Hank Hanegraaff Interviews Rick Warren
Recent search against my blog:
28/06/2005 11:16:27 hang hanegraff and rick warren (Google)
I've mentioned Hank Hanegraaff in connection to an entry about Paul Crouch, and I've mentioned Rick Warren in connection to an entry about Rick Warren (and in a few other places).
So what happened when the two of them got together? (The following excerpt is undated, but appears to be at least five years old.)
)--"Being seeker-sensitive does not mean watering down the message said Rick Warren, pastor of one of the Southern Baptist Convention's largest churches, on the national Bible Answer Man" radio program.
"It does not change what you say. It changes how you say it said Warren, pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church, Mission Viejo, Calif., which averages nearly 15,000 people in its seeker-sensitive worship services and will celebrate its 20th anniversary in January 2000.
Warren was interviewed by Hank Hanegraaff, host of the Bible Answer Man" program on Oct. 12-13. Hanegraaff also is president of the Christian Research Institute International a self-declared "parachurch organization committed to defending historic Christianity against theological heresy." Suspicious of any "aberrant teachings in the church Hanegraaff's CRI Internet site, www.equip.org, includes not only daily and archived Bible Answer Man" radio programs but also articles and debates on cults and aberrant Christian practices.
One article originally published in 1996 titled Pro and Con: The Seeker-Church Movement, contrasts the views of a seeker-sensitive associate director of the Willow Creek Association against a Denver Seminary professor who believes that being seeker-sensitive means being less biblical.
Hanegraaff on the Oct. 12-13 broadcast said he "literally was stunned by a message that is altogether biblically correct" after listening to Warren's audiotapes The Purpose Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message and Your Mission.
Hanegraaff said he found Warren's principles to be not only "biblical but also revolutionary phenomenal dynamic sound" and "exhilarating." He said the principles will "not only revolutionize your church if applied they'll revolutionize your life as an individual."
Admitting he rarely gets this excited Hanegraaff said Warren's purpose-driven church philosophy is something that has "really captured my imagination."
Hanegraaff introduced Warren as "a guy with a vision and most of all a guy with a passion ... a passion not to empty out other churches to fill his mega-church but to reach the lost to take the message of the gospel that transforms hearts ... and make that message adaptable to the culture without ever compromising the message itself."
Hanegraaff said he has come to see that the seeker-sensitive strategy is "not about [church] size not about classes and masses. It's about changed lives." He said Warren's purpose-driven church principles are "so important in an age when we desperately need healthy well-balanced churches and called Warren's materials a roadmap to help churches be what they ought to be....
And here's what Hanegraaff has to say about the prosperity doctrine:
Many popular evangelists are involved with “Positive Confession” or the “Word-Faith” movement. What’s wrong with this movement?
Some of America’s best known televangelists subscribe either partly or wholly to what’s commonly referred to as “positive confession,” the “Word-Faith” teaching, or the “prosperity” doctrine. Its chief representatives today seem to be Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Fred Price, Charles Capps, and Casey Treat, though there are certainly many other evangelists, teachers, and writers who promote this teaching.
The “word-faith” teaching may be summarized as follows: God created man in “God’s class,” as “little gods,” with the potential to exercise what they refer to as the “God-kind of faith” in calling things into existence and living in prosperity and success as sovereign beings. Of course, we forfeited this opportunity by rebelling against God in the Garden and taking upon ourselves Satan’s nature. To correct this situation, Jesus Christ became a man, died spiritually (thus taking upon Himself Satan’s nature), went to hell, was “born again,” rose from the dead with God’s nature again, and then sent the Holy Spirit so that the incarnation could be duplicated in believers, thus fulfilling their calling to be what they call “little gods.” Since we’re called to experience this kind of life now, we should be successful in virtually every area of our lives. To be in debt, then, or be sick, or (as is even taught by the faith teachers) to be left by one’s spouse, simply means that you don’t have enough faith — or you have some secret sin in your life, because if you didn’t, you would be able to handle all of these problems.
Now, while certain aspects of the this doctrine may vary from teacher to teacher — ranging from moderately aberrant to the outright heretical — the general outline remains the same. In every instance, the “Word-Faith” teaching is guilty of presenting an inflated view of man and a deflated view of God, thereby compromising God’s message as revealed in the Bible. This fast-growing movement has disastrous implications and, in fact, reduces Jesus Christ to a means to an end — when in fact he is the end. If the New Age Movement is the greatest threat to the church from without, “positive confession” may well be it’s greatest threat from within....
And a search on Trinity Broadcasting Network yields the following:
Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN)
promotes Word of Faith, Kingdom Now.
CRI is not offering any resources under this topic with this criteria.
Also see these Topics: Avanzini, John
Crouch, Paul and Jan
Lam, Nora
Word of Faith Movement
...
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