{"id":8375,"date":"2005-12-02T15:13:41","date_gmt":"2005-12-02T22:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/12\/02\/purposeful.html"},"modified":"2005-12-02T15:13:41","modified_gmt":"2005-12-02T22:13:41","slug":"purposeful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/12\/02\/purposeful.html","title":{"rendered":"Purposeful"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We did Rick Warren&#8217;s &#8220;Purpose-Driven Life&#8221; program at our church a year or so back.  It was interesting, though there were some definitely un-Episcopalian sorts of things, and Rick, though personable on the videos, didn&#8217;t seem like the guy I&#8217;d want up in my own pulpit.  <\/p>\n<p>And, frankly, the whole idea of mega-churches, as epitomized, it seems, by Warren&#8217;s Saddleback Church in south Orange County, California, give me the willies.  Whether its their slickness, the apparent populist shallowness (&#8220;Fundamentalism Lite!&#8221;) of their theology, or echoes of the churches in <em>Stranger in a Strange Land<\/em>, I cannot imagine going to a church of 30,000-plus congregants.<\/p>\n<p>All that said &#8212; this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gladwell.com\/2005\/2005_09_12_a_warren.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;New Yorker&#8221; article on Warren and Saddleback<\/a> is &#8230; interesting.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We did Rick Warren&#8217;s &#8220;Purpose-Driven Life&#8221; program at our church a year or so back. It was interesting, though there were some definitely un-Episcopalian sorts of things, and Rick, though&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13486,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/01\/the_purpose_driven_proset.html","url_meta":{"origin":8375,"position":0},"title":"The Purpose-Driven Prosetylization","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 1-Dec-08 10:39am","format":false,"excerpt":"There is little doubt that purpose is a key to mental and emotional health. People with purpose in their lives just tend to do better People without purpose, with a...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Religion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13429,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/17\/modern_donatism.html","url_meta":{"origin":8375,"position":1},"title":"Modern Donatism","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Dec-08 11:13pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not many people know these days about the Donatist Heresy, but the battle over it (i.e., what got it eventually officially labeled a \"heresy\") was a key development in Christianity....","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Elections 2008&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31530,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/28\/rick-warren-gayness-and-having-the-right-argument.html","url_meta":{"origin":8375,"position":2},"title":"Rick Warren, Gayness, and Having\u00a0the Right Argument","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Nov-12 11:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"Rick Warren covers his bases here by fundamentally (so to speak) arguing that whether or not homosexuality is \"natural\" (like arsenic) or an impulse\/desire (like punching a guy in the nose), that doesn't make it right. \u00a0And, frankly, he's correct: arguing that something is what you want to do, or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22877,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/29\/bryan-fischer-is-a-dolt-mormons-are-lucky-we-graciously-let-them-practice-their-weird-religion-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":8375,"position":3},"title":"Bryan Fischer is a Dolt (Mormons Are Lucky We Graciously Let Them Practice Their Weird Religion Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 29-Sep-11 7:38pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So in a couple of weeks, Mitt Romney is speaking at the Value Voters Conference. And once he's done, he hands off the podium to my Favorite Dolt, Bryan. Yes, you. Of course, one wonders, Bryan, if he might have a few things to say first about, oh, this pronouncement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Dolts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Dolts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/dolts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/mormon-bluebeard-hitemagain.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":27347,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/10\/rick-warren-apparently-drinks-the-david-barton-kool-aid.html","url_meta":{"origin":8375,"position":4},"title":"Rick Warren apparently drinks the David Barton Kool-Aid","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-Apr-12 4:40pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Barton is infamously doltish for arguing, chapter and verse (poorly and unorthodoxly interpreted, IMO) that government -- that is, collective, societal -- help for the poor among us is unfair, unjust, and un-Biblical. Rick Warren, mega-pastor at the Saddleback mega-church in Orange Co., Calif., is apparently right there with him.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5583,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/17\/commitments.html","url_meta":{"origin":8375,"position":5},"title":"Commitments","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Feb-04 3:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the past three or four years, I've been involved in the Alpha program at our church. Alpha is sort of a \"Christianity 101\" course, over 11 weeks, with dinner,...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Religion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}