Greg Gilbert at 9 Marks posted a Saddleback email without comment. (Email now found here.)
Me? Not gonna resist this one.
There is something really creepy about calling people to be baptized with the promise of a picture of yourself being baptized by Rick Warren himself.
Too bad Jesus didn’t think of this instead of farming it out to his disciples. Imagine how many more could have been brought into the kingdom with a list of loot like Saddleback is apparently giving out.
Here’s one person’s comments:
"I heard Pastor Warren speak, and he invited everyone to be baptized," she said. "I decided to come back down because it was a lovely invitation. My brother reminded me that Christians need to be re-baptized as adults."
Being baptized because it was a lovely invitation? What does that mean?
Of course apparently being Purpose Driven does not include math classes. This email talks about thirty years of the church, but the church was started on Easter Sunday of 1980, making this twenty-nine years completed, starting the thirtieth. Now twenty-nine years at the same church is nothing to sneeze at. But it’s just not thirty years. Perhaps CLASS 105 will start up soon.
And yes, I am doing a bit of mocking in that last part, which will upset some. We all You all make mistakes. If we can’t laugh at ourselves others, who can we laugh at?
But seriously, selling baptism with a picture of you getting baptized by Rick Warren? Isn’t there something wrong with that?
I am seriously troubled by this.
5 comments:
So my math wasn't off after all!
As much as I'm loathe to defend any part of Warren's e-mail, I'd hate for the weight of the criticism to fall on a detail that's actually true.
By my reading, they're not claiming this is SVCC's 30th anniversary, merely its 30th Easter. So if it started on Easter 1980, Easter this year would be the 30th by my count.
Why should we be so critical of Rick Warren. We fundamentalists (at least some in our circles) look to men like Rick Warren as it relates to the text issue. Furthermore, we model much of our methodology in our churches like what's going on in Sattleback. Many who are graduating from our so called fundamental universities and colleges will even pastor churches that aren't baptist in name. And, many in fundamentalism use the save bible version as Rick Warren. Why should be be critical of Rick Warren, when many in our circles are following some of the same patterns as those who claim to be evangelical. May God help us to remain true to the fundamentals of the faith and not waver in this tide of 'critical' thinking that is permeating so much in some so called 'Christian Universities.'
We should be critical because Warren has missed the true meaning of baptism, obedience to Christ's command in exchange for as many numbers as possible.
What about unsaved people that come to this event and go through the motions but don't get the big picture? They could be deceived into believing that they got saved.
This whole concept is nauseating to me. I remember my baptism and how spiritual and serious it was to me as a young Christian.
Rick Warren has turned all that into a fancy book signing/publicity event.
I agree that we should be nauseating as it relates to Rick Warren's view on Baptism. My whole point is that we in fundamentalism are slipping down the same road as folk like Rick Warren. We aren't distinctively Biblical anymore in our approach to ministry. When we head down that slippery slope, it's hard to get back up.
When we're wrong on the Bible, wrong on our theology, and wrong on being distinctive in our methodology and doctrine, we'll then become wrong when it relates to baptism. Just a thought.
My advice to those who read this - don't follow Rick Warren. And, pray for our seminaries, that we'll have good Bible-believing seminaries across our land that will produce Bible-preaching pastors that will be right on their theology and right on what they believe about the Bible and what's in the Bible!
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