Rick Warren To Partner With ISNA

I'll admit something up front: I've never much cared for Rick Warren. I can't explain why I had that reaction to him from start.

A lot of Christians hold him in high esteem and love his preaching and his writing. I can't say the same from my own perspective. Instead, I find his message hollow and filled with the social gospel.

Now comes this:

Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life and one with some weight among Christians, appears to be promoting Christo-Islam, i.e., syncretism, another manifestation of delusional and self-delusional kumbaya.

From this source:

The Indiana-based Islamic Society of North America will be holding its annual convention -- the largest yearly gathering of Muslims on the continent -- in Washington, D.C. over the Fourth of July weekend.

And while convention leaders are holding out hope that President Barack Obama might make the convention his latest stop in his outreach to the Muslim world, the convention has landed another pretty big fish as a featured speaker.

Purpose-Driven pastor Rick Warren has agreed to appear at the convention and be part of its main session discussing the convention's theme -- "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Joining Warren for the session is ISNA President Ingrid Mattson and noted Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf.

Warren's scheduled visit to the convention follows ISNA leader Sayyid Syeed's appearance last December at Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum on Public Health. Warren was unavailable this week to comment about the appearance.

His involvement with ISNA follows the Muslim organization's attempt to build partnerships with people of other faiths, including the Union of Reform Judaism and the American Baptist Churches....

Please see Front Page Magazine's index of articles about the ISNA. What a web of Islamist connections!

Excerpt from this FPM article by Joe Kaufman:

Both the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) present themselves as mainstream Muslim organizations, yet in reality they are part of a radical Muslim movement which exists for the purpose of doing harm to America and Western interests abroad.

[...]

ISNA, said to be the largest Muslim organization in North America, has its roots in the extremist Muslim Brotherhood overseas, the same group responsible for the formation of Hamas and most other international terror entities.

[...]

Besides its connection to Hamas, ISNA is involved in the propagation of hate materials. ISNA and its sister organization, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), run an Islamic Book Service for the United States and Canada. The service consists of texts written by leaders of the Brotherhood and a version of the Quran, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an, which has been banned by the Los Angeles school system for having numerous anti-Semitic commentaries....

What purpose is driving Rick Warren to partner with a group with terrorist ties? Is he ignorant of those ties? Is he planning to preach the Gospel to ISNA? Not likely.

Rick Warren has previously been criticized for buddying up with Islamists before. From this source, back in 2006:

In his Tuesday, November 28th column, the sixth in a blistering barrage, critical of Warren, Joe Farah had some less than cordial things to say about the Saddleback padre's Purpose Driven powwow with the leader of a terrorist nation:

"Let's be clear about what Rick Warren did and why he is being criticized.

It's not because he met with Syrian President Bashar Assad. In fact, I would encourage any Christian leader who can get in Assad's face to do so. He needs to be called to account for keeping Christians in Syria in a state of "dhimmi" status. He needs to be called to account for murdering Christian political leaders like Pierre Gemayel. He needs to be called to account for his continued repression of his own people as well as those of Lebanon. He needs to be called to account for his support for the terrorist organization Hezbollah. He needs to be called to account for allowing his country to play host to more terrorist organizations than any other country in the world.

So, I did not criticize him for meeting with Assad. I criticized him for playing footsie with the dictator, for giving him cover to continue his atrocities against believers and non-believers alike, for lying to the world about the state of the church in Syria and for not even mentioning Assad's bellicose threats to the very existence of the state of Israel."

But you see, what Warren was doing in Syria is what he's been doing all along here in America and around the world with the dialectic church - withholding inconvenient truths about sin and the call to repentance for the sake of Results and Relationships. Going soft on sinners is his specialty! That's how you "build bridges," exponentially grow churches and dialectically achieve "unity in diversity" - by putting absolutes aside and dialoguing differences away until everyone's conscience is seared and conviction vanishes in the ambiguity of religious relativism.

Somebody, tell Rick Warren, "When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."

As I was doing research for this posting, I stumbled across this interview of Rick Warren in the Atlantic. The title of the interview is "The Rick Warren Interview: No Compromise With Evil." In my view, Rick Warren isn't living up to the second part of that title with his upcoming speaking engagement at ISNA's upcoming convention.