Why I Am Opposed to the Book The Purpose Driven Life

Friday, August 10, 2007 [updated August 1, 2009]

After a friend on MySpace read my page regarding The Decline of the Church in America, he asked why I am opposed to The Purpose Driven Life book. My response follows:

Dear [. . . . . . .],

When I first got a copy of [The Purpose Driven Life] (maybe it was 2003), I was in one of my see-saw battles over my sexuality and faith. I read the book for maybe 12 days, and put it aside (eventually trashing it). That book made me feel worse, not because of any one thing in particular, but because it didn't say anything, yet it made me feel like I had to do more, to try harder. It was just more of the same nothingness I had received from churchianity over the years. Basically that book could be written in two words: "Please God." If Rick Warren really wanted it to last forty days for the sake of repetition he could have had forty chapters each with only two words: "Please God." The big question was, "How?" And the answer was not to be found in the pages of that book. I'd already spent years doing (or should I say trying to do) what the Bible teaches; but you and I, in and of ourselves, are not capable of doing what that book tells us to do.

When I began to read the book, I was already trying to please God. Every born again Christian wants to please God, but wanting is not enough, so we try to follow the advice of so-called experts like Rick Warren. We go here, we do some exercise, we set strict time tables for prayer and Bible reading. We follow all of the man-made rules performing for God. Like the words of a song [Do You Love Me Now That I Can Dance? by The Contours] from my earlier years [1962], I was dancing for God, asking Him, "God, do you love me now that I can dance?" Listen to that song here. The song repeats over and over, "work, work." Frankly, I don't give a fig about working to earn something that is already free.

All of that stuff only ensnares man into doing works of the flesh, trying harder, praying more, following this formula or that regimen. They all fail because they are not based on faith in Christ and what He accomplished on our behalf on the Cross of Calvary. There He opened the doorway into the New Covenant, the final sacrifice had been paid, the Holy of Holies is now open to us, and a New Life in Christ has been made accessible through the Holy Spirit. We can have victory in Jesus because of what He did, not based on anything I do (good or bad). When we have been made righteous through faith, our doing is a response to Him and pleasing God becomes an automatic extension of that faith because of the Holy Spirit's work in and through us.

Messages, in print or spoken, like that in The Purpose Driven Life may tell us what pleasing God looks like, but it also sets us off determined to do that by human effort. It becomes another rule or law that we try to obey. Galatians 2:21 reads, "if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly." If we really believe that, then the preceding verse must be taken literally also, Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." We cannot live for Christ by any other means than Christ and Him Crucified, and our identification with Him in His death. We are to live this life exclusively by faith in the Son of God.

However, even though I had that personal background as relates to The Purpose Driven Life, that was not the reason I mentioned the book in my page on The Decline of the Church in America. What I was referencing in that page was the fad of people clamoring after something other than faith and the word of God, making the book, Rick Warren and their works of the flesh gods unto themselves. Exodus 20:3: "You shall have no other gods before Me." In Romans 7:1-6, Paul equates Christians who follow any Law as a means of obtaining righteousness as Spiritual Adultery. (apostasy). Romans 7:4: "Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God."

I hope this helps,
Barry

Also see video (below).

Additional comments:

For the same reason I also take issue with many other books and ministries that point us to self-discipline (AKA works). Books, preachers, and ministries that would have us set up a regimen or a list of rules, sometimes even incorporating otherwise valid Christian disciplines, turn those regimens, rules and disciplines into Law, which will not result in freedom, but will cause us to rely less on Christ and more on self, resulting in failure (see Overcoming the Sin Nature). When we are walking in the Spirit (Romans 8:1-2), the Holy Spirit will witness to us (see First Nudge Obedience) that we are to avoid certain material, whether written or spoken. For example: books such as Uprooting Anger and "ministries" such as Bill Gothard's Institute in Basic Life Principles and Promise Keepers. No one – man or woman – can keep the promises espoused by Promise Keepers — to try to do so by self-effort, will result in failure. We must die to self.

To attempt to keep any regimen by human effort means that we are putting our faith in self and leads us away from placing full faith in Christ.

Galatians 2:21 (The Holy Bible, King James Version)
"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by [keeping] the law, then Christ is dead in vain."

Philippians 3:8b-9 (New American Standard Bible)
"that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith."

Video added August 12, 2008:

On Tuesday, August 12, 2008, one year after writing the above, while watching the A Study In The Word TV broadcast, I heard Jimmy Swaggart and Loren Larson discuss the fallacy of Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life and that approach to Christian Living. I have made a video, in Windows Media Video (.wmv) format, containing the audio portion of a few minutes of that broadcast. I do not have the ability to capture and repost video, so in making my video I used still images of Jimmy and Loren. Since the audio content is not mine, I do not have permission to upload the video to YouTube for widespread public viewing; therefore, I have uploaded the video privately so that you can view it here. If the video does not appear above or doesn't play, click this link to view the video. Depending on the capability of other video players to play the .wmv format, Windows Media Player may be required (check Microsoft.com). (Jimmy Swaggart Ministries' TV broadcast schedule is here).