The evidence very strongly suggests that Rick Warren, like Ted Haggard, is a model example of the wolf in sheep’s clothing that the Apostle Paul warned against. If you have any ties to Saddleback or a church that follows a Purpose-Driven program, I’d recommend severing them.
From Joseph Farah’s column today:
It was in the context of our debate over Warren’s characterization of Syria as a “moderate” country that provides religious freedom to Christians that I suggested the media’s favorite mega-pastor should have sought counsel from someone like me – a Christian journalist of Syrian and Lebanese heritage who has covered and analyzed the Middle East for the last 25 years.
Warren explained, somewhat condescendingly, that he had counseled with the National Security Council and the White House, as well as the State Department, before his little pilgrimage to Damascus.
”In fact,” Warren added, ”as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Oxford Analytica, I might know as much about the Middle East as you.”
I hadn’t asked about the CFR. I didn’t use thumbscrews to pry this information out of him. He volunteered this bombshell in a written communication.
But there’s something deeply disturbing I have learned about Warren: He generally tells people what they want to hear. And evidently he didn’t realize how alienating news of his membership in the CFR would be to many in his own flock.
So what did he do?
He and his staff have revised history – or their story, anyway.
Now, according to an e-mail from John Mogush, his assistant at Saddleback, his boss was just confused.
“Pastor Rick is not a member of the Council on Foreign Relations,” he wrote one concerned constituent. “He was asked to become a member, but declined. If you can tell me where it was written, we will respond to them.”
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the organized Evangelical Church is almost as bad, in it’s own way, as the Episcopalian Church.
For some, it is time to decide to where your loyalties lie, with a particular organization or Jesus Christ.