combat those forces.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Gerald E. Bevan, (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 346-347.
[2] Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1999), p. 263.
[3] Randall N. Baer, Inside the New Age Nightmare, (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House, Inc., 1989), pp. 87-89.
[4] Ibid., pp. 82-83.
[5] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), p. 134
[6] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, from The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, (New York: Harper One, 2002), pp. 39-40.
[7] “monism,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, 1963), p. 547.
[8] Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 147.
[9] Ibid., p. 148.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Mignon V. Supnet, Spirit 101, (Self-published, 2012, 2013), p. 18.
[12] Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 148.
[13] Baer, pp. v, 55, 63.
[14] Ibid., p. 84.