Rick Warren's Guests of Honor at Easter - The Jonas Brothers

From Crosstalk Blog:  Jonas Brothers Rock Rick Warren’s Easter Service

Commentary – by Ingrid Schlueter

The girls were screaming, biting their fists and swooning as the Jonas Brothers took the stage for Rick Warren’s Saddleback Easter service at Angel Stadium. The reportedly smokin’ hot boy band sang some well-known Easter hymns like “Hold On”, “A Little Bit Longer”, and this doctrinally heavy number:

Everytime I think I’m closer to the heart
Of what it means to know just who I am
I think I’ve finally found a better place to start
But no one ever seems to understand
I need to try to get to where you are
Could it be you’re not that far?
You’re the voice I hear inside my head
The reason that I’m singing
I need to find you
I gotta find you
You’re the missing piece I need
The song inside of me
I need to find you
I gotta find you
Oh yeah
You’re the remedy I’m searchin’ hard to find
To fix the puzzle that I see inside
Painting all my dreams the color of your smile…

Joe Jonas apparently thinks that Jesus Christ is his girlfriend as you can see in this video where he performs the same number in a non-Easter venue. But none of this bothers Rick Warren, of course, who is clearly too thrilled with his new fan, popular Reformed author and teacher, John Piper, to worry about whether Joe Jonas and his own church members actually know who Jesus Christ is.

There is something almost surreal about seeing someone like John Piper now openly endorsing Rick Warren as “doctrinally sound.” Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven version of Christianity has taken on the flavor of French farce. Boy bands, thousands of girls and women screaming in lust, secular pop songs instead of Christian hymns, Rick Warren tweeting about his “baptisms” live from the scene of the Easter comedy—you could not possibly make this up.

Yet now we have someone internationally respected for his serious books on theology and the Christian life, grinning like crazy on video as he defends the Grand Circus Master of the First Church of the Jonas Brothers.
Whatever personal crisis has led John Piper to this tragic and horrifying turn in his ministry, he should be held accountable for the incredible damage he is doing to the Gospel by this very public meltdown. The time to take a sabbatical is before embracing the guy in the pastoral clown suit, not after—unless the sabbatical is intended to become permanent.

Those of us with young people to raise in our homes are now further challenged to try to explain just how someone with the vast biblical knowledge of John Piper can openly endorse one of the most damaging false teachers of our time. Rick Warren is not damaging because he lacks the right answers theologically. He is damaging because those biblical answers have had no influence on his public ministry. Orthodoxy is worthless if it never leaves the realm of the books on his shelf. Right theology needs to be the bedrock of a pastor’s preaching and ministry life. Anything less leads to a corrupt view of Jesus Christ and a false gospel. Just ask Joe Jonas.

Note: Please read this excellent piece by Daniel Chew regarding Rick Warren’s failed orthopraxy.