Religion - Rick Warren and Purpose
Tim Challies has reviewed a book written to defend Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven Life. For those who are interested it is worth reading the comments as well as the post, as the author of the book, Richard Abanes, is also involved in the comments responding to various points.

Suffice to say, Tim, nor myself have found anything to allay our fears over the poor use of scripture in the Purpose Driven Life. As Tim says

The single most common concern raised about Warren (at least in my experience) is his use (or misuse) of Scripture. This comes in two forms. First, Warren often quotes verses out of context or in ways that are advantageous to the point he is trying to make. He will often quote only a half of a verse if the second half does not support what he wants to say. Second, he uses poor translations and translations that say what he wants the Bible to say, rather than what God intended for it to say. There are times when this may be an honest mistake, but there are other times when it is clear that Warren has deliberately twisted a verse or taken it from its context to make it work for his purposes. Despite these two areas being of prime importance to those who are concerned with Warren's ministry, Abanes gives this no attention whatsoever. None. Not a sentence.

Whilst I cannot find myself disagreeing with Rick Warren's conclusions about our 'purposes', I am troubled by the poor logic and scripture use he uses to get there.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, July 14, 2005