The author, Steven R. J. Parks, contrasts the Biblical view of sanctification with that presented by the Purpose Driven Life. He writes:

Thus, man cooperates in his sanctification, but only insofar as he is involved in it. God begins, continues, and completes His work in the redeemed. We do not take the initiative, nor are we even equal partners in the endeavor. Instead, our cooperation is passive, inasmuch as “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

For Warren, however, man-initiated obedience is the key to fellowship with our Lord: “However, Jesus made it clear that obedience is a condition of intimacy with God.” It is important, according to Warren, “Because it proves you really love him.” So the biblical saints, such as Mary, act as examples for us: “God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus, not because she was talented or wealthy or beautiful, but because she was totally surrendered to him.” Thus, we are told, if we want God’s blessing on our lives, we must likewise be obediently surrendered, manifesting the beatitudes: “If you want God’s blessing on your life and you want to be known as a child of God, you must learn to be a peacemaker.” Failure to do so may result in judgment: “I lose fellowship with God…I set myself up to be judged by God.”

Steven Parks goes on with a devastating (and carefully footnoted) indictment of the guidance given in the Purpose Driven Life to would-be godly Christians:

So Warren presents readers with the following “simple” instructions: discovering the three insights into your purpose, ascertaining the five reasons to live a purpose-driven life, applying the three metaphors of God’s view of life, learning God’s five purposes for your life, living God’s five plans for your life, enacting the five acts of worship that make God smile, uncovering six secrets of friendship with God, developing the four characteristics of the kind of worship that pleases God, performing the three important truths of fruitful fellowship, six reasons for being committed and active in a local fellowship, discovering the four principles of real fellowship, learning the four steps to cultivating community, creating a covenant using the nine characteristics of biblical fellowship, following the seven steps to restoring broken fellowship, promoting six ways to ensure unity, following the three steps to conflict resolution, uncovering the three responsibilities in becoming like Christ, practicing the three activities necessary to abide in God’s Word, carefully following the three specific steps in overcoming temptation, learning the four keys to defeating temptation, avoiding the five impediments to growing in Christ, enacting the four steps to cooperate with God in the process of Christian growth, participating in the six types of experiences God uses in molding us, discerning the three steps to clarifying what God intends you to be and do, finding the six steps to becoming a true servant, developing the five attitudes of a true servant, taking the four steps to allowing God to work through your weaknesses, establishing the six steps to discovering the importance of your mission, discerning the four parts of your life message, discovering your seven life lessons, implementing the four principles for thinking like a world-class Christian, participating in the four important activities for purpose-driven living, learning the five vital signs of worship, realizing the five steps to discovering your purpose statement, and remembering life’s five greatest questions. By following these one hundred and sixty-four simple steps, readers may initiate their own sanctification and live purpose-driven lives.

Phew! I’m so glad that Pastor Warren has simplified and distilled the Law for us in this way so that we may now keep it.

But there’s just one little nagging doubt: didn’t St. Paul have something to say to the Galatians about this sort of thing?

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? (Gal. 3:1–4, NKJV)

Indeed, Steven Parks makes precisely this point. He goes on:

The law, of course, has no power to sanctify, whether it be Warren’s home-spun practical wisdom, or even God’s commandments themselves. In fact, the law primarily serves to reveal sin, always convicting its hearers of their shortcoming (lex semper accusat—Rom. 7:7). Thus, Warren’s one hundred and sixty-four simple steps to living a purpose-driven life, if taken seriously, will only aggravate sin and make matters worse: “But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead” (Rom. 7:8). For this reason, the Formula of Concord testifies: “For the Law says indeed that it is God’s will and command that we should walk in a new life, but it does not give the power and ability to begin and do it.” Indeed, this power is given by the Holy Spirit only through the gospel, precious little of which is found in The Purpose Driven Life.

Go ahead and read the whole review – I suspect you’ll find it thought provoking and Gospel-focused, even if you are not quite of one accord with one or two of its Lutheran emphases. (And if you are, you’ll love it.)

I am praying that Rick Warren makes a swift and full recovery, and encourage you to do likewise.

In his comment on my article, Dangerous pragmatism – why a transformed life is not proof of salvation, my father expressed unawareness of the Purpose Driven Life movement.

I know that my father’s claim might appear scarcely credible to some. Yet he lives in deepest darkest Dorsetshire, in a small rural village near the south coast of England. It seems that Rick Warren has yet to reach the local Anglican parish church that my father attends there.

Now, despite the impression that some might have from my postings, I am not especially interested in talking about Rick Warren, criticizing Purpose Drivenism, or even in lamenting the problems readily apparent in today’s evangelical church.

I should much rather be proclaiming the true Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners like me, and raised from the dead for our justification.

It’s just that the errors of modern evangelicalism keep intruding upon my ability to do that, and it turns out that addressing those errors can sometimes be a useful foil for talking about the wonderful riches that are ours in Christ.

What follows is therefore precisely not the sort of article that I like to write (more Gospel, please!). Nevertheless, I post this brief introduction to the Purpose Driven Life movement for the benefit of my father, and anyone like him who is as yet unaware of its dangers. I do not aim to be comprehensive: many others have covered this ground more thoroughly than I could hope; it would be futile of me to duplicate their work.

Just before I talk about Rick Warren, let me be clear that he is not the enemy: ‘for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places’. (Ephesians 6:12, NKJV) By all accounts, Rick Warren is both generous and gracious, and we should be able to differ with him in a like manner.

Rick Warren

Although perhaps somewhat passé and now searching to find the next big thing, Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life movement continues to be a huge phenomenon that has had a significant impact both within and without the visible church. This is what the Purpose Driven Life website says about Rick Warren:

Dr. Rick Warren is passionate about attacking what he calls the five “Global Goliaths” – spiritual emptiness, egocentric leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic disease, and illiteracy/poor education. His goal is a second Reformation by restoring responsibility in people, credibility in churches, and civility in culture. He is a pastor, global strategist, theologian, and philanthropist. He’s been often named “America’s most influential spiritual leader” and “America’s Pastor.”

As a pastor, he founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., in 1980 with one family. Today, it is an evangelical congregation averaging 22,000 weekly attendees, a 120-acre campus, and has more than 300 community ministries to groups such as prisoners, CEOs, addicts, single parents, and those with HIV/AIDS. Recently, the church fed 42,000 homeless people – three meals a day – for 40 days.

He also leads the Purpose Driven Network of churches, a global coalition of congregations in 162 countries. More than 400,000 ministers and priests have been trained worldwide, and almost 157,000 church leaders subscribe to Ministry Toolbox, his weekly newsletter. His previous book, The Purpose Driven Church is listed in “100 Christian Books That Changed the 20th Century.” Forbes magazine called it, “The best book on entrepreneurship, management, and leadership in print.”

As a global strategist , Dr. Warren advises leaders in the public, private, and faith sectors on leadership development, poverty, health, education, and faith in culture. He has been invited to speak at the United Nations, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the African Union, the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, TIME’s Global Health Summit, and numerous congresses around the world. TIME magazine named him one of “15 World Leaders Who Mattered Most in 2004” and in 2005 one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” Also, in 2005 U.S. News & World Report named him one of “America’s 25 Best Leaders”.

As a theologian, Dr. Warren has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, the University of Judaism, the Evangelical Theological Society, and numerous seminaries and universities. His six books are known for explaining theology in understandable ways and have been translated into more than 50 languages. Dr. Warren says he teaches theology without using theological terms and telling people it is theology. His latest book, The Purpose Driven Life, has sold 25 million copies and is the best-selling hardback book in American history, according to Publisher’s Weekly.

The numbers are breathtaking. Rick Warren has been incredibly successful at what he has set out to do. He is intelligent and personable, and he has influence.

But even this glowing description itself should begin to make us uncomfortable.

Dr. Warren’s stated goal is a ‘second Reformation by restoring responsibility in people, credibility in churches, and civility in culture’. But hang on, those are all things that we have to do. Where is the Gospel of what Christ has done for us?

And what is Forbes, a secular business magazine, doing describing Rick Warren’s manual, the Purpose Driven Church, as the ‘best book on entrepreneurship, management, and leadership in print’? Surely shepherding a church must differ somewhat from leading a corporation? Why would Forbes, and institutions such as the UN and the University of Judaism even be interested in listening to someone who is boldly proclaiming the exclusivity of Christ and teaching pastors how to make plain the offence of the Gospel?

Something doesn’t seem quite right. And that something goes to the heart of the problems of the Purpose Driven Life movement.

The Gospel obscured

I have sent my father a copy of Bob DeWaay’s excellent book, Redefining Christianity: Understanding the Purpose Driven Life Movement. I recommend it to anyone who wishes to understand the problems with the movement. (I think I must now hold the record for the most endorsements of that book on a single blog.)

Perhaps you are eagerly awaiting the arrival of your newly purchased copy? The following brief article, also by Pastor DeWaay, is a helpful introduction to the biggest problem with the Purpose Driven Life (and several others):

• The Gospel: A Method or a Message? How the Purpose Driven Life Obscures the Gospel

Here is a pertinent quotation:

[Rick Warren’s] teaching is in keeping with popular, American, evangelical pietism so it is no wonder most evangelicals cannot see what is wrong with it. It comes from a stream of theology that can be traced back to Charles Finney who popularized a methodological “how to” approach to the gospel that puts spiritual revival in the hands of man to work at will. In doing so neither the message nor the method of Jesus Christ and His apostles is followed.

What Pastor DeWaay says about American evangelical pietism is equally true of evangelicalism in the British Isles (where I was born and still live). Those of us brought up in evangelical circles often find it hard to fault what Dr. Warren is offering. This isn’t because Warren is correctly teaching Biblical doctrine, but because so much of evangelicalism is following ‘neither the message nor the method of Jesus Christ’.

There are, of course, many other resources out there that warn of the dangers of the so-called ‘seeker-sensitive’ Purpose Driven Life movement. I picked Pastor DeWaay’s book and the article above because I find him to be a balanced, readable and insightful observer of the movement.

Drs. Sproul and Mohler on the errors of seeker-sensitivity

The views of two other heavyweights, Dr. R.C. Sproul and Dr. Al Mohler might also be appropriate to include here. They highlight the nonsensical nature of the term ‘seeker-sensitive’, the foolishness of making church attractive to unbelievers, and the misguided notion of catering to ‘felt-needs’ as a means of evangelism:

Aside: The only thing that I’d add to what Dr. Sproul says in the video clip about the gathering of believers for worship is that this is also where we go to be fed with the Word and through the Lord’s Supper. We hear the Law to convict us of our sins, and then the sweet balm of Gospel, assuring us that our sins forgiven in Christ. (Some of us who lean slightly towards the Reformed camp of the Reformation traditions can so easily overlook this, and instead start to see the gathering of the local church as a duty that we are supposed to do for God, rather than a feast-laden table where we go to be fed by Him. But it is an error to make the Gospel benefits of our gathering together into a mere duty of the Law.)

It is self-evidently unhelpful to take our church gatherings – something intended by Christ to feed, equip and edify the body of Christ (cf. Ephesians 4) – and turn them into spectacles designed to entice unbelievers. It is no wonder that so much of the visible church is spiritually impoverished – it has been on a starvation diet.

Hostile church takeovers

One particularly pernicious aspect of the Purpose Driven Life movement is the way that it trains pastors to ‘transition’ their churches to the Purpose Driven model. There are numerous testimonies available online of faithful Christians who have been forced out of their churches by this process. For a flavour of how this works, I recommend listening to this episode of Fighting for the Faith radio program:

• Special Edition: The Cult-Like Hostile Takeover Tactics of the Purpose-Driven Church Transitioning Seminar

Concluding remarks

As with the rest of the Church Growth Movement, Purpose Drivenism obscures the gospel and applies modern marketing methods to the church.

It endeavours to engineer church growth by human techniques, rather than by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit through the proclamation of Law (to convict people of their sin and to show them their true state before God) and Gospel (to direct broken sinners to Christ for forgiveness and justification).

The people behind the movement are smart and well trained. Their techniques work and their congregations consequently swell (at least to a point).

Yet we remember that it is not we who build the Church, but Christ Himself – even He who loved her, and gave Himself for her on the cross. In Christ, therefore, is forgiveness of sins for everyone who believes.

I’ll throw open the comments here, and invite you to provide links to any further resources that you might have found helpful on this topic. Please don’t be bashful about posting relevant links to your own articles and blogs.

I was chatting with a good friend last week. He is on the leadership track of a self-described Purpose Driven church, and we have a history of (mostly) amicable sparring over the nature of the Gospel and how it should be proclaimed.

(For anyone unfamiliar with the dangers of the Purpose Driven church movement, I recommend Bob DeWaay’s eminently readable and definitive book on the subject, Redefining Christianity: Understanding the Purpose Driven Life Movement.)

Entirely incidental to the topic of our conversation, my friend happened to mention that the home group he leads had been showing a Nicky Gumbel video. Without thinking, I blurted out the mildly disparaging quip ‘Never mind.’

Who is Nicky Gumbel? He’s the developer of the wildly popular Alpha Course, the content of which many have found to be highly problematic. Michael J. Penfold’s brief analysis of The Gospel According to Gumbel likewise indicates a dangerously flawed presentation of sin, repentance and the work of Christ. Penfold even goes so far as to document Gumbel’s denial of the doctrine of penal substitution, which teaches that Christ was punished in our place for our sin (my emphasis):

Gumbel’s limited understanding and presentation of the theology of sin, leads to a faulty explanation of why Jesus died. Despite giving various illustrations of Christ’s death, including the old ‘swap the Bible from one hand to the other’ visual image, Gumbel misses the central point of the atonement. The Bible reveals that God’s righteous anger and wrath burn constantly against sin and sinners (John 3:36, Rom 1:18, 2:5). To save sinners from wrath (Rom 5:9) penal substitution took place on the cross. Simply put, the righteous anger and wrath of God against sin was poured out on His own Son (Isa 53:5 & 10). This glorious truth is denied by false teachers like Steve Chalke and Clark Pinnock. Gumbel’s position on penal substitution (God punished Jesus) is spelled out in Questions of Life: “Some people caricature the New Testament teaching and suggest that God is unjust because He punished Jesus, an innocent party, instead of us. This is not what the New Testament says. Rather Paul says ‘God was…in Christ’ [2 Cor 5:19]. He was himself the substitute in the person of his Son…We can come back to the Father and experience his love and blessing…That is what God has made possible through his self-substitution on the cross.”

Although Gumbel later refers to Isa 53:6 and says that, “God transferred our wrong-doings onto Jesus,” he denies that God actually punished His own Son. Here, at the heart of Alpha, is a serious error, for scripture plainly teaches that it was God’s will to bruise His own Son (Isa 53:10). Calvary involved divine punishment. That is why the word chastisement is used (Isa 53:5). The iniquity God laid on Christ stands for the wrong itself, the guilt incurred and the punishment to which it gave rise. Literally in Hebrew it means that the Lord ‘made to meet upon Him’ the punishment due to us all. Wrath was poured out on Christ, as He vicariously identified Himself with sinners, being judicially made sin for them on the cross (2 Cor 5:21).

Now, notwithstanding Gumbel’s questionable theology, it wasn’t especially gracious of me to fire a barb at my friend in the way that I did – at least, not in that particular conversation. (If he’s reading this, I apologise for having done so.) But the reason for this post is not to make a public confession, but to discuss the implications of his response, for he quickly pointed out that they had seen lots of conversions, and that people’s lives were being transformed by Gumbel’s teaching. I have no reason to doubt that these things are true.

Since this was an off-the-cuff rejoinder to my provocation, it would be unfair to hold my friend too closely to it as a definitive and final statement of his position. What follows is not therefore addressed specifically to him.

Nevertheless, my friend’s remark is illustrative of the pragmatic grounds upon which the Church Growth Movement justifies its techniques. In essence they say, ‘Don’t criticise us – look at the lives that are being transformed! The fruit of what we do is proof of God’s blessing.’

Let’s look at three of the faulty assumptions that underly this line of reasoning.

False assumption 1: We can judge what is right by whether it ‘works’

In the business world (the source for many of the ideas in the Church Growth Movement), judging by results is generally reasonable. However, the church is not her own master, but rather is responsible to her Head, even the Lord Jesus Christ who bought her. She has not been given a mandate to innovate, but to ‘stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle’ (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

For the church, what matters is not our own opinion of what works, but what Christ has commanded. She is to hold fast to the Apostle’s doctrine, to the proclamation of repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Christ.

False assumption 2: Growth in church attendance proves God’s blessing

In my previous treatment of this assumption, I observed that Baal worship was at one time the most popular religion in Israel. Was this evidence of God’s blessing?

Islam has over a billion adherents and is currently growing faster than the total world population. Is this proof that God approves of Islam?

Or is the reality that the true Church preaches a message that the world finds unpalatable? Even ‘Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.’ (1 Corinthians 1:23-24)

False assumption 3: A transformed life is proof of salvation

Many religions transform lives. Mormonism has produced zealous clean-living converts who would put most evangelicals to shame in their general moral conduct. And radical Islam certainly transforms the lives of those who decide to become suicide bombers – and those of their victims.

Self-help books transform lives. Here’s one not atypical comment of many concerning Stephen R. Covey’s bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

This book changed my life. After reading this book back in 1997 my whole thinking about myself and others changed. I wish they teach this book in high school in every country in the world. Since 97 I buy this book and give it as gift to anyone I come across, especially to young people. You read it and judge it.

The religion of the Pharisees transformed lives. Yet Jesus said of them:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. (Matthew 23:15, NKJV)

Clearly, Jesus didn’t approve of that particular sort of life transformation.

We should be concerned that Pharisaism, which was really all about making God’s law doable, is alive and well in far too many of today’s churches. Whenever anyone gives you five simple steps to keep God’s law (whether it is to stay out of debt, or have healthy relationships, etc.), understand that Pharisaism is the religion being offered. Likewise, when someone preaches the law and tells you to just go out and do it. But the Bible tells us that God’s law exists primarily to show us our sin – it does not have the power to make us righteous:

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20, ESV)

I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. (Galatians 2:21, NKJV)

The gospel is not a formula by which we can obey God’s law and thereby become righteous. No, it is the Good News that, even though we do not obey the law, Christ kept it for us. That His perfect righteousness is put to our account, and that the wrath of God that we deserved for our sin was instead poured out upon Christ on the cross:

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26, NKJV)

Those who believe that gospel have eternal life. These are the ones who believe that God justifies (declares righteous) all those who are trusting in Jesus and His work on the cross. For them, ‘Christ is the end of the law for righteousness’ (Romans 10:4, NKJV).

‘Ah’, someone might say, ‘You don’t understand. When I talk of a transformed life, I mean that people’s lives are turned around and they are joyful in the Lord.’

What then, of the parable of the soils? Jesus says:

Behold, a sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.

Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.

And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

Matthew 13:3–9, NKJV

Jesus subsequently explains the parable to His disciples:

Therefore hear the parable of the sower:

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.

But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.

But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

Matthew 13:18–23, NKJV

The seed which fell upon stony ground appeared to burst into life – it ‘immediately sprang up’. Why? ‘Because there was no depth’.

Far from the immediate flourishing of growth being an indicator of eventual fruit, that growth was caused by the seed falling upon unprepared ground. This is sobering; the implication is that a quick conversion – an abundance of early growth – might very well prove to be ill-grounded.

Notice that the first hearer is said not to understand the Word he has heard. We are not told whether the second and third hearers understand it, but we are left to draw our own inference, given that we are expressly told that the final hearer, he who received seed on the good ground, ‘is he who hears the word and understands it’.

The seed which fell on stony ground is likened to one who hears the Word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet there is no depth there, no true understanding of what has been declared.

If this is sometimes the case with those who hear the true Word of the Kingdom, properly proclaimed, how plainly this exposes the dangers of our modern watered-down presentations of man’s sinful state. Rather than risk offending people by telling them of the wrath of a holy and just God toward sinners, we instead talk of having ‘made mistakes’ and ‘messed up our lives’. Instead of warning of the coming judgement, we tell people that God loves them, omitting any mention of His holiness and justice. Rather than call sinners to repent, we entice them with the offer of a better, more abundant life.

And thus we emasculate the Gospel, robbing it of its majesty and power. For if God is not angry with sinners, the punishment of His Son in their place on the cross can make no sense. Truly, it is this kind of diluted evangelism that results in false converts, lacking depth and with no understanding of the amazing grace that has been poured out upon sinners through the cross of Jesus Christ.

The Church’s task is not to make the Gospel palatable to unbelievers. It is to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Christ so clearly that the offence of the Gospel – Christ crucified in our place, the just suffering for the unjust – is plain to everyone who hears.

Our message should be such that it is impossible for anyone to accept, except the Holy Spirit be at work supernaturally in people’s lives. The Church is charged with preaching the Law in all its severity to frighten comfortable sinners, and then to comfort frightened sinners with the Gospel.

And so we see that false religion can transform lives. Secular books and programmes can transform lives. And even those who hear the true Gospel can receive it with joy and exhibit the signs of a transformed life, yet fall away when tested by tribulation or persecution. And thus, when it comes to matters of eternal salvation, a transformed life is proof of precisely nothing.

The right way, and the wrong way, to view good works

None of what I have said regarding a transformed life is to deny that genuine faith will result in good works. For it is true that ‘faith without works is dead’ (James 2). That is, someone who has been regenerated and granted the gifts of repentance and trust in Christ will inevitably produce good works.

But always remember that any such good works are the consequence of our salvation, not its cause. We must never think that we have somehow earned favour with God by anything we have done. We have favour with God only because of what Christ has done for us and in our place. It is impossible that we could add to that finished work. As Paul admonishes the Galatians:

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

Galatians 3:1–3, NKJV

Neither should we look to good works as proof of salvation. Elders may not rest secure simply because they see transformed lives among their flock.

Likewise, we should never look to our works for definite assurance of our own salvation. To do so is immensely dangerous. For whenever we examine our lives honestly in the light of God’s Law, we can but agree with Paul:

For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do…For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. (Romans 7:15, 18, NKJV)

Direct me to my works, and I shall despair, for I do not see them, except perhaps a few rags ‘defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection’ (as the Westminster Confession puts it). And even if I should be so blind to my true sinful state as to be reassured, I would then no longer be trusting in Christ’s merits alone, but rather in my own. A new Pharisee would have been born.

We are simul iustus et peccator, righteous and yet sinners at the same time. I am declared righteous, but the taint of sin is as yet present within me. With St. Paul, I cry out:

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:24–25, NKJV)

Point me then, not to my own works, but to the exceedingly precious promises of Christ that are mine through His finished work on the cross. Call me daily to repentance, and tell me of the forgiveness of all my sin that has been accomplished through Christ’s death and the shedding of His blood. Exhort me not to look inward to myself, but outward to the one with whom I was buried through baptism into death, the one who was raised from the dead for my justification and even now causes me to walk in newness of life (cf. Romans 6).

Conclusion

The Church Growth Movement is predicated upon pragmatism. It wrongly assumes that numerical growth and transformed lives are proof of God’s blessing. Let us not measure the health of our churches by such things, but by their steadfast adherence to the Apostle’s doctrine, and by their faithful proclamation of repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.

Christ’s message to the church in Sardis should be salutary for all churches whose confidence is in their results, in their reputation for being alive:

These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars:

‘I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.’

‘You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.’

‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Revelation 3:1–6, NKJV

How different from Christ’s letter to the persecuted and apparently impoverished church in Smyrna! (Revelation 2:8–11)

The Church has no need for human efforts to engineer salvation. For hear St. Paul’s summary of the Gospel and its power:

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:21–24)

Postscript

After I had begun writing this article, Ken Silva posted a précis of a piece by Dr. John MacArthur on this same subject of pragmatism in the Church. Ken’s summary and Dr. MacArthur’s full article are both well worth reading. This quote from Dr. MacArthur is particularly apposite:

It is folly to think one can be both pragmatic and biblical. The pragmatist wants to know what works now. The biblical thinker cares only about what the Bible says. The two philosophies inevitably oppose each other at the most basic level.

Afterword

Readers might find the comment thread below helpful in clarifying why the Purpose Driven Life movement is problematic. I have also written a follow-up article, Our transformed lives: what are we to make of good works?

Remember, Leadership Network is the organization that helped infect the church with the twin blights of Seeker Drivenism and Emergence Christianity. Leadership Network has marketing clout, and knows how to use it. Monvee could be huge.

One of the problems with the Church Growth Movement’s seeker-driven approach to mass-producing disciples is that it has largely failed to consider how to make disciples who are growing into spiritual maturity in Christ. When the most mature members of your own congregation tell you that they are ‘not being fed’, there’s a problem. And when the mainstream media writes that ‘megachurches like Saddleback are market-driven, with transcendence not on the menu’, and worse, describes you as the ‘butt end of Christianity’ using the words ‘bland, cheerful, dull’, the scary prospect of irrelevance beckons. And with irrelevance comes that worst nightmare of the Church Growth CEO pastor – stagnant or shrinking congregations.

Monvee is the solution to this problem of stalled Christian lives lacking in transcendence. Market research has uncovered a missed opportunity, and Monvee is the new product that has been created to fill this void.

Monvee claims to be ‘The Future of Spiritual Formation’. This is in itself bad news, because ‘spiritual formation’ is code-talk for Roman Catholic Monastic Mysticism. (Be sure to read my good friend Christine Pack explaining how the practices of spiritual formation have their origin in occultic mysticism, then listen to her powerful testimony.) Not content with the damage that it has already done to the church, Leadership Network now apparently wishes to undo the Reformation.

The rather prosaic reality is that Monvee is a website that claims to diagnose your spiritual needs so that it can create a personal growth plan for you to follow. (Monvee also looks like it will be able to provide pastors with the ability to track the progress of those in their congregations who are using it.) In other words, Monvee is simply a software application that is running on a webserver somewhere. But perhaps that doesn’t sound as important as ‘The Future of Spiritual Formation’.

Take a look at this short promotional video for Monvee:

John Ortberg opens by saying:

If you make the inside of the tree right, then the fruit will be good. If you change somebody’s habitual patterns of thinking and feeling, then inevitably the kind of stuff that they do will be the right kind of stuff. But that means I have to step back and ask the question, ‘How is it that those habitual patterns of thinking and feeling get changed?’

Ok, that’s an interesting opening. So, I am now expecting a Biblical follow-on. Perhaps something like the following:

Of course, there’s nothing we can do to change those patterns. We have to be buried with Christ by baptism into death so that, just as He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life in Him. (cf. Rom. 6:4)

We can do nothing! Christ has done everything!

Let us therefore live lives of daily repentance, trusting in Christ’s finished work alone for the forgiveness of our sins, and in His righteousness put to our account. Let us feed gladly upon Christ in the Word that He has given us, speaking the truth in love to one another, that we might be nourished in the faith and grow up in every way into Christ. (cf. Pet. 2:2; Eph. 4)

But no, instead we have this from Bob Buford, chairman of the Leadership Network board:

A worship service isn’t the only treatment. A Bible class isn’t the only treatment. And, uh, a small group doesn’t fit everyone, either. There, uh, what we need is a diagnostic device to find out what the customer needs at different stages in their, their development in the life of faith. And what it looks like we have now is that device.

Notice anything missing? (I’m going to ignore the consideration of worship services and Bible classes as treatment – that’s way too easy a target to bother tackling.)

We need a diagnostic device? Huh? (And no, he’s clearly not talking about the Law of God showing us our sin.)

Where is Christ? Where is the Gospel? Where is the work of the Holy Spirit?

It is truly said that ‘The Gospel assumed is the Gospel denied’. But here with Monvee we have, at the very least, an implicit denial of not merely the Gospel, but also of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. This, then, seems to be a Christianity that has no need for the work of the Christ or the Holy Spirit. This is a Christianity that has no need for a Triune God.

Thanks to Leadership Network and Monvee, we can dispense with the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit in applying to us Christ and His righteousness. What we are given instead is a set of techniques and resources, a customized ‘growth plan’ for each individual.

I wonder how the church managed for two millennia without this crucial innovation?

In the light of what Bob Buford and others say in the video, take another look at John Ortberg’s opening words:

If you make the inside of the tree right, then the fruit will be good. If you change somebody’s habitual patterns of thinking and feeling, then inevitably the kind of stuff that they do will be the right kind of stuff. But that means I have to step back and ask the question, ‘How is it that those habitual patterns of thinking and feeling get changed?’

Is not the underlying assumption here, borne out by the rest of the video, that we each have within us the ability to change our ‘habitual patterns of thinking and feeling’? What we need, then, is to discover and apply the right kind of techniques to bring about this change, thus making ‘the inside of the tree right’. We need a growth plan, a programme. We need Monvee.

Take a look at this complete transcript of the video, and tell me whether I have misunderstood the message that it conveys:

JO = John Ortberg, author ‘Faith and Doubt’
BB = Bob Buford, Buford Foundation & Leadership Network
TW = Tom Wilson, CEO Leadership Network
JW = Jud White, Central Christian Church
MF = Mike Foster, xxxchurch.com founder
MB = Mike Breaux, author ‘Identity Theft’

JO: If you make the inside of the tree right, then the fruit will be good.

JO: If you change somebody’s habitual patterns of thinking and feeling, then inevitably the kind of stuff that they do will be the right kind of stuff.

JO: But that means I have to step back and ask the question, ‘How is it that those habitual patterns of thinking and feeling get changed?’

BB: A worship service isn’t the only treatment. A Bible class isn’t the only treatment. And, uh, a small group doesn’t fit everyone, either. There, uh, what we need is a diagnostic device to find out what the customer needs at different stages in their, their development in the life of faith. And what it looks like we have now is that device.

TW: I think that this Monvee’s going to be an innovation that’s gonna take the Church, uh, in the next century in, on into a whole new level.

JW: To me, it’s a, a remarkable idea that we can customize a growth plan for each individual that would want it. That would be open to pursing and going after it.

MF: And, the idea that I could take a really quick assessment, a really easy assessment, that Monvee’s going to understand how I think, and how I feel, and how I like to learn, and then create a plan for me. That’s exciting, and that’s what I want as a person. Uh, because, again, the desire is there. It’s just I gotta figure out the pathway. And a pathway that works for me.

MB: And I think as, as people start to find that it’s ok to walk with God in the way that He has wired you up, that you don’t have to do this as much as this. Uh, I think it’s going to be revolutionary for people.

JO: It offers the possibility of getting beyond what most churches do, which is, we try to mass-produce disciples of Jesus. And disciples of Jesus cannot be mass-produced, they have to be hand-crafted.

Monvee is built upon the assumption that it is possible to train and discipline a tree to think and feel in a particular way, and that this process will then make the tree right inside so that it produces good fruit.

There’s a term for this belief that we have the innate capability to become righteous, that we can obtain right moral standing before God by applying the appropriate disciplines to our lives through our own efforts.

That term is Pelagianism.

Pelagianism was condemned as a heresy by the Church at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Pelagianism denies original sin, the Biblical doctrine that we are dead in our sins and completely incapable of becoming righteous by our own endeavours. Pelagianism denies that, in our state of utter helplessness, we need Christ and His righteousness applied to us through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

Based on this promotional video, I rather think that I detect the putrefying stench of Pelagianism emanating from the rotting foundations of Monvee.

Let me be clear. I am not here asserting that John Ortberg, or anyone from Leadership Network, actually holds Pelagian doctrine. But they certainly might like to re-examine the innovations that they are introducing to the church in the light of the historic, orthodox Christian faith that is set forth in the Scriptures. And they might wish to think rather more carefully about what they say and how they say it. Right now, they are not sounding as if they are orthodox.

Finally, I do agree with John Ortberg’s closing comment, that ‘disciples of Jesus cannot be mass produced, they have to be hand-crafted’.

But that statement leaves me slightly puzzled.

Monvee offers a growth plan that is churned out automatically by a piece of software based upon your responses to a standardized set of questions. How is that anything other than an attempt to mass-produce disciples? What, exactly, is hand-crafted about this approach?

No, the Church doesn’t need Monvee.

Rather, we need to abandon the failing seeker-driven megachurch model. We need a return to an age of sound doctrine, where each elder assumes personal responsibility for each sheep under his care.

Consider Richard Baxter, the Puritan pastor:

Concerning his time in Kidderminster, Baxter would write that ‘there was about one family in a street that worshipped God and called on his name’ upon his arrival; whereas ‘when I came away there was not past one family in the side of a street that did not do so.’ Baxter promoted a vigorous and personal pastoral ministry among his flock. He regularly visited them in their homes and personally catechized whole households until he was ejected from the Church of England in 1662 because of the Act of Uniformity. Though he would continue his preaching ministry, he would never again have pastoral charge over a congregation.

— Richard Baxter and the Multi-Site Movement, www.9marks.org

Richard Baxter took a genuine ‘hand-crafted’ approach to making disciples. He believed that pastors should give personal attention to each individual in their flock.

Monvee might have ‘hand-crafted’ pretentions, but its boast is nothing more than the deceptive claim of an over-active marketer’s imagination.

I think, therefore, that I shall decline this particular innovation. I am instead going to stay with historic, orthodox Christianity. It has served the church well for nearly 2,000 years, and I am confident that I too can do no better than to trust alone in Christ and Him crucified. And I have the treasure of his pure and holy Word to feed me. Sola scriptura! Sola fide! Sola gratia! Solus Christus! Soli Deo gloria!

‘It drives Pharisees nuts to watch God keep blessing ministries they ridicule & despise.God’s sovereignty is often humorous.’

What’s the Pharisee card? Good question.

In my quest to become Todd Wilken’s number one fan, please allow me to direct you to his incisive article:

• Playing the Pharisee Card

Now, Rick Warren’s proof of the rightness of his position (and that his opponents are wrong) seems to be based on his claim of God’s ‘blessing’. And, as CEO of Saddleback and self-proclaimed disciple of management guru Peter Drucker, he knows how to apply best 21st century management practice to his business. So, it is important for Mr. Warren to be able to quantify this blessing.

How is God’s blessing measured? Well one easy way, in Mr. Warren’s book, is by seeing how much your church grows. A numerically growing church is a blessed church. Saddleback has grown vastly over the last three decades. So, God must be blessing it. And He must approve of their theology and practice. Quod erat demonstrandum.

The only problem with this, and it is just a teensy-weeny one, is that not all growth is good growth.

Measured on the basis of numerical success, Baal-worship was doing pretty well in ancient Israel. (If you are unfamiliar with the story, now would be a good time to read 1 Kings 18.)

All but a remnant of 7,000 people had bowed the knee to Baal. Thus, the 450 prophets of Baal whom Elijah confronted must have been pretty confident of God’s favour. After all, 450–1, that’s pretty good evidence of whose side God is on, right?

At least, it must have seemed that way.

Until Elijah routed the prophets of Baal and had them all executed at Brook Kishon.

It turned out that Elijah was the one who had been listening to (and trusting in) God, after all. He was the real Prophet. The prophets of Baal? They were self-deceived impostors, false prophets with no legitimate place in God’s kingdom.

Which brings us to the question, how does Rick Warren know that God is blessing him and those ministries fashioned after his own?

This might be an appropriate point to remind ourselves of what Christ wrote to the Church of Sardis:

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.”

“You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’

—Revelation 3:1–6, NKJV

A name for being alive doesn’t cut it. Your works must be perfect before God.

Not sure that you can manage perfect works?

Good.

You can’t.

But what matters is what Jesus Christ has done for us. And He has lived a perfect life for us, died for us.

But this Gospel message, what Christ has done for us, isn’t what Mr. Warren has been emphasizing. He instead proclaims the need for a New Reformation, this time of ‘Deeds, not Creeds’. (Since this is itself a creed, there is, shall we say, a certain tinge of irony here.)

Rick Warren thus preaches a message of what we must do for Christ. This back-to-front gospel is from the world of Alice Through the Looking Glass.

But, let us consider seriously for one moment this creed of ‘Deeds, not Creeds’. What kind of deeds might God be interested in?

After he fed the five thousand, some of the people came to Jesus and asked exactly this question:

Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’

Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.’

Therefore they said to Him, ‘What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”’

Then Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’

Then they said to Him, ‘Lord, give us this bread always.’

And Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.’

‘This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.’

—John 6:28–40, NKJV

Jesus’ message sounds remarkably like ‘Creeds, not Deeds’. What you believe about Him is everything. What you do? Well, not so much. (Which isn’t to say that what we do isn’t important. But the good works that we do are a fruit of the gospel, not the gospel itself. Never confuse the two.)

Are you believing and trusting in Christ? Yes? Then you ‘have everlasting life’, and He will raise you up ‘at the last day’.

The work that God would have you do is to believe in His Son. To trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. To trust in His perfect, righteous life put to your account. His death in your place for your sins. You give God glory by believing in His glorious Son.

The problem with Mr. Warren’s doctrine of ‘Deeds, not Creeds’ is thus obvious: it directly contradicts what Jesus taught.

This is why many Online Discernment Ministries (ODMs) and have for years been questioning Mr. Warren’s doctrine and practice. And perhaps, just perhaps, they might now be getting a little under his skin.

One of the two tweets Mr. Warren made immediately prior to playing the Pharisee card was:

“Father,thank u for hiding the truth from those who think themselves so wise&clever,&revealing it to the CHILDLIKE”Mt11:25

Doesn’t he sound somewhat defensive? I pray that the Holy Spirit troubles his conscience. May the Lord have mercy upon him and grant him repentance and faith in Christ for the forgiveness of all his sin, including his false gospel.

Finally, here is the other tweet that he made before playing the Pharisee card:

It takes ALL kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. If Jesus is honored & lives transformed, I like how you do it!

It is encouraging that Mr. Warren appreciates the value of all kinds of churches.

Except, of course, those that call him out on his unsound doctrine and practice. No, they’re simply full of Pharisees. Aren’t they?

Afterword

For over two years, I have refrained from naming names and making negative posts on this blog. This article marks a shift from that policy.

Why the change?

Because Rick Warren and his Leadership Network partners are responsible for immense damage to the Body of Christ.

And now, rather than respond to his critics with a Biblical defence of his position, he has resorted to the playground tactic of name-calling. The gospel is too important for this to go unchallenged. People’s eternal destinies are at stake.

Mr. Warren, enough is enough. If you are unable or unwilling to present an exegetically sound Biblical defence for your doctrine and practice, may the Lord rebuke you and grant you repentance.