Rick Warren, Witch-Hunting, Apologetics

I ran across a very interesting WordPress blog post not long ago by a woman who had voiced concerns about, you guessed it, Rick Warren. She was concerned/convinced that he had actually instructed people to deliberately “lie” to children. Her accusation was based on how she was interpreting guidelines that he had given in an internet article on how to deal with church leaders who are forced to leave their positions due to sin.

In that article, Warren had casually mentioned children, and the proper way to tell them about such a delicate situation. His advice was to tell children only the barest minimum of information because their faith is fragile, stating:

Children have a fragile faith and often idolize their leaders. Parents should be careful not to talk about fallen staff in front of children so they don’t lose heart. If asked, you should simply say “They resigned,” That’s all children need to know.

This fairly innocuous remark was enough to cause this particular blogger—and many of her readers—to begin picking apart Warren’s words, which to them indicated that he was advocating lying.

I made an initial post seeking to express a much more balanced view of the whole thing, opining that at best it was a generalized statement in which he was trying to simply communicate the need to be careful about how we talk about such things to children.

Before I knew it, nearly 40 message had been posted back and forth from all kinds of folks weighing in on the subject. This led me to make another post, which basically lays out some of the consistent problems surrounding so many criticisms of Warren:

I have to just shake my head a little when I read a post like this one, then all the hoopla that follows. It’s kind of sad, and exemplifies one of the main problems that Warren faces—or ANY public figure faces. Such persons are scrutinized WAY, WAY, WAY beyond what is reasonable.

Look, Warren is JUST a man. He does the best he can as a human being to reach people for Christ. He preaches there is only one eternal Triune God, that Christ was 100% God/Man, that deliverance from eternal separation from God is completely by grace alone thru faith alone in Jesus and His death/resurrection for us, and that one day our Lord will return. And yes, he even teaches that if we call ourselves Christians, we ought act like Christians.

This is what each of us are trying to preach in our own lives—whether we are public figures or not, whether we are saying everything perfectly or not, whether we are able to make everyone understand us or not. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes we’re in the middle somewhere. We do our best, God does the rest.

But Warren is given no latitude at all. No room for error or unclarity. No room for his way of speaking. No “benefit of the doubt”—AT ALL. He always must be perfect — no matter what the issue. he must say precisely the right words on every issue, on every doctrine, in every forum. Even then, he has to say it all in a way that is “perfect” according to what his critics see as “perfect” or “biblical.”

This is usually the case when he is speaking in general terms, or using analogies, or trying to draw illustrations. That approach leaves room for a critic to launch into all kinds of attacks about how his general comment, or illustration, or analogy wasn’t right for this reason or that reason—rather than seeing the overall point he was trying to make in context. This is called heresy-hunting. It’s not apologetics, it’s not defending the faith, its not biblical.

Oddly, when he has actually made some very, very, very specific statements about things such as God, salvation, sin, repentance, the atonement, heaven/hell, other religions, etc. etc. etc.—these comments are summarily ignored! Either that, or viewed as some attempt on Warren’s part to deliberately lie or flip-flop. Again, this is not apologetics, this is witch-hunting. It is not looking at the full scope of a movement, preacher, or religious leader — it is searching for material to prove a foregone conclusion.

Just my two cents.

Oh, and Ken, you said: “I’ve seen Richard Abanes doing the “defend Rick Warren” thing for a long time. I’m glad that my ministry from Jesus is to defend Jesus and the Truth, and not just some man.”

Well, just to be clear, I have never defended Warren. I have always defended truth, and also what biblical apologetics should be. What I see going on with the Warren attacks have nothing to do with either truth or apologetics. The hateful rhetoric, nit-picky arguments, half-truths, misinformation, disinformation, lack of love, baseless assumptions, and outright lies coming from so many of Warren’s critics reveals a slew of tragic problems within the Body of Christ. These problems are what I am trying to correct as I stand for truth—and truth alone.

Richard Abanes

My hope and prayer is that this kind of witch-hunting stops — not just against Warren, but anyone.