Africa to go Purpose Driven this year?

A year ago I reported a plan by Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren to change the world, or at least a continent: Africa. He started by inviting key pastors for what he calls an All-Africa Purpose Driven Church Leadership Conference.” It’s the next step in his global P.E.A.C.E. Plan.

“Let’s take the whole gospel to the whole world in a whole new way,” states Warren, in his email blast to pastors around the globe. If only he would start to include the beginning part of the Gospel (our fallen sinful nature, repentance), and also the rest of it (holiness, sanctification, that sort of thing), which is often lacking in his books and his sermons.

Nonetheless, pastors around the world have embraced Warren’s Purpose Driven model, based on those leaders Warren cites as his mentors: Robert Schuller, Peter Drucker, and Billy Graham:

…a new generation of pastors are ready to be equipped in evangelism, discipleship, ministry, worship and fellowship. So in 2015, I’m going to host an ALL-AFRICA PURPOSE DRIVEN Church Leadership Training Conference in the heart of the continent of Africa in Kigali, Rwanda. Just like Billy Graham, we intend to select and financially sponsor the next generation of key Christian leaders from the 54 African nations to receive this week of training.

Here is his official invitation video:

[powerpress]

Rick Warren was one of the original signers of the A Common Word Between Us and You document with Muslims. His controversial work with Muslims in Orange County during the King’s Way meeting, as well as the controversial teaching of Kingdom Circles (stating those in non-Christian faiths do not need to convert to be saved) at a Catholic conference in France, is just the tip of the ecumenical iceberg.

As of this date, Warren is still a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. In 2013, he announced the launch of three new international campuses, one in Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, and Berlin. All of this is part of Warren’s Global PEACE Plan, a 50-year plan to cure global issues such as “pandemic diseases, extreme poverty, illiteracy, corruption, global warming, [and] spiritual emptiness” and will require the support of all religions. The “P” in his P.E.A.C.E. plan originally stood for “Planting Churches” as the key antidote for curing the world’s ills. Later, however, before a panel and audience of representatives of the world’s religions, he changed the “P” from “Planting Churches” to “Promoting Reconciliation.”

Warren announced unequivocally that the universal problems cannot be solved “without including people of faith and their religious institutions”. He told his audience at the World Economic Forum at Davos , Switzerland ( 1/24/08 ) that the various houses of worship are needed for distribution centers of resources to help eradicate global problems. His shift, however, to an ecumenical program that includes Islamic mosques, Hindu temples, Jewish synagogues, and other religious establishments as participants in meeting social needs may impress the world, but it is contrary to what God says in His Word. The God of the Bible is an exclusive God: “I am the Lord , and there is none else, and there is no God beside me” (Isaiah:45:5) . There is to be no participation with the purveyors of false gods. The Apostle Paul tells us we are not to be “unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” 2 Corinthians:6:14-15 (Berean Call)