Rick Warren: Christians and Muslims worship the same God

Wow, this is just….wow. As much as I disagree with Warren on many things I thought he knew better than this.

[QUOTE] Polls show that evangelicals are 30 percent more likely than other Christians to hold a negative view of Islam, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Polls also show that evangelicals overwhelmingly favor converting Muslims to Christianity and are more likely to believe that Islam encourages violence.

Warren has repeatedly encouraged evangelicals to set aside such views, arguing that Christians are obliged to treat everyone with love and respect, regardless of faith.[/QUOTE]
This demonstrates the problem with our post-modern society. A “negative” view of Islam does not equal lack of love and respect for Muslims. Believing that Islam encourages violence does not equal lack of love and respect for Muslims. Perhaps love and respect compels us to confront destructive errors rather than gloss over, and even affirm them. Pastor Warren needs to re-examine his view of Christian love in the light of Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

Also, our society’s sloppy thinking encourages logical fallacies like the Non-Sequitur. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/non%20sequitur I think it applies here.

…that John Piper was, under the very best interpretation possible, extremely foolish to give Warren a whitewash?

“We agreed we wouldn’t try to evangelize each other.” That’s funny — he told Piper something rather different.

From his interview with Piper:

Warren: So I, 100 percent, agree with you that we have to be even more Christocentric because of the influence of Islam today. You know, I frequently speak to Muslim groups. Now what do you expect a guy who’s got the gift of evangelism? I spend most of my time speaking to people who totally disagree with me. I speak to gays. I speak to atheists. I speak to secularists. I speak to Muslims because I’m trying to build a bridge between my heart andtheirs so Jesus can walk across and they’ll come to know Christ.

I think Muslims in many ways are often like the “Corneliuses” of scripture who have a heart for God. They want to do the right thing, but a lot times—have you heard of Jesus? Have you heard of Jesus? And when people say, “Well, we worship the same God.” I say, “Well, hold on just a minute. My God looks like Jesus.”

Piper: Yeah.

Warren: Okay. So if your God doesn’t look like Jesus, we don’t worship the same God. Sorry.

Liar. I know, it’s a strong word. I stand by it. Warren is dishonest.

And Piper (at best) is seriously lacking in discernment, which we also see with his support of Driscoll.

Everyone else was able to rush right through.

P.S. It would have been HELPFUL had conservative evangelicals raised the same stink ten years ago when George W. Bush publicly, repeatedly said the same thing - that Muslims and Christians worship the same god - as they do whenever the issue of Obama and religion come up. Rick Warren can justifiably claim “It wasn’t a problem for you when Bush said it, so what is the matter when I say it?”

Let me begin by saying that I think that Rick Warren’s approach as presented in the article (and Saddleback’s) is completely wrong-headed. Even the quote of his comments to Piper represents his faulty view of evangelism as it relates to depravity and gospel advance. I disagree with his stance and approach completely.

That said, however, I would like to suggest that we be careful with our critique on one point—the article makes the claim that Warren says Muslims and Christians worship the same God, but the evidence presented doesn’t actually make that claim. As I read it, the joint group statement said both groups worship one God, not the same God. IOW, it was claiming that both groups are monotheistic. Personally, I think that similarity is irrelevant, but people like Warren are always looking for common ground with unbelievers, which is his point in the Piper quote (e.g., building a bridge).

Please don’t mistake my intent here, which is not to defend Warren’s strategy at all. It is to avoid a mischaracterization that will be easily refuted by Warren’s defenders. I believe that Warren’s overall strategy is severely problematic on biblical/theological terms. He is, though, acting consistently with all of the other things Saddleback and he have done to build bridges toward unbelievers. This is just another example of the “we must win them to us before we can win them to Jesus” mindset. By making their objective to build relationships (win them to us) which still allow witness to happen, he, no doubt, feels he can sincerely say their goal is not evangelism. It may seem like playing games with words, but it is actually the outgrowth of his pre-evangelism model.

It will be interesting to see if Piper addresses this issue. I could be wrong on this, but I think the methodology being used by Warren here is not new and it is not that uncommon. Its application specifically to Muslim community groups may be, but that may reflect Warren’s use of niche marketing more than a theological shift. The “find common ground” approach to apologetics and evangelism has dominated evangelicalism (and some quarters of fundamentalism) for several decades. Warren is just a more vocal and aggressive practicer of it.

Has not Warren told Piper that his purpose is evangelism?

Has he allowed the Muslim statement that there will be no evangelism to stand?

Has he or has he not declined to comment?

He’ll say that he is evangelising when it is convenient, and then allow anti-evangelism statements to stand unchallenged (until someone makes a nuisance of themselves and points it out, then he’ll probably issue a statement refuting it). How do we characterise that as anything but dishonest?

As to the “one God” comment, Warren has gone with the usual fudge — we both believe in “one God”. When it is convenient, he allows the impression to be formed that he means we believe in the same God, but when evangelicals object, he can say, “Oh, that just means we both believe in monotheism.” The reporter fell for the trick, and said “the same God.”

It’s fun when you can find words that can easily have multiple interpretations. The Islamic Center of Southern California said ” http://blog.icsconline.org/2011/12/icsc-co-authors-historic-interfaith-… it demonstrates the new theological position of Saddleback.” OnIslam out of Egypt is characterising this as belief in “the same God,” too. Is this an accident that they overlooked?

But Warren will probably come out with a statement after a few days, when there is an evangelical furor over it, saying he didn’t mean it that way.

A far cry from letting your yea be yea and your nay, nay.

It’s no problem for the Muslims, the Koran tells them to do this kind of stuff, to give the appearances of friendship even when you don’t mean it. And the Koran tells them that Christians will pretend to be their friends, but they aren’t really. So he’s just proved for them that the Koran is right — pretending he isn’t going to evangelise when he will. Once he releases his statement in a few days that he isn’t abandoning evangelism, the mullahs will know exactly what to preach on Friday — “See, never trust a Christian even when he says he wants to be your friend. He doesn’t really mean it.”

edit: Has anyone actually seen this document? You would think, if it is so wonderful, they would publicise it….

I love Thabiti Anyabwile’s engagement with Islam. He’s firm about doctrine, but winsome. He’s a former Muslim himself.

http://vimeo.com/24514260

JG,

Let me apologized in advance for this being a pretty short and final response, but I’ve got a short week before I hop on a plane to travel to a part of the world where this subject is real life 24/7.

My main point was to caution us about making a case based on the newspaper’s interpretation (same God) of the actual statement (one God). If someone has more information to suggest that the newspaper is correct, I’ll quickly withdraw my caution. My comments are on what was written in the article which was linked since I have not looked up any other info and I can’t read minds.

Likewise, I don’t think the text of the Warren to Piper quote says as much as you seem to be suggesting, but I’ll live that to others to evaluate. My sole contention on that point was that Warren makes a distinction between pre-evangelism and evangelism that allows him the wiggle room he is utilizing. That was the reason for the “love your neighbor” talk. There has long been a debate about whether “love your neighbor” should be viewed as an end (i.e., love them simply because God says to do it) or a means (i.e., love them in order to evangelise them). Warren seems to be arguing the former, hence he can sincerely say that they are doing these things as love for neighbor, not as evangelism. We can disagree with him about the propriety of it, but I’d caution against charges of dishonesty unless we’re willing to consistently apply that label to these kinds of efforts.

Certainly he has led Piper’s listeners to believe one thing and used words that at least permitted (encouraged?) others to believe another. But in the spirit of what you’ve said, I’ll await Warren’s no-doubt-coming clarification before commenting further.

My daughter took such a plane today. May the Lord bless your travels and your ministry.

An http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/455974-kings-way-unites-us… Islamic website interpreted it to mean “same” God.

Partnering with Southern California mosques, Rev. Warren proposed a set of theological principles that include acknowledging that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

Dubbed the King’s Way, the effort caps years of outreach between Warren and Muslims in which he broke Ramadan fasts at a Mission Viejo mosque, met Muslim leaders abroad and addressed 8,000 Muslims at ISNA convention in Washington D.C.
First announced last December, Abraham Meulenberg, a Saddleback pastor in charge of interfaith outreach, and Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs at a mosque in Los Angeles introduced King’s Way as “a path to end the 1,400 years of misunderstanding between Muslims and Christians.”

[Brenda T] An http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/455974-kings-way-unites-us… Islamic website interpreted it to mean “same” God.

I should have provided the link. Thank you.

Another quote that is disturbing from the article is Warren speaking to 8,000 Muslims and saying, “I don’t know if you have noticed this, but God likes variety.” How would they interpret that except to think Warren believes God approves of both religions.

(JG, I see now that you had already referred to the article I linked to. Sorry I didn’t notice that before.)

Rick Warren commented on the Orange County Reporter newspaper article:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_aavlhE4lPY/T0rvS9f3soI/AAAAAAAABe0/t9YJ9LWET…

Then later the reporter responded:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5LRAzF00Ipc/T0rsJd9ETFI/AAAAAAAABeo/yypvfzUnc…

[OP article] The men presented a document they co-authored outlining points of agreement between Islam and Christianity.

Can anyone link to this document? It seems important to the discussion. Maybe I missed it, but the article doesn’t seem to point to it.