spinning the gospel: Rick Warren's Saddleback Church

An example of what I think is God's message being changed for the sake of greater acceptance comes from the current epicenter of "seeker sensitive" ministry, Saddleback Church of Orange County, California.

Before I begin, let me just state that my fundamental fear/concern here is that the message of the gospel is being "spun" by these "seeker sensitive" churches in order to garner greater acceptance from potential converts. I struggle with this, because, with a lot of these churches, their doctrinal professions are within orthodoxy. Yet they present God's message in a skewed manner -- differently than God presented it in Scripture. They filter it.

Saddleback's web site has a video "altar call" on it given by Pastor Rick Warren. [This has since been removed. It used to be accessed via a link on their home page labeled "What's my purpose?"]

Here's an outline of the message (my comments in brackets):

[start of outline]

Saddleback's goal is to help you discover God's purpose, love and plan for your life.

God made you for a reason, purpose and mission in life.

Part of that is to establish a personal relationship with God, where you get to know God just like you know your best friend.

God wants to know you in a close and personal way.

This is not religion.

God knows everything about you, He just wants you to know Him the same way.

You were made by God for God.

He made you as an object of His love.

Our problem:
- We don't sense or feel God's love.

Cause of the problem:
- Sin has broken our relationship with God.
- We do what we want to do rather that what God put me on earth to do.

Jesus came to earth.
His mission was:
- Become the bridge between man and God
- Came in human form so we could understand Him and know what He's like. It's hard to understand God when you talk about God as being some impersonal force or some "spirit in the sky" -- we want to see what God is really like

The solution:
Simply trust [Trust in what? Warren doesn't say.]
It's nothing earned, it's a free gift of God's grace.

- God would like to take us to heaven.
- Heaven is a perfect place that can't accept anything imperfect into it -- if it did, it would then cease to be perfect.
- You and I are not perfect.
- Luckily, God came up with "Plan B."
- He came to earth himself, lived a perfect life, and said, "If you put your trust/faith in Me, then I will give you a ticket to heaven and be a part of My family."
- God has a ticket to heaven for you, but the only way you get it by being a friend of His Son, Jesus Christ -- having that relationship, getting to know God. [Has friendship replaced justification?]

You can take that step right now. You can make a commitment/decision. [A commitment to what, being Jesus' friend?]

"Pray with me, not necessarily the same words, but it's the attitude of your heart that counts."

Prayer:
- Thank you for making me
- I don't understand it all
- But I believe you exist
- And I do believe that you have a plan for my life
- Help me with all my doubts
- I don't have all the answers
- But I know I want to get to know you
- So as much as I know how, I open my life to you
- I want to begin a personal relationship with you
- I want to believe in you
- I want to trust you
- I ask you to forgive me for all the things I've done wrong
- I ask you to help me to understand your purpose for my life
- I pray this with what little faith I have

If you just prayed that prayer and really meant it, you have just become a part of the family of God -- a Christian, have crossed the line from seeker to believer.

Jesus has just done something good for you:
1. Every sin you have ever committed has been forgiven -- even if there were no heaven, it's still good that you can have a clear conscience. [I think I know what Warren means. But to a post-modern listener, this could easily be interpret to mean, "Even if this isn't all true, it's still good because it gives you a clear conscience." This is going to appeal to the post-modern who is seeking a spiritualistic hobby.]
2. God has guaranteed that you are going to go to heaven when you die - not because you deserve it, but because you've put your faith and trust in Christ. [Again, what is the person trusting Christ for? Based on Warren's message, one might conclude, he's trusting Christ to be his friend.]
3. You can now discover God's purpose and plan for you.

[end of outline]

Here are my observations about this attempt at sharing the Gospel:

- Nowhere is Jesus characterized as savior or sacrifice.

- No mention of the cross

- No mention of God as judge

- No mention of possible damnation

- The "bad news" is not, as Scripture teaches, that we stand rightly condemned before a holy and just God. It's that we don't "sense or feel God's love." It's also that heaven is a place that can't accommodate corrupt inhabitants -- which is crummy for us, since we're all corrupt. (Perhaps God needs a less picky dwelling place, one that doesn't have such strict requirements for residency.)

- The mention of forgiveness is really on the periphery, smuggled into the prayer. It's as if saying the prayer is considered magical, and that merely speaking the words, a person automatically receives forgiveness.

- The nature of Jesus' mission is characterized as an effort to show mankind what God is really like. Warren mentions "bridging the gap," but in the context of his presentation, this sounds more like a gap of friendship/relationship rather than an atonement for guilt.

- Is it correct to say that Jesus came to help us understand God and know what He's really like? I suppose, in one sense, Jesus did say He came to show us the Father. But to me, this way of talking implies that the manner in which God had revealed Himself in prior times had been inadequate, and maybe given man an excuse for his rebellion. I know Philip Yancey flirts with that line of reasoning in his book "The Jesus I Never Knew." But is this really Biblical? Would we have had no way of knowing what God was like without the Incarnation? If so, that implies that all of the Old Testament believers were in the dark. (It makes one wonder why God even bothered with the prophets.)

- It seems to me, the message being conveyed by Warren's presentation to someone without foreknowledge of the Gospel is that, at its crux, being a Christian means having "a relationship" with God. You become a Christian by praying a prayer to tell God you want to become His friend.


I visited Saddleback for one of their Christmas services last year, and my impression at that time was that the message was characteristically the same as above, which struck me as problematic.

I've studied Marketing, and what I think I see happening here is the practice of that discipline. You calculatedly compose your message. You emphasizing those things your target audience will find appealing. You de-emphasizing (or omit) those things your target audience will not find appealing. In some arenas of life, I think that's a perfectly legitimate thing to do. The discomfort I have is that that is not the communication style I see modeled by God, or the people of God, in Scripture.

The question I have to ask is, if God didn't choose to characterize Christianity as being fundamentally about "relationship" with Him, where you and I get to know Him "just like we know our best friend," by who's authority do we do so?

I know it's not the strongest argument, but I don't think it's completely insignificant that the word "relationship" never appears in the text of Scripture. If "relationship" is "what Christianity is all about," shouldn't it strike us as odd that God never used the term Himself? Wouldn't it be more instructive for us to use the terms God actually did use -- like Lord, God, Master, Father, Savior, Judge, Redeemer, King, Lamb of God, Sacrifice, Friend, "I Am," Brother, and the like -- and consider their implications?


Am I being hyper-critical? I'm not positive I'm not. On the one hand, I don't have strong a reason to doubt the actual beliefs or motives of these leaders. And there are some dimensions of relationship and such in Christianity. So, in some ways, it almost looks like it comes down to tactics.

But what do you do when, in the name of tactics, someone decides to be God's editor, taking the message of God and massaging it to make it more palatable for the masses? Is that deception or not? Where is the line crossed between contextualizing the gospel and changing it? And isn't carelessness with the message also disrespect for the message?