Another Southern Baptist Christian Leader Falls prey to the Doctrines of Demons

SAINTS ALIVE IN JESUS - By Ed Decker - May 10, 2011
Pastor Steven G. Tiner, Senior Pastor of Levy Baptist Church http://www.levybaptist.com/  in North Little Rock, AR  now boasts his calling as Most Excellent Grand High Priest Grand Chapter Royal Arch Masons Of Arkansas.
In his acceptance remarks following his Masonic ordination, Pastor Tiner proclaimed I want to thank the Grand Chapter of Arkansas for the incredible privilege of serving as your Grand High Priest. I love Royal Arch Masonry with all of my heart. Therefore, to be honored to serve as your Grand High Priest is a joy beyond what I can ever express with words. I pray that the Great Architect of the Universe will bless this year as we work together for the advancement of the Craft. http://www.yorkrite.org/ar/ARRAinsert.pdf

Levy Baptist Church is associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, The Arkansas Baptist State Convention and The North Pulaski Baptist Association, where  Pastor Tiner is sits as Moderator, heading up its associational leadership.  http://www.northpulaskibaptist.com/
Pastor Tiner has also bowed his knee at the altar of a false god and has given himself over to the doctrines of demons. These are the doctrines he pledges to advance for the cause of the craft.  

Let me tell you about a few things he brags about above.
First, there is only one high priest. That is Jesus Christ. Pastor Tiner and his Masonic friends have usurped the holy priesthood of  our Lord.
Second,  He speaks of Prayers to and for The Grand Architect of the Universe.  In this Royal Arch Degree, the true nature of this Grand architect is revealed, so this demonic deity of theirs can be fully worshipped. As their Most Excellent High Priest, Pastor Tiner presides over such worship.

Masonic ritual is concerned with the recovery of the “Lost Word,” presumed to be the name of God- supposedly lost through the murder of the architect,
Hiram Abiff, during the building of Solomon’s Temple.This quest is attained during the ritual of the ROYALARCH DEGREE. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://saintsalive.com/eds-blog/another-sb-leader-falls-prey-to-doctrines-of-demons


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Reagan and the occult

Ronald Reagan had an interest in lucky numbers and newspaper horoscopes. Less known is that a certain scholar of occult philosophy had a lifelong influence on the 40th president of the United States. Mitch Horowitz, editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin and the author of "Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation," reveals the details. THE WASHINGTON POST [Wash Post Group/Graham] - POLITICAL BOOKWORM Blog - Written by Guest blogger Mitch Horowitz (Posted by Steven E. Levingston) - April 30, 2010 In spring of 1988, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater acknowledged publicly what journalists had whispered for years: Ronald and Nancy Reagan were devotees of astrology. A tell-all memoir had definitively linked the first lady to a San Francisco stargazer, confirming speculation that started decades earlier when Reagan, as California’s governor-elect, scheduled his first oath of office at the eyebrow-raising hour of 12:10 a.m. Many detected an effort to align the inaugural with promising heavenly signs. Fitzwater also confirmed the president’s penchant for “lucky numbers,” or what is sometimes called numerology. There was more to the story than the White House let on. In a speech and essay produced decades apart, Reagan revealed the unmistakable mark of a little-known but widely influential scholar of occult philosophy, Manly P. Hall. Judging from a tale that Reagan borrowed from Hall, the president’s reading tastes ran to some of the outer reaches of esoteric spiritual lore. Hall, who worked in the Reagans’ hometown of Los Angeles until his death in 1990, attained underground fame in the late 1920s when, at the age of 27, he published a massive codex to the mystical and esoteric philosophies of antiquity: The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Exploring subjects from Native American mythology to Pythagorean mathematics to the geometry of Ancient Egypt, this encyclopedia esoterica won the admiration of readers ranging from General John Pershing to Elvis Presley. Novelist Dan Brown cites it as a key source. After publishing his great work, Hall spent the rest of his life lecturing and writing within the walls of his Egypto-art deco campus in L.A.’s Griffith Park neighborhood. He called the place a “mystery school” in the mold of Pythagoras’s ancient academy. It was there in 1944 that the occult thinker produced a short work, one little known beyond his immediate circle. This book, The Secret Destiny of America, caught the eye of the future president, then a middling Hollywood actor gravitating toward politics. Hall’s concise volume described how America was the product of a “Great Plan” for religious liberty and self-governance, launched by a hidden order of ancient philosophers and secret societies. In one chapter, Hall described a rousing speech delivered by a mysterious “unknown speaker” before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The “strange man,” wrote Hall, invisibly entered and exited the locked doors of the Philadelphia statehouse on July 4th, 1776, delivering an oration that bolstered the wavering spirits of the delegates. “God has given America to be free!” commanded the mysterious speaker, urging the men to overcome their fears of the noose, axe, or gibbet, and to seal destiny by signing the great document. Newly emboldened, the delegates rushed forward to add their names. They looked to thank the stranger only to discover that he had vanished from the locked room. Was this, Hall wondered, “one of the agents of the secret Order, guarding and directing the destiny of America?” At a 1957 commencement address at his alma mater Eureka College, Reagan, then a corporate spokesman for GE, sought to inspire students with this leaf from occult history. “This is a land of destiny,” Reagan said, “and our forefathers found their way here by some Divine system of selective service gathered here to fulfill a mission to advance man a further step in his climb from the swamps.” Reagan then retold (without naming a source) the tale of Hall’s unknown speaker. “When they turned to thank the speaker for his timely words,” Reagan concluded, “he couldn’t be found and to this day no one knows who he was or how he entered or left the guarded room.” Reagan revived the story in 1981, when Parade magazine asked the president for a personal essay on what July 4th meant to him. Presidential aide Michael Deaver delivered the piece with a note saying, “This Fourth of July message is the president’s own words and written initially in the president’s hand,” on a yellow pad at Camp David. Reagan retold the legend of the unknown speaker – this time using language very close to Hall’s own: “When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.” Where did Hall uncover the tale that inspired a president? The episode originated as “The Speech of the Unknown” in a collection of folkloric stories about America’s founding, published in 1847 under the title Washington and his Generals, or Legends of the Revolution by American social reformer and muckraker George Lippard. Lippard, a friend of Edgar Allan Poe, had a strong taste for the gothic – he cloaked his mystery man in a “dark robe.” He also tacitly acknowledged inventing the story: “The name of the Orator…is not definitely known. In this speech, it is my wish to compress some portion of the fiery eloquence of the time.” Regardless, the story took on its own life and came to occupy the same shadow land between fact and fiction as the parables of George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, or young Abe Lincoln walking miles to return a bit of a change to a country-store customer. As with most myths, the story assumed different attributes over time. By 1911, the speech resurfaced in a collection of American political oratory, with the robed speaker fancifully identified as Patrick Henry. For his part, Hall seemed to know almost nothing about the story’s point of origin. He had been given a copy of the “Speech of the Unknown” by a since-deceased secretary of the occult Theosophical Society, but with no bibliographical information other than it being from a “rare old volume of early American political speeches.” The speech appeared in 1938 in the Society’s journal, The Theosophist, with the sole note that it was “published in a rare volume of addresses, and known probably to only one in a million, even of American citizens.” It is Hall’s language that unmistakably marks the Reagan telling. Biographer Edmund Morris noted Reagan’s fondness for apocryphal tales and his “Dalíesque ability to bend reality to his own purposes.” Yet he added that the president’s stories “should be taken seriously because they represent core philosophy.” This influential (and sometimes inscrutable) president of the late-twentieth century found an illustration of his core belief in America’s purpose within the pages of an occult work little known beyond its genre. Lucky numbers and newspaper horoscopes were not Reagan’s only interest in the arcane. Full Report Posted on the Be Alert! Blog http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2010/04/reagan_and_the_occult.html FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. 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Without a Pastor of His Own, Obama Turns to Five

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein - March 14, 2009 President Obama has been without a pastor or a home church ever since he cut his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. in the heat of the presidential campaign. But he has quietly cultivated a handful of evangelical pastors for private prayer sessions on the telephone and for discussions on the role of religion in politics. All are men, two of them white and three black - including the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., a graying lion of the civil rights movement. Two, the entrepreneurial dynamos Bishop T. D. Jakes and the Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, also served as occasional spiritual advisers to President George W. Bush. Another, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leans left on some issues, like military intervention and poverty programs, but opposes abortion. None of these pastors are affiliated with the religious right, though several are quite conservative theologically. One of them, the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida, was branded a turncoat by some leaders of the Christian right when he began to speak out on the need to stop global warming. But as a group they can hardly be characterized as part of the religious left either. Most, like Mr. Wallis, do not take traditionally liberal positions on abortion or homosexuality. What most say they share with the president is the conviction that faith is the foundation in the fight against economic inequality and social injustice. “These are all centrist, social justice guys,” said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers, a politically active pastor of Azusa Community Church in Boston, who knows all of them but is not part of the president’s prayer caucus. “Obama genuinely comes out of the social justice wing of the church. That’s real. The community organizing stuff is real.” The pastors say Mr. Obama appears to rely on his faith for intellectual and spiritual succor. “While he may not put ‘Honk if You Love Jesus’ bumper stickers on the back of his car, he is the kind of guy who practices what he preaches,” said Mr. Caldwell, the senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston. “He has a desire to keep in touch with folk outside the Beltway, and to stay in touch with God. He seems to see those as necessary conditions for maintaining his internal compass.” Bishop Jakes said he had been tapped for several prayer phone calls - the most recent being when Mr. Obama’s grandmother died in November, two days before the election. “You take turns praying,” said Bishop Jakes, who like the other ministers did not want to divulge details of the calls. “It’s really more about contacting God than each other.” Mr. Hunter said of the phone calls: “The times I have prayed with him, he’s always initiated it.” The Obama administration has reached out to hundreds of religious leaders across the country to mobilize support and to seek advice on policy. These five pastors, however, have been brought into a more intimate inner circle. Their names were gleaned from interviews with people who know the president and religious leaders who work in Washington. Their role could change if Mr. Obama joins a church in Washington, but that could take some time because of the logistical challenges in finding a church that can accommodate the kind of crowd the Obamas would attract. The White House refused to comment for this article. The pastor in the circle who has known Mr. Obama the longest is Mr. Wallis, president and chief executive of Sojourners, a liberal magazine and movement based in Washington. In contrast to the other four, his contact with the president has been focused more on policy than prayer. Mr. Wallis has recently joined conservatives in pressing the president’s office of faith-based initiatives to continue to allow government financing for religious social service groups that hire only employees of their own faith. Mr. Wallis said he got to know Mr. Obama in the late 1990s when they participated in a traveling seminar that took bus trips to community programs across the country. Mr. Wallis said they “hit it off” because they were both Christians serious about their faith, fathers of young children the same age and believers in “transcending left and right” to find solutions to social problems. “He and I were what we called back then ‘progressive Christians,’ as opposed to the dominant religious-right era we were in then,” Mr. Wallis said. “We didn’t think Jesus’ top priorities would be capital gains tax cuts and supporting the next war.” ... Read Full Report http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15pastor.html FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Rick Warren: 'I always own up to mistakes'

The Falling Away - False Teachers - Evangelicals Riding the Beast 'Purpose-driven' megachurch pastor answers evangelical critics EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a three-part series based on an interview with Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church in Southern California, which he and his wife of 30 years, Kay, founded in 1980 with one family. In part one, Warren responds to critics among his fellow evangelical travelers. In part two, published tomorrow, the senior pastor – called by Newsweek one of "15 People Who Make America Great" – discusses how he handles fame, his unconventional approach to ministry and his visit last year with Syrian leader Bashar Assad. In part three, he responds to concerns about the pitfalls of partnering with government and his massive AIDS initiative. WORLDNETDAILY - By Art Moore - December 11, 2007 LAKE FOREST, Calif. – Widely regarded by mainstream media as one of America's most influential leaders, he's met with dictators, apologized to Muslims on behalf of Christianity, accepted blame for global warming and invited pro-choice politicians to speak at his Southern California megachurch. All of that, and more, raises red flags with a sizeable number of evangelicals who share the traditional theological and social views of Rick Warren's Southern Baptist roots. The blue jeans-clad pastor of 22,000-strong Saddleback Church in Orange County says that with guidance from Billy Graham, he has intentionally tried to avoid engaging his critics. But on the heels of an appearance by Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton at his church's conference on AIDS, he welcomed the opportunity to sit down and talk with WND. Obvious to anyone who visits the 120-acre resort-style campus of Saddleback Church and begins to grasp the scope of its worldwide ministry, Warren is a grand visionary, with a coalition of congregations in 167 countries, training of more than 500,000 ministers, 2,800 home groups and 7,500 sent on missions teams in the past three years – not to mention a global "P.E.A.C.E. plan. And he admitted he often has been willing to overlook details in which some find the devil. The 53-year-old author of "The Purpose-Driven Life," the best-selling hardback book of all time, also confesses to impulsiveness, which sometimes has led to trouble. "Without a doubt," he told WND. "I make mistakes all the time." But he added, "I always own up to mistakes that I actually do. I just won't own up to mistakes that weren't really a mistake." Many false claims, he contended, have taken on a life of their own on Internet blogs, such as assertions he was mentored by positive-thinking pastor Robert Schuller and influenced by Norman Vincent Peale. The claims often are tied to criticism he's preaching a watered-down, pop-psychology gospel of self-esteem and "easy believism." "I've only met Robert Schuller twice, I believe. I've never had a one-on-one conversation with him. Not once. So how do I even know him?" Warren said, adding he's never even read a book by Peale. Small groups and intensive discipleship are the heart of Saddleback, he argued, with weekends oriented toward reaching the unchurched. But he, nevertheless, insists his preaching regularly focuses on weighty subjects, such as sanctification, noting, as one example, he took two and a half years to teach through the book of Romans. "People don't know this," he said. "They think I'm teaching on stress every week." Ultimately, the fourth-generation pastor – whose great-grandfather was converted under legendary evangelist Charles Spurgeon – says there is one simple truth that best explains his often unconventional approach to ministry and frequent ventures into controversial relationships and associations. "People don't understand that I am fundamentally, foremost an evangelist," he told WND. "It's what I care about. I don't care about politics, I don't care about political correctness, I don't care about what established groups want me to do. I care about getting people into heaven." Pointing to his baptism last weekend of a founder of the radical homosexual-rights group ACT UP, Warren explained he is "trying to build bridges of love to different groups of people so that Jesus Christ can walk across into their life." "I'm willing to put up with the misunderstanding. I'm willing to have people go, 'Ohh, he's such a politically naive guy.' Or, he's a pawn to be used," Warren said. He paraphrased Graham – himself the frequent target of criticism for his political forays – who often has said, "People may think you're being used, but I'm using the gospel, getting the gospel out." Warren, recognized by U.S. News and World Report as one of "America's Top 25 Leaders," has taken advantage of opportunities to speak at influential venues such as the United Nations, World Economic Forum, Council on Foreign Relations, African Union and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Ultimately, he argues his motivation can be found in the teachings of Jesus, who said, "I'm to love my enemies. That means I'm to love people who are totally opposed to me." Loving your enemies But many of his fellow evangelicals argue the best way to love enemies is to graciously confront them with the truth. Last month, Warren drew some fire for signing a dialogue-seeking letter in which Christian theologians and ministers responded to an initiative by 138 Muslim leaders by apologizing for the medieval Crusades and "excesses in the war on terror." Asked specifically which excesses he had in mind, Warren replied: "Ahhh, you know what … I have no idea," he said. "Because I didn't sign it sentence-by-sentence." Similar to his endorsement of an initiative acknowledging man-made global warming, Warren said, "There might have been statements there I didn't agree with, but generally I'm saying, I think it's a good idea to get people talking." "It comes back to," he said, referring to the letter to Muslims, "I am a pastor, not a politician. And what I've learned is that, in marriage if I'm trying to keep a divorce from happening … I've found as long as I can get the husband and wife talking, they're not going to divorce. The moment the talking stops the divorce is inevitable." Warren insisted he's "not a Pollyanna, thinking getting different interfaith groups together is going to bring world peace." "We know that isn't going to happen," he said. "It just isn't going to happen. That's not what the Scripture says." All religions are not alike, he emphasized, and one can't be a Christian and adhere to any other faith. But he argued, "There's a difference between compromise and civility." As long as I'm talking with my enemy, Warren said, "he's not sending a bomb my way. "Don't think that you're going to bring in the kingdom with dialogue, you're not going to do it," he clarified. "It isn't going to happen. But it can keep things from escalating." He interjected that this approach has led to productive discussions with prominent political and religious leaders in the Muslim world. "What I don't talk about publicly is the talks with people who call me behind the scenes," he said. "On the other hand – it's going to sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but I'm not, I believe this – the Bible says evil has to be opposed. Evil has to be stopped," Warren continued. "The Bible does not say negotiate with evil. It says stop it. Stop evil. Hitler could not be negotiated with. And there are some people you cannot negotiate with." Warren argued there are many different kinds of Muslims in the world, and he's met a sampling, from those "who wanted to cut my throat" to those who feel "like a brother." "Al-Qaida no more represents Islam than the Ku Klux Klan represents Christianity," he contended. "Actually, if you study the background of al-Qaida, they were influenced by the same people who influenced Hitler. It was a lot of secular writers and Nietzsche and nihilists and stuff like that." Many of his critics take exception to that inference about Islam and further argue that agreeing to "excesses" in the war on terror and apologizing for the Crusades actually reinforces al-Qaida and other movements that use the claims as pretexts for their global jihad. "Well, I understand that argument," Warren said. "I disagree with it, because I'm not about to defend something that wasn't Christianity. And the Crusades weren't Christianity. Not as I see it. Then why apologize? "I do apologize, because I apologize for anything done in the name of Christ, that Jesus would disavow," he said. "I think Jesus would have disavowed the Crusades. Because the Crusades were largely about territorial land and not even about a personal relationship with Christ." Critics also argue the Crusades were a defensive response to Islamic jihad, and today Muslims are the aggressors in most of the world's hot spots. Muslims aren't apologizing for this, yet the letter to the Islamic leaders essentially puts Christians in the position of taking the blame. "I'm not interested in what the radicals will do with that statement," Warren said. "I'm interested in what the far-more majority of moderates will do with it, and say, Hey, maybe we should listen to this guy Rick Warren." I'm sorry Warren said apologies actually are an important part of his evangelism strategy, noting how the approach can disarm antagonism. He pointed to one of the speakers at Saddleback's AIDS conference, David Miller, a founder of ACT UP, who he "led to Christ, simply because I started with an apology." Two years ago, at the first "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church," Warren recalls Miller came up to him "spittin' nails." "He was so angry, he was ready to knock my head off," said Warren, who remembered Miller telling him he had always hated the Christian church. "Now, I could have been defensive back, but I said, 'David, I'm sorry, I want to apologize to you for any meanness that's been said to you in the name of Christ,'" Warren said. "And it was like I punched him in the gut," Warren continued. "You could have knocked the wind out of his sails. Like I just popped the balloon. And then, here, two years later, after this relationship, I'm going to baptize him." Not about the debate On global warming, Warren said he didn't endorse the "Evangelical Climate Initiative," as others did, to assert humans are causing it. "I don't even care about that debate so much as I care that Christians should be at the forefront of taking care of the planet," he said. "And actually, you tell me which side you want to be on, and I'll tell you which reports to read. OK. I can show you noted scientists who tell you we are near disaster, and I can show you noted scientists you say there is no problem at all." Warren said he does not support the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement rejected by the U.S. requiring radical emission reductions opponents say would destroy economies and harm the poor – "not at all do I agree with it." "I didn't sign on to say, I believe all things that the radical environmentalists believe. Not at all," he said. "I just thought Christians ought to be saying, We care about the planet too." Christians, he said, should be leading the move to take care of the Earth "with biblical principles, not political principles. And a lot of people are making this a bouncing ball right now. "I think a lot of people read into my signature on that that I bought into everything that's out there," he said. "I certainly don't. I don't at all. Blogs copy blogs Warren contended some criticism is simply baseless, charging many "don't do their due diligence on research." The Robert Schuller "mentorship," for example, likely originated with a statement the Crystal Cathedral pastor made on CNN's "Larry King Live," he said. But Warren insisted he's met Schuller only a couple of times and never had a one-on-one conversation with him. The claim, he said, was furthered by author George Mair in a biography called "A Life with Purpose" then spread like wildfire among Internet blogs. "In the first place, this guy is not even a Christian, never talked to me, never talked to any staff member, never talked to any member of my family, and in the book claimed that he did," Warren said. "He flat-out lied." Warren pointed out Mair is also the author of celebrity tomes such as "Paris Hilton: The Naked Truth" and "Oprah Winfrey: The Real Story." "What he does is he finds, quote, celebrities, and churns out a quick book," Warren said. The book was rife with errors from secondary sources, including the wrong number of children and wrong hometown, Warren argued. "He said my model was Norman Vincent Peale. I've never met Norman Vincent Peale. I've never even read a book written by Norman Vincent Peale," said Warren. "A lot of Christians then took and read that stuff, reported it on a blog, blogs copy blogs copy blogs copy blogs. And it's kind of like spreading a feather pillow, you can't get all the feathers back." Warren said he has discussed with Billy Graham how to handle criticism. "The general policy is, as much as possible, you don't respond," he said. "And so, I have to live with a lot of misconceptions about the thing with Schuller." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59110 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Rick Warren: 'I never wanted fame'

The Falling Away - False Teachers - Evangelicals Riding the Beast But pastor with global vision says he 'loves making an influence' EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of a three-part series based on an interview with Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church in Southern California, which he and his wife of 30 years, Kay, founded in 1980 with one family. In part one, Warren responded to critics among his fellows evangelical travelers. In part two the senior pastor – called by Newsweek one of "15 People Who Make America Great" – discusses how he handles fame, his unconventional approach to ministry and his visit last year with Syrian leader Bashar Assad. In part three, he responds to concerns about the pitfalls of partnering with government and his massive AIDS initiative. WORLDNETDAILY - By Art Moore - December 12, 2007 LAKE FOREST, Calif. – Rick Warren says he never wanted fame or celebrity, but when murder, bewilderment and grief engulfed a missionary base and church in Colorado this week, national media looked to the Southern California megachurch pastor to help make sense of it. Whether or not there is such a thing as "America's pastor" or an "evangelical spokesman," the man called by Newsweek one of "15 People Who Make America Great" fits the bill for many mainstream journalists. "I hate fame, but I love making an influence," Warren told WND. "So you put up with some stuff." Some of that "stuff" is the criticism he receives from fellow evangelicals who accuse him, among many things, of preaching a watered-down gospel and appeasing dictators, Muslims, academic elites and left-leaning politicians. In part one of an interview with WND at his Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, Warren said many of his critics "don't understand that I am fundamentally, foremost an evangelist." "It's what I care about. I don't care about politics, I don't care about political correctness, I don't care about what established groups want me to do," he said. "I care about getting people into heaven." Warren emphasized he never sought to lead a movement. "All I wanted to do was pastor my church for life," he said. " … So nobody is more surprised at where I've been. And these things that crack me up in the magazines – it's laughable to my kids. Children and grandchildren "keep your feet to the floor," he said. "Everybody should mow their own lawn, change diapers, wash dishes, like I do. I don't have any maids, don't have any servants. You know, you just keep your head on the ground." Warren said that when people ask him how he keeps his focus amid the temptations that come with power, he asks them to "pray that I'll have integrity, humility and generosity." They are the "antedotes to the three traps that leaders typically fall into," he said, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life – or "passion, possession and position." After the windfall from sales of his books – "The Purpose-Driven Life" is regarded as the best-selling hardback of all time – Warren dropped his salary and paid the church back for 25 years of wages. He and his wife, Kay, give a "reverse tithe" of 90 percent of their income and live on 10 percent. But with 22,000 filling the 120-acre Saddleback campus on weekends, ministries in 167 countries and a global "P.E.A.C.E. plan that aims to conquer the world's five biggest problems, he's aware of being perceived as an "empire builder." "If I wanted a big name I would have gone on TV," he said, arguing Saddleback "may be the only church of the 10 largest in the country that doesn't televise its services." When Saddleback was founded in 1980 with just seven people, he "didn't want to turn the church into a studio." "I don't want to be a celebrity," Warren said. "And on top of that, if I put my sermons on television, I compete with other churches, I don't help them." Warren explained he's a fourth-generation pastor, following his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, who came to faith in Jesus Christ under legendary British evangelist Charles Spurgeon. A brother, uncle and brother-in-law also are pastors. "So I love pastors, and the pastors I care about the most are not the megachurch pastors," he said. "It's the real pastor. The guy in a 75-member church … the kind of church I grew up in all my life. If you open up 'The Purpose-Driven Church' book, you see it's dedicated to bi-vocational pastors." The "heroes," he said, are the guys "out there flipping burgers during the week or getting a car mechanic shop in order to put food on the table and then trying to feed spiritual sheep on the weekend." With that in mind, he said, instead of going on TV, he decided to put his sermons on the Internet in 1992, prior to the advent of Netscape and Explorer. Since then, hundreds of thousands of pastors have downloaded Saddleback sermons from around the world. "I help these guys who have no Bibles, many times, no books," Warren said. "They have no college education, no high school education and no seminary education. So they're getting my material and it's a simple format. They go, 'I can teach this.' And I've had guys around the world tell me, 'Rick, you're the only training I've ever had.'" More than 500,000 ministers have been trained worldwide by Saddleback. A similar intensive discipleship process, he said, is applied to 2,800 small groups that meet in homes in a 100-mile swath that touches every city in Southern California, from Malibu in the north to Carlsbad in the south. Based on a biblical model, he said, more than 7,500 church members have been sent out on mission teams in the past three years, with a goal to commission 10,000 more by the end of 2010. The teams, he believes, are evidence that Saddleback's approach is bearing fruit. "How do you get people so mature that they will go to the mission field on their own and pay their own money and all that?" he asked. "It takes years of discipleship, years of maturity." What we're all about Warren said the biggest misunderstanding about Saddleback Church and his ministry is that what happens on Sunday morning is the main thing. Many learn about Saddleback from secular journalists, he said, who assume the big crowd on weekends is "what we're all about." But the thousands who come Saturday and Sunday are just a "funnel," he said, to small-group ministry. Warren said his aim was to create something inexpensive and reproducible – evangelism-oriented meetings that would draw the unchurched. The current goal, he said, "is to reach 10,000 more people for Christ in the next 40 months here by the end of 2010." "A crowd is not a church," he said. "A crowd can be turned into a church, and you have to have a big crowd to get a big church. But a crowd is not a church. So we don't kid ourselves." Many large churches, he said, "spend all their time and all their money and all their energy on enormous props and videos." "We don't do that at all," he said. "We don't do skits. We have testimonies on Sunday morning." Nevertheless, the sermons are not light fare, Warren insisted. "I did a 12-week series on the doctrine of grace. I've done series on the incarnation. I've done series on sanctification," he said. "I've done series on the fruit of the Spirit, through books of the Bible. I once taught through the book of Romans. It took me two and a half years. "But even when I'm doing those, I relate it in a way that people who have no background could understand it," he explained. "'Oh, I get that. I'm not a believer, but I get that. It makes sense.'" He also pointed out Saddleback practices church discipline. "People have gotten kicked out of this church because they didn't pay their bills, because they maligned other people, because they didn't live a life of holiness," he said. "These are things that nobody even knows," said Warren. "(They say) if you're big, you must be shallow, you must be superficial; and actually, we have this discipleship process where we're moving people." A great church, he asserted, cannot be built quickly. "If you ever see a church that grows really fast, it means it's transfer growth," he said. "It means, 'What's the hot act in town, let's all go over there.' And it's not really growth, it's swelling. It's trading fish from aquarium to aquarium, instead of fishing for men." Saddleback's size is for one simple purpose, Warren said: "We grow bigger because people need the Lord … we grow because people without Christ go to hell." All things to all men Warren said if his critics would know he is mostly "about getting people into heaven," they would understand why, for example, he was willing to go to Syria one year ago and meet with its terrorist-supporting leader, Bashar Assad. "I did not go to Syria for political purposes. Not at all," he said. "I went for one reason, will they let me do the P.E.A.C.E. plan in Syria? Can I build enough of a bridge so I will not be persecuted by doing the P.E.A.C.E. plan, and can I help the Christians there?" P.E.A.C.E. is an acronym for "Plant churches, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick, and Educate the next generation." It calls for "church-based small groups to adopt villages where spiritual emptiness, selfish leadership, poverty, disease, and ignorance keep people from experiencing the kind of life God wants them to have." The fundamental reason he is willing to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as North Korea or Iran, he said, is "because Jesus said, 'Go into all the world.' Not into all the politically correct world. But he even said, 'Love your enemies.'" He cited the Apostle Paul, who said, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some." "I know people, bloggers, who think that's heresy," he said referring to online critics. "I know people who if I wrote that – and they didn't know it was in the Bible – they would say the guy is a chameleon." Paul, he argued, was not a chameleon, he was being strategic. "Jesus said be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And what the church is, usually, is harmless as a dove," he said. "A lot of things that are being done today in the name of Christ are very unwise. Rather than opening doors for the Gospel, they are closing doors for the Gospel. They are giving us a black eye." He said, like the Apostle Paul, most of the criticism directed against him is from "the religious people." "It comes from people who are supposed to understand the gospel of grace but don't act very gracious," he said. Warren noted one secular magazine called him "'the evangelical that humanists love,' or some stupid thing like that." That's fine with him, he said, "because I want them to know the savior I know." "My job is not to save America," Warren said. "My job is to save Americans. And my job is not to promote a public policy. My job is to win people to Christ that Jesus died for, whether they live in Iran or Afghanistan or Argentina or wherever." Damascus Road experience Warren insisted the only mistake he made in Syria during his November 2006 visit was that he should not have allowed a photo op at the end of his meeting with Assad. The state news agency issued a report that Warren contended was not accurate. It read: "Pastor Warren hailed the religious coexistence, tolerance and stability that the Syrian society is enjoying due to the wise leadership of President al-Assad, asserting that he will convey the true image about Syria to the American people." Warren also was quoted saying, "Syria wants peace, and Muslims and Christians live in this country jointly and peacefully since more than a thousand years, and this is not new for Syria." But Warren's critics say, regardless of whether the state Syrian report was true, he was captured on a 50-second home video walking down a Damascus road mentioned in the book of Acts, Straight Street, saying Syria is "a moderate country, and the official government rule and position is to not allow any extremism of any kind." In the video, which was briefly posted on YouTube, Warren said, "Syria's a place that has Muslims and Christians living together for 1,400 years. So it's a lot more peaceful, honestly, than a lot of other places, because Christians were here first." Warren argued that when he suggested there was freedom of religion in Syria, he didn't mean everyone had the freedom to convert to Christianity. Christians are "actually meeting above ground, they are not in secret, I've been in their churches," he said. "The problem is we've got to get them moved to the next step, which is the freedom of conversion," he contended. "It's quite different than in many places I've been … I won't mention the countries, but I've been in those countries where you can't even meet above ground," Warren said. "Every time I go to those countries, I have to go in secret." He argued the 2006 Open Doors' World Watch List of countries that persecute Christians ranked Syria a relatively low 47th and notes that before his trip, he consulted the president of Open Doors, a member of his church who used to be on the Saddleback staff. Explaining the context of the home video, Warren said his walk down Straight Street came just after he was granted virtually unprecedented permission by an imam to enter a crypt at Damascus' largest mosque, where an old church is said to hold relics from John the Baptist. The imam, he said, approached him as he prayed with his colleagues and said, "I sense in you you are a man of peace." "My host said, nobody gets in that crypt, residents, kings, muftis, nobody gets in that crypt," Warren recalled. "So I had just had that experience and I walk outside, and I'm walking down the street with a group of pastors and a home video captures me on a video and sees, 'What do you think about freedom of religion?' Well, it's obvious nobody is picking me up right here. I'm walking down the street with a group of pastors, nobody is persecuting us. Now, that did not mean there is the freedom to convert. That's the next step." Warren said the invitation from Assad came after the Syrian leader found out he was in the country. "What am I going to say? No, I'm not going to meet him? I didn't go there to meet him, it wasn't even on the agenda." Warren said there were no photographers there during the meeting with Assad, but film crews were brought in at the end for a photo op. "And then the government agency, of course, put out their pro-Syrian statement, 'Rick Warren thinks we're sliced bread,' you know, that kind of stuff," he recounted. Warren said WND editor and CEO Joseph Farah then wrote an initial column based on information from the Syrian state news story. "I happened to be in Rwanda from there," Warren said. "I wrote Joseph and said, 'Joseph that's just not true. I didn't say those things. You're reading a statement.' And he wrote back in a very accusatory letter that said, 'Well, I can't wait to see the video.' In other words, he didn't believe me. "I didn't lie at all. He didn't stop to check it out," Warren insisted. "And so he then writes six columns on the basis of his assumption. There was no video of that meeting. At the end, they took a picture, so he chose to believe what the government said, instead of believing me." Farah said he stands "by every word I wrote in those columns." "After all this time and all these different explanations, I am 100 percent convinced everything I wrote was accurate," Farah said. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59161 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Rick Warren: AIDS too big for church alone

The Falling Away - False Teachers - Evangelicals Riding the Beast Traditional values challenged in unusual alliance to combat disease Part 3 EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third of a three-part series based on an interview with Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church in Southern California, which he and his wife of 30 years, Kay, founded in 1980 with one family. In part one, Warren responded to critics among his fellows evangelical travelers. In part two the senior pastor – called by Newsweek one of "15 People Who Make America Great" – discussed his fame, his unconventional approach to ministry and his visit last year with Syrian leader Bashar Assad. In part three today, he responds to concerns about the pitfalls of partnering with government and his massive AIDS initiative. WORLDNETDAILY - By Art Moore - December 13, 2007 LAKE FOREST, Calif. – When Rick Warren takes on a problem, the scale often seems limited only by the size of the planet. Five years ago, his wife, Kay, responded to a sobering magazine article about the plight of 12 million AIDS orphans in Africa, and now their 22,000-strong Saddleback Church in upscale Orange County, California, has completed its third annual "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church," drawing figures such as Sen. Hillary Clinton, United Nations officials and President Bush's global AIDS coordinator to unite against the pandemic. Warren says the problem of AIDS, with an estimated 33 million infected with HIV, is too big for the church alone, and he advocates the building of a public, private and faith partnership. The venture has created unusual alliances, underscoring the conflicting approaches to a problem inseparable from issues of sexual morality. While the traditional teaching of Warren's Southern Baptists heritage emphasizes abstinence outside of marriage, governments and other secular institutions generally have adopted what they consider a "pragmatic approach" that refrains from judgment and seeks simply to keep people alive based on the belief that youth inevitably will engage in sexual activity. Speaker Pauline Muchina, senior women and AIDS advocacy officer with UNAIDS in Washington, D.C., told the summit AIDS must be challenged with a "comprehensive" program that includes condom promotion, and she condemned the traditional Christian teaching of male leadership in marriage as a major cause of violence against women. Muchina, a native of Kenya's Rift Valley, told WND, however, she has no problem working with the Warrens. "I only get anxious when [evangelicals] start condemning people who are advocating for a comprehensive HIV prevention including the use of condoms," she said, "and so far, Kay and Rick have both said to me, and to other people here at the conference, we have to have a comprehensive HIV prevention strategy." Asked to respond to Muchina's remarks, Warren told WND he does support condom distribution for prostitutes in impoverished, high-risk AIDS regions such as Africa and India. "I want to keep them alive long enough that I can win them to Christ," he said. "If they're dead, it's too late. The good news is only good news if it gets there in time." Warren said that when his wife came back from a trip to India, she told him of visiting a red light district with an estimated 30,000 prostitutes. Most of the women, he said, were sold into the work by husbands, fathers or brothers. "I've never met a prostitute who wanted to be a prostitute," said Warren. "I'm sure there are some out there, but in all my travels around the world, every one of them said, 'If I could make money in another way, I'd do it.'" Warren said that's why his church started a program in Kenya to teach sewing and haircutting, enabling 16 women to leave prostitution. "It goes back to my fundamental value," he said, "that there is something more important than keeping a rule – it's winning people to Christ." Muchina, however, used the same argument for promoting condom use among unmarried people. "If you want to continue preaching to people to live a different life, you have to keep them alive by giving them skills and adequate information for protecting themselves from HIV," she said. 'My job is to change behavior' Asked if he specifically supported promoting condoms to unmarried people, Warren replied, "My personal thing is I'm not going to give a condom to a kid. I'm not going to do that." He said, however, he can partner with people who do believe that, pointing out, for example, he can work with Catholics who don't even believe in condom use for married couples. "What I try to do is work with people to the degree that I can without compromising my convictions," he said. "As a pastor, my job is to change behavior," Warren emphasized. "Government cannot change behavior. So I don't expect government to agree to my commitments. They're going to go out there and they're going to look for the easiest non-behavior-change ways to slow it. I don't expect them, and I'm not going to spend all my time trying to change them. I'm going to be training pastors how to teach behavior change." Another speaker at the AIDS summit, Mark Dybul, President Bush's global AIDS coordinator, told WND the White House position is that "you need everything" to battle the pandemic. "The most effective methods to avoid HIV/AIDS – our guidance is very clear on this – are to abstain from sexual activity or to be faithful to an HIV-negative partner," Dybul said. "That's 100 percent protection. Correct and consistent condemn use is not a 100 percent protection. But it's a fact that people become sexually active, and so when they do, they need to make sure that they are protecting themselves and protecting others." Dybul explained the Bush administration "works with some groups that have certain views and others have other views, and then, put as a whole, you have the whole picture." "We respect the views and the values of everyone we work with, and we allow them to do what they do, and the success that they have in the populations they reach," he said. "So we have a much broader view that includes all the approaches to tacking HIV/AIDS." Dybul emphasized, however, the goal of an "HIV-free generation" won't be reached "until young people change the way they behave, and that means respecting themselves, respecting others. And when you do that, that means boys don't abuse girls, that means that you refrain from sexual activity until you've found someone you love and are with and you remain faithful to that person. "That's how we are going to tackle this epidemic," Dybul said, "and that's why we need work with the churches, and that's why we need to work with the traditional leaders." UNAIDS' Muchina said it's important that each side in the debate does not condemn the other. "I don't condemn them, they don't condemn us," she said. "We are all working on the same problem but working from different approaches, because this is a huge problem that has to be addressed from all levels." Muchina, nevertheless, found deficiencies in what she viewed as the conventional evangelical response. "You don't just tell them if you're not married don't do it," she told WND. "What about the other side, that sex is a gift from God, and this is how it's supposed to be done, and if you ever find yourself in a compromising situation, this is what you do to protect yourself from getting infected? "That's a moral obligation for us, for churches, for government, for families," she said. "I want my children to be alive." 'Our processes are pretty bureaucratic' At the conference, Kay Warren said her church is urging all of the presidential candidates to expand the Bush administration's $30 million Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. But Rick Warren told WND he's conscious of the control and coercion attached to government money and for that reason accepts no government funding. "We work directly with private donors in the church," he said. "Any time you have money involved there are going to be issues, so that's just a very important concern." He conceded, however, that he believes government has a necessary role in paying for medications, such as anti-retrovirals used to treat AIDS that could cost $10,000 to $20,000 a year per person. "The church is never going to have that," Warren said. "Churches are poor around the world. But they have the people. "We bring the manpower," said Warren. "Even if you've got the meds, you can't get them to the people unless you have a network." Dybul said he's aware of the concerns churches and other private groups have in partnering with government – "that you can draw away from the mission of a lot of small organizations by building a bureaucracy." One approach the Bush administration is trying, he said, is to develop a consortium of faith-based organizations that designate one or two of the partners as the liaison with the government, "so that the rest of the partners can stick to their mission." But he conceded "our processes are pretty bureaucratic." "The fact of the matter is we have to be accountable to the taxpayer," Dybul said. "So we need to know where the money went. Congress needs to know where it went. "We'd like to streamline them as much as possible," he continued. "But there is a real limit, just because of government rules." Dybul, who has been public about his homosexuality, said his personal life has no bearing on his job. "My life actually is as a physician and researcher who has been doing global AIDS work for 20 years," he said. "That's what I bring for my expertise. I also bring a compassion and care for the young orphans, vulnerable children that are suffering from any disease, including HIV/AIDS." In the closing moments of the summit, before inviting HIV patients to the stage for prayer, Warren explained how he viewed the event and the massive effort that surrounded it. "We didn't do this for a cause," he said. "We do this for a person. We do it for Jesus Christ. And if you want to know how much Jesus loves people with AIDS, you look at the cross, with arms outstretched and nail-pierced hands," Warren said, stretching out his own arms. "Jesus says, this much, this much, this is how much I love the world. This is how much I love people with AIDS. I love people so much it hurts. I'd rather die than live without these people. I want them to know me and my love for them." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59181 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.