Purify Your Bride

I asked him, for instance, about the criticism that he offers a sort of glib, new age Christianity. Rev. Bob DeWaay, author of a book criticizing Warren’s approach, says “the Bible’s theme is about redemption and atonement, not finding meaning and solving problems.” How does he respond to the charge that he offers a shallow 40-day approach to Christianity?

“I flatly deny it,” Warren says. “The average message I teach on a weekend contains fourteen passages of scripture. I am a multi-generation pastor which many of these critics don’t. I am a Bible scholar. I’ve had six years of Greek and Hebrew. They don’t know what they’re talking about. And what happens is you often get pigeon-holed because if a church is large then people tend to think it’s shallow and that’s not true. All large churches are not alike. All mega-churches are not alike.”

Notice he sort of side-steps the charge. Rev DeWaay did not say he didn’t know the scriptures or quote the scriptures. The bible says lots about finding meaning and solving problems in your life. Nobody is going to have a problem quoting 14 passages of scripture per message and still not hit the themes of sin and redemption. The bible is a big book and pastors often quote just a small fraction of it. Does that fraction miss anything important? For many pastors it does.

In many protestant denominations, including the one I was raised in, they used to have safe guards against this. The Christian Reformed Church had the Heidelberg Catechism which pastors were required to cover every so often. That was watered down over time and now you rarely hear a catechism sermon. Many denominations have done similar things recently trying to compete with non-deniminational churches that can do as they please.

In my last post I was realizing that Christianity does not really make sense unless you understand the reality of sin and the fact that, without God’s intervention, people are headed to hell. It is an offensive truth. Are we able to teach offensive truths? Do we really believe them ourselves? Do we look at people and see someone desperately in need of a saviour? Do we look at ourselves and see that?

I have not attended many AA meeting because that is not by background but when I have they have shocked me with how offensive they can be. They know that the person need saving. They know because they understand very well the sin of drunkenness. So they might call them a lying, thieving, good-for-nothing drunk. Often they will add some swear words. They will always explain that they know this because they are one themselves. But the offensive language is used to try and get someone to really face themselves. They understand that the program cannot help them unless they are willing to take the first step. They need to admit they are powerless over alcohol.