Repentance and Rick Warren

It has been often been alleged by critics of Rick Warren that he and Saddleback Church rarely preach on repentance. Such an allegation, however, is untrue. Warren preaches repentance consistently, but the problem his critics have involves his method of preaching repentance. Unlike the old school method of simply blasting out the words "REPENT! TH END OF THE WORLD DRAWETH NIGH," Warren actually tries to take the time to actually explain what repentance means to the unchurched, and uses ways to illustrate it in their lives, rather than simply commanding that they do it—or else.

Anyone willing to look at the materials that have come out of Saddleback will immediately see this as an undeniable fact. The following quotes represent only a small sampling of the numerous places that the doctrinal truths surrounding repentance have appeared in the writings and teachings of Rick Warren (also see my articles Saddleback Church: The Cross, Sin, and Hell and The Doctrinal Essentials of Christianity—and Rick Warren").

 “Do I ever preach repentance? Of course I preach repentance. That’s the basic message of the New Testament—repentance. . . . You ask, ‘How do you preach on a negative passage?’ With a humble, loving attitude—not superior to your hearers. We’re all in the same boat. When you preach on a negative passage you confess, ‘I’ve fallen short here, too.’ Change the pronouns from ‘you’ to 'we’” (Warren, “How to Communicate to Change Lives,” part 1, session 3, 1997).

 “The ultimate paradigm shift is repentance.”  “Repentance is change at the deepest level.”  “[You] don’t change people’s minds. The applied Word of God does.”  “The deepest kind of preaching is preaching for repentance.”  “Repentance is the central theme of the New Testament” (Warren,  “The Purpose of Preaching,” part 2, Preaching Conference, n.d.).

“What is the path way back to purity? 1. Repent.  Repent means ‘to change your mind.’ . . . It means I change my mind and say, ‘You were right God. It was wrong. It’s sin.’ I don’t rationalize it. I don’t excuse it. I don’t say everybody’s doing it. I say, ‘It was wrong’” (Warren, Maintaining Moral Purity, 1997).

“The biblical term for ‘changing your mind’ is ‘repentance’—What do most people think of when I say the word ‘repent’? . . . They think of some kook. But the word ‘repentance’ is a wonderful word—metanoia—which means in Greek ‘to change your mind.’ Repentance is just changing the way we think about something by accepting the way God thinks about it. That’s all repentance is. . . . Changing the way I act is the fruit of repentance. Technically, repentance is not behavioral change. Behavior change is the result of repentance. Repentance does not mean forsaking your sin. Repentance simply means to change your mind. John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:8 (NIV), ‘Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.’ In other words, ‘OK, you’ve changed your mind about God, about life, about sin, about yourself—now let’s see some fruit as a result of it.’ The deepest kind of preaching is preaching for repentance. Because life change happens only after you change somebody’s thinking, then preaching for repentance is preaching for life change. It is the deepest kind of preaching you can preach. Every week I try to communicate God’s Word in such a way that it changes the way people think. The word ‘repentance’ has taken on such a negative image, that I rarely use the word. But I preach it every single week. Repentance is the central message of the New Testament. What did the New Testament preachers preach on? John the Baptist: ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.’ (Matt. 3:2 NIV)  Jesus: ‘Repent and believe in the Gospel.’ (Mark 1:15 NIV) What did Jesus tell his disciples to preach? ‘So they went off and preached repentance.’ (Mark 6:12 NAB) What did Peter preach at Pentecost? ‘Repent and be baptized everyone of you.’ (Acts 2:38 NAB) What did John preach in Revelation? ‘Repent’” (Ministry Toolbox, Issue #246, 2/15/2006).

“The Bible clearly states ‘all have sinned.’ It is my nature to sin, and it is yours too. None of us is untainted. Because of sin, we’ve all hurt ourselves, we’ve all hurt other people, and others have hurt us. This means each of us needs repentance and recovery in order to live our lives the way God intended” (Ministry Toolbox, Issue #212, 6/22/2005). “Repentance—To repent is to change course, to reverse direction. Once confession has been made (and forgiveness received), repentance must be demonstrate. An unequivocal commitment to turn away from the offending behavior must be made. As with confession, the commitment to repent is most effective when made before other members representing the church” (Ministry Toolbox, Issue #209, 6/1/2005).