The Burr in the Burgh

According to Rick Warren in his The Purpose Driven Life, many of you do not need any more Bible study. That's what he says on p. 231:

The last thing many believers need today is to go to another Bible study. They already know far more than they are putting into practice. What they need are serving experiences in which they can exercise their spiritual muscles.

I couldn't disagree more. The problem many churches face is not an overload of Biblical knowledge, but a deficit of it.

A person could try to explain comments like this one away by saying, "Well, that's not what he meant. He meant that, essentially, faith without deeds is dead." Even if that were the best construction, it is still at best, a sloppy, misleading statement. All of us are prone to making unpolished statements that we later want to clarify. I understand that. Sometimes conservative Christians are guilty of relentless nit-picking, but the quote above is just one of a thousand examples of Warren putting his foot in his mouth, and one of the more benign examples at that.

Here's one that troubled me even more:

If you want to know how much you matter to God, look at Christ wit his arms outstretched on the cross, saying, 'I love you this much! I'd rather die that live without you.'
God is not a cruel slave driver or a bully who uses brute force to coerce us into submission. He doesn't try to break our will, but woos us to himself so that we might offer ourselves freely to him. - p. 79

There are several different ways that theologians have described the work of Christ upon the cross. These are called the theories of the atonement.

One is the Christus Victor theory. This is the notion that by dying and rising, Christ's main feat was to vanquish the devil. It was a cosmic battle and Christ is the victor.

Another theory is the idea of Forensic Justification. This is the view that the cross is chiefly about God the Father acquitting sinners because Jesus, His Son, took their penalty upon Himself.

And a third theory has been called the Moral Influence theory. This is the belief that the cross is mainly God's way of showing us just how deeply He loves us in the hopes that this display of affection will melt our hearts so that we freely embrace Him.

There is, of course, truth to be found in all of these theories. But of the three listed above, the Moral Influence theory is by far the weakest and least biblically attested. And yet, that is the approach Warren uses in the above citation. God does demonstrate His love by means of the cross, but Jesus' death is not a Hallmark card (caring enough to send the very best). It is a blood sacrifice to appease God's wrath for our sin.

The Purpose Driven Life makes some good observations here and there. But it is not a Christ-centered book. The clear gospel message is barely visible, buried and obscured with the anecdotes, principles for living, and rampant scripture quotations twisted from their context.


P.S.
St. James wrote: Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly (3:1)." Being a pastor of a Christian congregation and writing a book (or blog) puts one in the public eye. Some have said, "Leave the man alone. He meant well. And beside, his book has helped a lot of people." God can use very weak earthen vessels to accomplish His purposes, but that does not excuse a pastor from mis-using and mis-applying Scripture. It would be wrong and pastorally irresponsible not to point errors out.

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