Rick Warren's book the Purpose Driven Life has been a topic of some debate for a while now at The Burr in the Burgh. Pastor Scott posted his opinion of the book a while ago, and there were a few people who felt that they should clobber him for it.

Anyway, I just gotta jump in with my two cents worth. This is a topic I have strong feelings about. Now, keep in mind... I'm no theologian. I'm no serious student of scripture and I'm absolutely not a member of the clergy. I'm just a lay-Christian with an opinion, and you shouldn't get any more worked up about my opinion than you do about anyone else's.

A few years ago, my wife and I were having a hard time of it, still getting used to our new marriage, trying to work things out, grow together as a couple, grow spiritually and individually, etc. It was a desperate time for me. I was searching for meaning, looking for anything that might be a clear indication of what God had in mind for me.

We were attending a nondenominational Fundamentalist church and the preacher there was, to his credit, doing everything in his ability to help us. Once, during a particularly tearful, confessional meeting on my part with him, I asked him to recommend a resource for me, and he suggested that I read Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life.

I'd never been a fan of the kinds of books that were popular with the members of our congregation, the kinds of things that they wanted to study. I didn't like Max Lucado, Bruce Wilkinson, etc. I thought of their books as silly, Halmark Card theology. Christianity-and-water, as C.S. Lewis might say. But I was willing to try Warren's book because the title seemed to speak to my problems. This might be the book, I hoped, that pointed me in the right direction.

I think I finished half of it.

Warren's book struck me as smug, superficial, self-congratulatory, and absolutely pointless. It seemed like the kind of thing that was designed to soothe rather than provoke. It seemed like the point was to avoid offending, to avoid challenging, to simply lull the reader into sleep. When I noticed that Warren also had books about the "Purpose Driven" church and "Purpose Driven" journals and devotionals, etc, it became clear to me. From what I could tell, Warren's "Purpose" was one thing and one thing alone: Marketing. Rick Warren had found his niche in the publishing world. Rick Warren was making an appeal to the pocket-books of the same "Wal-Mart Christians" who had bought so many of the "Left Behind" books and the silly, sappy greeting-cards of Lucado, Wilkinson, et al.

I was disgusted. Heart broken. Is this what Christianity was in the modern world, then? A marketing gimmick? A commercial cult? Drive-thru salvation? A large order of McDevotion and a side-order of fries?

I examined the church we'd been attending, and allowed myself to really face what I knew to be true about it. What was the focus of our church? What were the things that mattered to our clergy, our elders, our Sunday school teachers and our congregation? Two words came to mind: Church Growth. If I'd had a nickel for every time I'd heard that phrase used at our church, I'd have been able to build my own cathedral. That was all they cared about. Church Growth. Bigger. Better. More. Every Sunday, the attendance was posted on a sign in the front of the sanctuary, along with the number of people who'd been there on that Sunday one year ago. There always HAD to be more. More people in the pews. More people in the groups. Grow. Grow. GROW. GROW.

Is this all Christianity was about now? Did it come down to attendance numbers?

There had to be more. In fact, I KNEW there was more. I'd felt it. I'd had moments of prayer, contemplation, and meditation that were deeply real, deeply meaningful. There was more to Christianity than the Cult of Personality. Somewhere, there had to be a church that wasn't so caught up in the modern world.

As I've documented ad nauseam, Wendy and I found what we were looking for in Roman Catholicism. Now, I'm the first to admit that, had Wendy and I looked elsewhere, we might have gone a different way. Wendy came to our marriage with Lutheran (LCMS) roots, and from what I've learned, the Lutheran church has a rich, appealing history. We decided, though, to start our in-depth search for a church by "going to the source," if you will... and in Roman Catholicism we both found exactly what we wanted and more. We found what Wendy and I have come to believe is a kind of "fullness" of Christian faith.

And so, in a way, I've come to believe that writers like Rick Warren might do more harm than good for their own cause. At least, in my instance, his book served to push me away from his kind of faith, rather than draw me toward it. I got Warren's book during a time of desperate searching... and what I found in it's pages was so light-weight, so amateurish, that I actually felt mocked by the book's author as I read it. I wanted meat. He gave me milk and smirked at me.

The experience did have positive effects, though. For one thing, it played a role in the process that lead our family to a Church where we're happy. And besides, Warren's book did motivate me to dig deeper into the "real" theology that I'd only tasted before. C.S. Lewis, already my favorite writer, became more and more important to me. Honestly, I can't recommend Lewis enough to my Christian friends. I'll put it this way: If popular theology were music, C.S. Lewis would be Mozart and Rick Warren would be The Spice Girls.

Other theologians, like Scott Hahn, Richard Foster, and the amazing G.K. Chesterton helped me find answers... and helped me find more questions. I specifically want to mention Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost Of Discipleship as an incredibly important book to me, because in Bonhoeffer's work I found exactly what I'd hoped to find when I originally read Warren. Bonhoeffer's book is absolutely amazing; it's honest, intense, provocative, demanding, and (in the best possible way) haunting. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has lead me to more probing self-examination and stronger devotion to my Savior than a thousand Rick Warrens could ever do.

Most importantly, though, I actually started reading my own Bible. If you're looking for guidance, direction, and... well, purpose, there's really only One Book you have to have... and if you're anything like me, you already have a copy of it, and it often gathers a lot more dust than it should.

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Other points of view; other bloggers who've written about Warren's book:

A Brick In Dave's Wall

Crossties Ministries