Deceived on Purpose

Deceived on Purpose

The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church

Authored by Warren Smith - Reviewed by Albert James Dager

The Purpose-Driven agenda promoted by Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Southern California, is taking the world's churches by storm. Now comes Warren Smith's book, Deceived on Purpose. Smith is a former leader in the New Age movement who received Jesus as his savior in 1984. Well versed in New Age philosophy and its attendant terminology and practices, Warren was surprised to find these things permeating Christianity, particularly within the large movement instigated by Rick Warren.

In this important book, Smith exposes Warren's penchant to quote New Agers and to use Bible versions that promote New Age thinking, particularly The Message, authored by Eugene Peterson.

Peterson, by the way, is New Testament editor of the Spiritual Formation Study Bible, to be published by Richard J. Foster's Renovaré spiritual renewal center. Renovaré is heavily steeped in New Age connections and teachings through its promotion of contemplative and meditative disciplines. (See Media Spotlight's special report, Renovaré: Spiritual Formation Groups on the Rise.)

It isn't that Rick Warren is a New Ager, per se, but he has been heavily influenced by Positive Thinking guru Robert Schuller who, in turn, has been heavily influenced by overt New Age teachers. In the late 1980s Schuller's Crystal Cathedral church hosted workshops for A Course In Miracles, a blatantly New Age human-potential course. Only after much outcry from knowledgeable Christians did the Crystal Cathedral stop hosting the workshops. Yet over the years Schuller has continued to champion many New Age teachers and has even showcased some on his Hour of Power television program. One, psychiatrist Jerry Jampolsky, has been touted by Schuller as a "Peace Maker" as recently as 2003. In introducing Jampolsky to his congregation, Schuller claimed that Jampolsky had "found God." What he neglected to tell the people is that Jampolsky found "God" through A Course In Miracles, and that Jampolsky's book, Love is Letting Go of Fear, is completely based on the teachings of A Course In Miracles. It's not that Jampolsky's connection to A Course In Miracles was hidden. On the dedication page of his book he thanked the authors of A Course In Miracles and openly stated that his book was based on their work.

How does this relate to Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven agenda? Rick Warren is a devotee of Robert Schuller, having attended his pastoral training course many times. Warren Smith points out many instances where Rick Warren's words and teachings reflect Robert Schuller's almost word-for-word and point-by-point. Yet Rick Warren has been careful not to attribute those words and teachings to Schuller.

In his books, The Purpose-Driven Life and The Purpose-Driven Church, Rick Warren even quotes some of the same New Agers that Schuller has promoted. His extensive quotes of The Message and other modern paraphrases of the Bible which distort the true Word of God reveal how corrupted the Purpose-Driven message is. (See Media Spotlight's The Purpose-Driven Program: A Growing Phenomenon in the Churches.)

Warren Smith states:

As a self-proclaimed "change agent," it seemed that one of Rick Warren's unstated purposes was to mainstream Robert Schuller's teachings into the more traditional, "Bible-based" wing of the Church. Many believers who seem to trust Rick Warren, ironically, do not trust Robert Schuller. Rick Warren's "magic" seems to be that he is able to make the teachings of Robert Schuller palatable to believers who would have otherwise never have (sic) accepted these same teachings had they come directly for Schuller himself. And, as I was about to discover, one of Rick Warren's colleagues was also in the process of doing much the same thing.

The colleague of Rick Warren to whom Warren Smith refers is Bruce Wilkinson, author of The Prayer of Jabez. Wilkinson's new book, The Dream Giver, could have been written by Robert Schuller himself. It encourages people to pursue and achieve the "Big Dream' that Wilkinson claims God, the "Dream Giver," has put in everyone's heart. Although Wilkinson, like Rick Warren, does not give attribution to Schuller, Warren Smith points out several instances where Schuller's terms are used extensively.

The thread exposed by Smith runs from New Age teachers to Robert Schuller, to Rick Warren and Bruce Wilkinson, to thousands of pastors who have linked up to Warren's Purpose-Driven agenda and who also tout Bruce Wilkinson's books. Through these pastors, millions of Christians are buying into the subtle New Age thinking which will prepare them for the supreme New Age leader, the coming anti-Christ. The documented threads of New Age influences upon these men is overwhelming. Warren Smith has done a great service to the Body of Christ in bringing these connections to light.

Deceived on Purpose is available through Sword Publishers.

Media Spotlight

A BIBLICAL ANALYSIS OF RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR MEDIA

VOLUME 27 - NUMBER 3

www.mediaspotlight.org/

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