Rick Warren: His Humanist and New Ageism Roots

I know that there are a lot of Christians out in the world today who think that Rick Warren, the pastor at Saddleback Church, is a real man of God; every once in a while, I will see Christian friends of mine sharing a status from Rick Warren's Facebook page.  It is my hope that by the time you're done reading this post, you will want nothing to do with Rick Warren.  

Warren's Ties to Humanism:

At the Biannual Faith Angle Conference on Religion, Politics and Public Life in Key West, Florida in May of 2005, Rick Warren said the following:

"The most significant sociological phenomenon of the first half of the twentieth century was the rise of the corporation.  The most significant sociological phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century has been the development of the large pastoral church--of the mega-church.  It is the only organization that is actually working in society.  

Now, Drucker has said that at least six times.  I happen to know because he's my mentor.  I've spent twenty years under his tutelage learning about leadership from him, and he's written it in two or three books, and he says he thinks it's the only thing that really works in society."

Who is this Drucker that Warren is referring to?  Paul Smith gives a pretty good summary of him on pages 13-14 of New Evangelicalism: The New World Order:

"In the American Secular World, Peter Drucker became a rising star as a notable management guru, achieving fame as a consultant to both General Motors and General Electric.  His goal was to achieve optimum community in America wherein an individual's needs are met from the cradle to the grave.  Along the way a person's worth is determined by a calculated system of accountability which assigns value that measures achievement...In Drucker's quest for optimum community, he discovered that the most effective agent of change in American life is the mega-church.  At that point, Drucker and Rick Warren, a graduate of Fuller Seminary, came together.  Warren has affectionately boasted that Drucker has been his mentor for over twenty years.  Warren has vigorously implemented Drucker's key ideas at the Saddleback Church where his Purpose Driven model has been pioneered with national and international attention." 

As we can see from above, Drucker's incredibly humanistic philosophy states that the value of a person is based on the economic contributions they make to society, not the fact that every human was created in the image of God and is therefore valuable.  That's not surprising though, because Drucker admitted the following in an interview:

"I am not a born again Christian.  I went to church and tithed.  But no, I am not a Christian.  I taught religion at Bennington College every other semester for five years; out of which the essay on Kierkegaard came after I stopped teaching there."

So, not only is Peter Drucker not a Christian, but the man has clearly shown that he used to be one of those humanist religion professors on college campuses, and that his humanism influenced his ethics.  Because of this, the following quote of Drucker's from The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism shouldn't be too surprising:

"In spite of his need and search, Christianity and the churches have been unable to provide a religious social solution.  All they can do today is give the individual religion.  They cannot give a new society and a new community.  Personal religious experience may be invaluable to the individual; it may restore his peace, may give him a personal God and rational understanding of his own function and nature.  But it cannot re-create society and cannot make social community life sensible."

Doesn't it bother anyone that Rick Warren loves telling people that this guy was his mentor for twenty years?

Warren's Ties to New Ageism:

In the book Why It Matters: Avoiding Shipwreck at Cape Disappointment, Dr. Jim Jenkins describes his personal encounter of a peace pole planting in Salmon Arm, British Columbia in 1990.  Jenkins records this on page 7:

"A large group of people were holding hands in a wide circle, swaying and chanting something.  I inched closer and heard,

'We'd rather be dancing than marching.  We'd rather hold hands than a gun.  We are the New Age begun and we're learning the dance one by one.'"

Jenkins shares the following on page 10:

"A teen aged girl got up and recited a manifesto of sorts.  I was stunned when she reached the point in her address where she, in a matter-of-fact fashion said,

'All religions that are not harmonious with the New Age must be eliminated...'"   

Jenkins included the following quote from an article titled "World Peace University in Salmon Arm" in Shuswap Sun, a local newspaper, that covered the events that Jenkins witnessed:  

"The goals of the World Peace University are to educate people who desire to create a world where peace is a way of life, where environmental balance exists, where there is food sufficiency, where social justice prevails and where an individual achieves the highest degree of self-realization within a community of co-operation."

What does the World Peace University have to do with Rick Warren?  Check out this YouTube video from April 10, 2009 of Rick Warren at the World Economic Forum.  

Here is what Rick Warren lists as the major problems on our planet:  diseases, poverty, illiteracy, corruption (lack of social justice), Global Warming (environment), and spiritual emptiness (lack of peace).  Later in the video, Rick Warren promotes unity among the world's religions by asking the following question:  

"You can't talk community development without talking about churches and mosques and temples and synagogues; You just can't talk about it because they are the community, so my challenge to you is:  Can we not all get along?"

Hopefully, you realize like I did that everything that Rick Warren just said lines up perfectly with the goals of World Peace University, an organization that is clearly powered by New Ageism.  Doesn't it bother anyone that Rick Warren, a supposed follower of Jesus, is promoting the very things that New Ageism promotes?

If that isn't enough to convince you of Rick Warren's New Ageism ties, then this should:  On October 6, 2011, in a blog post titled Rick Warren Recommends Pagan Mantra "Technique" For Christians, Amy Spreeman writes the following:

"Why am I showing what Buddhist meditation looks like? Well, as regular readers of this blog know, I came out of the New Age, and while in the New Age I practiced many different types of mystical meditation (Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, pagan, etc.). And because of this, I can therefore attest that what Rick Warren is promoting is exactly like what I practiced as a New Ager doing mystical meditation. The only thing that differs between so-called “Christian mysticism” and pagan mysticism is the “device” used for emptying the mind. And sadly, the big thing in churches now is to try to make this pagan practice “Christian” by adding Christian terminology. But the addition of Christian terminology does not somehow “sanctify” this practice and make it Christian. Any time a Christian hears the word “technique” they should run for the hills. We do not need a technique for approaching God!...

Yes, it is fine to go to a quiet place, calm the mind, maybe even take a few deep breaths. But focus on a word or phrase until one’s mind is emptied? No! Doing this technique puts a person into an altered state of consciousness, where the mind is not engaged. Once a person has used the technique to “park” the brain, he or she is still awake and somewhat aware but his or her God-given boundaries are down. So what happens to a person in this state? Mantra meditation is so very seductive because it generates a very powerful experience, an experience that is very real and feels very spiritual, and which deceives one into feeling as if they are actually encountering 'God.'" 

Conclusion:  

Let's be clear about one thing:  Rick Warren is a major player on the religion scene.  He has 1,744,498 followers on his Facebook page, and his Purpose Driven model and the PEACE plan racks in lots of money and has lots of influence in the world.

The real question is, how can Rick Warren possibly be a true follower of Jesus when his mentor was a humanist who only saw religion as a tool to motivate people to contribute more to a nation's economy, and he promotes the goals and practices of New Ageism?  The teachings of the Old and New Testament clearly condemn Rick Warren's close association with Humanism and New Ageism.

Who are the people we should be following?  The answer is that we shouldn't be following any human authority.  Sure, it's good to listen to what apologists like Frank Turek and Norm Geisler have to say because they can give us good evidence that shows that the Bible is true in matters of science, history, theology, and morality; It's also good to take a look at the teachings of any pastor that preaches only the bible in order to see if his perspective can show you something that you didn't see before, but ultimately the person we should follow is Jesus of Nazareth.  Study Jesus' life in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you will find that he is more in touch with reality than anybody else who has ever lived.      

Science Has Confirmed Genesis 1

When it comes to explaining the origin of life and the universe itself, evolution is the theory that the atheists/humanists who have controlled the academic culture for the past 100-110 years have been brainwashing countless generations of young Americans into believing is true (to get an idea of how they do this, see my article "Atheism vs Jesus:  The Academic Battle For The Souls of Humanity").  They have indoctrinated so many generations of young people into blindly believing this theory that Harvard evolutionist Ernst Mayr said the following in an interview with Edge when he was asked whether evolution was a theory or fact:

"That's a very good question. Because of the historically entrenched resistance to the thought of evolution, documented by modern-day creationism, evolutionists have been forced into defending evolution and trying to prove that it is a fact and not a theory. Certainly the explanation of evolution and the search for its underlying ideas has been somewhat neglected, and my new book, the title of which is What Evolution Is, is precisely attempting to rectify that situation. It attempts to explain evolution. As I say in the first section of the book, I don't need to prove it again, evolution is so clearly a fact that you need to be committed to something like a belief in the supernatural if you are at all in disagreement with evolution. It is a fact and we don't need to prove it anymore. Nonetheless we must explain why it happened and how it happens."

According to Ernst, Evolution is a fact that no longer has to provide evidence for its truthfulness despite the fact that ALL scientific statements are open to reevaluation as new data is acquired, making it impossible for science to establish anything as "fact" or "true".  On page 14 of Religion and Science, which was written in 1997, Famous atheist Bertrand Russell said the following:

"A religous creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration."

On page 77 of The Character of Physical Law, physicist Richard Phillips Feynman says the following:

"If you thought that science was certain--well, that is just an error on your part."

Unfortunately, the atheists/humanists who control the academic culture in America have not limited the evolutionary theory to biological life; they have applied the theory to the entire physical universe, as was demonstrated at the beginning of May of this year when a virtual simulation of the evolution of the universe was released.  In the article "The Evolution of Everything in One Handy Simulation" found in Popular Mechanics, Shy Genel, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-author on the study of the formation and content of the cosmos through use of this virtual simulation, said the following:

"Our computer program accounts for the laws of nature—gravity, the formation of supernovae, black holes—and then evolves the universe until the present."

However, within the press release by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, we read the following:

"The computer simulation began a mere 12 million years after the Big Bang."

That little sentence raises a HUGE red flag for me, and hopefully every thinking human being.  If in reality there is no God, and evolution is true, then the Big Bang should have been included in the simulation.  Instead, it was left out entirely.  Why is that?

As I explained to a friend of mine when I first heard about this simulation, the atheists/humanists who control the academic culture can't explain how the physical universe came into existence out of nothing in an instant; they can't explain how the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the expansion rate of the universe, the radiation afterglow of the Big Bang, the ripples within the afterglow discovered by the COBE satellite in 1989, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, and the Anthropic Principle support the atheistic/evolutionary world view better than the theistic world view.  They have to leave out the Big Bang and all its supporting evidences in order to convince people that you don't need a god behind the creation of the universe.

Not only that, but as I explain in my apologetics film "God: A Matter of Science & History", the Second Law of Thermodynamics by itself disproves the entire theory of evolution.  How?  It's quite simple:  The way evolution is taught today is that the entire physical universe and everything in it, when left to itself over time, will become more complex and ordered; according to the second aspect of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (the law of entropy), the physical universe and everything in it, when left to itself over time, will wear down, break down, and fall into disorder.  Since the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the most established law in all of science (the need for food, water, and sleep are the effect of the Second Law of Thermodynamics on human beings), the theory of evolution simply cannot be true.        

What the Bible says about the origin of life and the universe:

Is what the Bible says about the origin of life and the universe backed up by science?  Let's take a look.

Genesis 1:24-25:  "And God said, 'Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.' And it was so.  God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good."

In this passage we see the phrase "And it was so", which appears six times in Genesis 1.  The way it is used in Genesis 1 implies crystal clearly that the words God said came into existence immediately; there was no delay or prolonged process of God's Word coming to pass.  With that in mind, this particular passage in Genesis is saying that all animal life came into existence all at once out of nothing in an instant.        

The fossil record shows us that during the period of time that Paleontologists call the Cambrian Explosion, all the major animal forms and groups appeared all at once out of nothing in an instant, without a single trace of less complex ancestors.  This led the world's most famous atheist and hater of Christianity, the evolutionist Richard Dawkins, to write the following on page 229 of his book The Blind Watchmaker, which was written in 1987: 

"And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear.  It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.  Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists..."

Genesis 1:1-2:  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

As the above passage says, God is the one who created the universe and the earth at the beginning of time.  

As the expansion of the universe shows if we could watch it in reverse, the Big Bang states that the physical universe came into existence out of nothing.  In March of this year, scientists made a new discovery about the Big Bang in terms of how long the expansion from a point of singularity that appeared out of nothing to the entire physical universe coming into existence took.  CBS Space Consultant Bill Harwood said the following:

"And we’re talking about things that happened in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. I mean it’s mind boggling to think how close to the beginning scientists are now getting.” 

While both atheists and Christians alike agree that the universe exploded into existence out of nothing in an instant, the atheists/humanists who control the academic culture have no clue what caused the initial explosion.  As we can see in the following passage, the apostle Peter knew what caused the initial explosion:

2 Peter 3:3-7:  "Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.  They will say, 'Where is this "coming" he promised?  Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.'  But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.  By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.  By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly."

As we can see from the Cambrian explosion, all the major animal groups appeared out of nothing all at once in an instant; according to Genesis 1:24-25, that happened because God spoke them into existence.  The new discovery about the Big Bang shows us that the universe itself came into existence out of nothing in an instant.  It logically follows that God spoke the universe into existence just like Peter says he did.      

Conclusion:

If the scientific evidence supporting the Big Bang Theory found over the past 100 years keeps getting more and more verified as time goes on, and all the evidence matches exactly what the Old and New Testaments say, then how come the atheists/humanists who control the academic culture refuse to believe it?  

In regards to the Cambrian Explosion, Richard Dawkins had this to say on page 230 of The Blind Watchmaker:

"Both schools of [evolutionary] thought agree that the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation, and both would reject this alternative."

Why would Dawkins and others like him deny the existence of God when the biblical account clearly accounts for the scientific evidence regarding the origin of life and the universe better than evolution can?  There is a very simple explanation.  In an article titled "Billions and Billions of Demons" on page 31 of The New York Review of Books from January 9, 1997, Darwinist Richard Lewontin admitted the following:

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door."

As we can see from Lewotin's confession, the atheistic/humanistic/evolutionary explanations of the origin of life on earth and the universe itself actually goes against everything we observe in the universe; in fact, all the observational evidence we have through science at this point in human history has lead me to believe that Genesis 1 has been scientifically verified.  The real truth, as Lewotin admits, is that the atheists/humanists/evolutionists who control the academic world don't want there to be a God; if they were to acknowledge God's existence, then they would no longer be the dispensers of truth that they want to be.  In other words, Paul was right about them:

Romans 1:18-20:  "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."      

It has become painfully clear that without a proper understanding of the Bible, we have no chance of understanding the scientific data regarding the origin of life and the universe itself.  On page 72 of Proofs of God's Existence, which was written in 2007, Richard Wurmbrand puts it brilliantly:

"In antiquity and what is called the Dark Ages, men did not know what they know now about the cosmos.  They did not know the lock but they possessed the key, which is God.  Now many have excellent descriptions of the lock but they have lost the key.  The proper solution is union between religion and science.  We should be owners of the lock and key.  The fact is that as science advances, it discovers what was said thousands of years ago in the Bible."