About a year ago a friend gave me a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life.” Soon after that I read about half of it and considered it OK-nothing overly disturbing. There were things I didn’t like about it, but since I had been forced to read “Purpose Driven Church” a couple of times, I wasn’t shocked by what I didn’t like.
Recently, however, I have heard a couple of reports about the video which opens the series and is intended to be played to each home group with unsaved friends and neighbors. To be fair, I have not seen the video, but I have now heard two exact reports about the prayer in the opening clip (one which quoted the clip at length). Warren encourages people to pray a prayer asking God to help them find purpose in their lives. That’s fine. But then after the “amen,” Warren proclaims everyone who just prayed that prayer saved. That worries me. It sounds like people are joining the YMCA more than submitting to the Lordship of the Creator of the universe.
Every time the Gospel was proclaimed by the apostles, not only were there converts, but there was also persecution and commotion. The Enemy protested because he really was loosing people. If you are not loosing people, there is no reason to protest. I hope this kind of “Purpose Driven Salvation” leads to confession of sins and submission to the Lordship of Christ, but if people reach that point after going through this series would it feel like bait and switch? Did they sign up for one thing and get dragged into another? Did they sign up for the 0% financing only to be slapped with the 15% interest a couple of months later?
Extra credit to anyone who can tell us what Screwtape would think.
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