Purpose Driven or Scripture Driven? - Way of Life Literature

Railing Against FundamentalistsIn 2007, Rick Warren railed against fundamentalistChristians yet again. At a three-day summit on adoption inColorado Springs Warren said:“We’ve got some people who only focus on moral purityand couldn’t care less about the poor, the sick, theuneducated. And they haven’t done zip for those people.”He said that too often Christians these days are definedby their “big mouth”--what they argue against, not whatthey embrace (“Christian Groups Launch MassiveAdoption Campaign, Los Angeles Times, May 13, 2007).Warren mentioned James 1:27, which says pure religion isto visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. What hefailed to acknowledge is that the same verse says that purereligion is also to keep oneself unspotted from the world.That describes a very strict type of separation, which requiresreproving every form of worldliness (Ephesians 5:11), andthe Bible just as plainly teaches that we are to separate fromand renounce error. Yet Warren denounces those who areattempting to obey these biblical injunctions.Biblical Christianity involves caring for the needy as wellas maintaining strict standards of holiness and truth, and thatis what biblical fundamentalists are doing.I have written more than 30 articles warning about RickWarren’s error and compromise, so I obviously have a “bigmouth” by his definition, but my wife and I adopted aspecial-needs child and have dedicated almost two decadesof our lives to the foreign mission field and to giving awaythousands of dollars of our own money to the poor.DuplicityRick Warren apparently got some feedback in regard tolikening “fundamentalism” to Islamic terrorism and humanist37