• Mair says Kay and Rick went to high school together.
FACT: We lived over 600 miles apart and didn't know each other!

• Mair says  I have one child, a daughter.
FACT: I have 3 grown children , two married, and one grandchild!

•  Mair says my father ran a youth ministry.
FACT: My father never did!

• Mair says that New Age Minister Norman Vincent Peale was my mentor!
FACT: I've never met Mr. Peale and never even read any book he wrote! It's a total fabrication!  I'm a Southern Baptist and would repudiate every new age belief. My mentor was my own father, an SBC missionary.  My great grandfather on my mother's side was saved under the ministry of Charles Spurgeon and sent to America as a circuit-riding Baptist pastor.
 
• Mair says that televangelist Robert Schuller helped "found" Saddleback Church!
FACT: This is impossible. I have never even had a private one-on-one conversation with Mr Schuller—ever! I have been in several interdenominational meetings that he was at, and  I shared my testimony about what our church was doing at 3 of his Pastor's conferences in the 1980s. But the invitation came from Wilbert Eickenberger, the director, not even from Schuller himself. The first time I met Schuller in a meeting was in 1985—6 years after I started Saddleback—so obviously, he didn't start our church.
 
• Mair says I've hired New Age Guru Ken Blanchard to train leaders for us.
FACT: This simply isn't true! First, I totally oppose New Age anything. Second, I haven't hired Ken Blanchard to do anything. 

LTRP #1: Mair never said that Rick Warren has only one child. He said:"In December of 1979, Rick and Kay Warren packed their belongings into a U-Haul and headed west with their baby daughter" (p.70, A Life With Purpose). And again the same thing on p. 74: "Rick explained that he had just moved from Texas with his wife and infant daughter..."
RESPONSE: It is true. Mair nowhere says "Rick Warren has only one daughter" in his book A Life With Purpose (a shameful product rife with inaccuracy). Of course, to Warren, this doesn't matter, since Mair neglected to say anything about Warren's other children, who are all precious to him. Warren, speaking as a father, interpreted the inconceivable deletion as Mair saying he only had one daughter. It was an understandable remark coming from Warren, who was clearly upset by Mair's volume. In essence, Warren felt like Mair had completely missed two of his children. THAT is the intent behind Warren's words. But the Dombrowskis use his emotion-based inaccuracy to insinuate Warren is somehow deliberately being dishonest.



LTRP #2: "Nowhere in Mair's book did he say that Peale was Warren's mentor. He did say that Dr. Criswell, who wrote the foreword to Purpose Driven Church, was Warren's mentor."
RESPONSE: Again, we have a case where Warren was careless and the Dombrowskis use it to skewer him back. The truth is not so simple.

What George Mair actually does say about Peale and Warren gets about as close as anyone can get to calling Peale Warren's mentor without actually doing it. Consider the following:

• Mair incorrectly links Warren to Peale by implying that their methods, motives, and ministries are comparable, going so far as to say that Saddleback "distinctly bears his stamp of Reverence Norman Vincent Peale" simply because Saddleback has various ministry groups dealing with "marriage, work, child rearing substance abuse and dependency, depression, and other issues once thought beyond the scope of the Sunday church service" (A Life With Purpose, p. 100).

• Mair mistakenly claims: "Norman Vincent Peale and the Reverend Robert S. Schuller are examples of famous pastors who aren't affiliated with a specific denomination. . . . this brand-neutering concept would be an important part of Saddleback's success" (p. 117).

• Mair falsely states: "Embracing the philosophy of Norman Vincent Peale and others who merged religion and Psychology, Warren has taken advantage of the success of his purpose-driven ministry by having the church itself provide these important counseling resources [i.e., ministries dedicated to meeting needs associated with marital difficulties, the elderly, unwed mothers, terminal illnesses, drug/alcohol addition]" (p. 153).

So where did Rick Warren get the word "mentor" from? That word likely came from the other rumor about him that began surfacing around this same time (c. 2005)—i.e., that Rick Warren was mentored by Robert Schuller (or that Schuller was Rick Warren's mentor, see my article Warren and Schuller: Debunking An Urban Legend).

Warren apparently conjoined the two rumors, mistakenly attributing the word "mentor" to Mair's inaccuracies about Peale (and Schuller). This is an understandable mistake given the many places where Mair linked Warren to not only Peale, but also Schuller. It is easy to see how Warren got the two falsehoods technically confused. Either way, the point Warren was trying to make was that Mair was wrong about him and Peale. 

The truth is that there is no connection whatsoever between Rick Warren and Peale (see chapters 5, 6, and 7 in Mair's book that link Warren to Peale)—that is what warren wanted to make clear in his email, saying: "I've never met Mr. Peale and never even read any book he wrote! It's a total fabrication! I'm a Southern Baptist and would repudiate every new age belief. My mentor was my own father, an SBC missionary. My great grandfather on my mother's side was saved under the ministry of Charles Spurgeon and sent to America as a circuit-riding Baptist pastor."

Oddly, the Dombrowskis do not explain any of this, nor did they cite where Mair was indeed wrong about Peale. Instead, they fixated on the word "mentor" and used that error by Warren to imply that he was not telling the truth.



LTRP #3: "Mair never said that Schuller helped "found" Saddleback Church. He said these comments: "One of the early participants in the Schuller Institute was Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois. Later, another participant would be Rick Warren of Saddleback Valley Community Church" (p. 109, A Life With Purpose). Mair also said: "The need for more clearly defined answers first came in 1980, the year that Rick moved to Southern California and started Saddleback. With the help of Reverend Robert Schuller in nearby Garden Grove, other area churches, and some volunteers, the Warrens managed to start doing services in rented classrooms and other places"
RESPONSE: LTRP is mincing words here and playing semantic games. It is true that Mair did not use the actual term "found." But he did say that Warren "managed to start doing services" with the help of Robert Schuller. The implication is clear—i.e., according to Mair, Schuller had a hand in helping Warren to start, found, begin, get rolling, initiate, instigate (whatever word one wants to use) Saddleback Church. Such an assertion, however, is absolutely false.

Obviously, Warren used the word "found" as a generic term for helping to get started. But LTRP, as usual, creates a major issue where no major issue exists. Moreover, Mair's understanding of Warren's attendance at Schuller's institute is completely skewed (for information on this aspect of the Warren-Schuller connection, see my article Warren and Schuller: Debunking An Urban Legend).



LTRP #4: "First of all, Mair never called Ken Blanchard a New Age Guru. Secondly, while Rick Warren did not use the word "hire," he did say that Ken Blanchard had 'signed on' to help implement the peace plan and help train leaders and the people at Saddleback. 
RESPONSE: It is true that Mair does not call Blanchard a "new age guru." That term is the very term that LTRP applies to him in the PRESS RELEASE Warren is talking about!

Again, we simply have Warren combining two different, but related, bits of information that he is trying to deal with in a single email: 1) the fact that he never hired Blanchard (which is what Mair claimed); and 2) that Blanchard is identified by LTRP as a "new age guru." 

What is extraordinarily hypocritical here is how the Dombrowskis would hold Warren to using precise/exact terminology to be accurate (e.g., his misuse of the word "mentor" in reference to Peale), but when it comes to Mair, they are willing to allow him to use the inaccurate word "hire" when what Warren actually said was "signed on." LTRP is setting a double standard here in order to protect Mair, while condemning Warren.

The bottom-line is that Rick Warren, whatever he might have said during a single sermon (late 2003), did not hire Blanchard—contrary to what Mair said. The video clip is meaningless because this fact remains unchanged by it. Mair made an assumption and a false statement.



LTRP #5: "According to Ken Blanchard's autobiography (We Are the Beloved, written by K. Blanchard—1994) and an audio interview, Ken Blanchard became a Christian in the mid-eighties. . . . Ken Blanchard's statements and endorsements are as recent as January 2005 when he endorsed New Age promoter, Jack Canfield's new book, Success Principles, and June 2005 when he endorsed In the Sphere of Silence. Once again, please note that Blanchard became a Christian 20 years ago."
RESPONSE: The implication here is that Warren is lying, as evidenced by LTRP remarks elsewhere, such as: "[W]hat most who read his email did not realize was that the majority of the statements in his email were not true"  (LTRP, "Purpose Driven Resisters - Must Leave or Die," June 2006). And again, they write: "And do you think that Rick Warren and Ken Blanchard are going to train their 'billion' soldiers for Christ how to practice New Age mysticism and learn how to go into altered states of consciousness? You bet" (see my responses in this article).

The truth is that Warren didn't know exactly when Blanchard had become a Christian. He assumed he was less than five years old in the Lord, which to Warren's mind explained why Blanchard had made so many mistakes in his endorsements. It was an erroneous assumption on Warren's part that got cleared up in 2005 when the whole Blanchard controversy hit.

But once the issue was raised, after his email to LTRP, Warren learned that Blanchard had actually become a Christian back around 1985. In turn it was realized by Warren (and Blanchard) that he had been seriously stunted in his doctrinal growth and biblical understanding of the faith. This entire unfolding of events is discussed in my chronology of the controversy in Warren and Blanchard: The Truth Behind the Controversy.



LTRP #6: "This particular conference that Warren speaks of took place in 2003. However, a second conference took place six months later. Warren was one of the speakers, but he did it through a video presentation. Yet in his letter to us, he is using deceptive wording and making it look like he only participated in the event once (having actually only physically been there once) but actually participated twice. This statement would give a person the understanding that the only time Rick Warren has had any association with Blanchard was at this one conference. What he did not say was that this summer he will also be sharing a speaking platform with Blanchard and Bill Hybels at the Leadership Summit. "
RESPONSE: What we see here is how the minds of the Dombrowskis are made up: Rick Warren is a deceiver and a liar. There is simply no way to convince them otherwise. This is their only option when it comes to Warren. No room is left for communication differences, ways of looking at things, misunderstandings, different thoughts about a proper response, or how a response should be worded. Warren was simply saying, "Your wrong. I've only been to one event." But the Dombrowskis turn this into some kind of insidious attempt by Warren to hide the truth so he will not be discovered lurking about in the shadows as a New Age false teacher.



LTRP #7: "Matthew 18 does not refer to the matters in the church that are in the public forum. Rather it refers to the personal offenses (or a sin) between two people. Any knowledgeable Christian should be aware of this. An example of such a situation can be found in Galatians 2:14: "But when I [Paul the apostle] saw that they [Peter and Barnabas] were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all [publicly]."
RESPONSE: Very true. Matthew 18 would be more connected to a personal grievance against another Christian. Unfortunately, the problem here is not Warren's understanding of Matthew 18 (which is shared by many Christians). The problem is that when LTRP "publicly" attacked Warren, they did so using false accusations. And that is something they have continued to do unrepentantly.



LTRP #8: "This statement is suggesting that Rick Warren had no control over Zondervan's decision to use his commentary, and he once again omits certain information. Rick Warren not only wrote sidebar commentaries throughout Dan Kimball's book, The Emerging Church but also wrote one of the forewords."
RESPONSE: Again, we have the Dombrowskis calling Warren a liar. That is their impression of him, which is why it will never matter what he says, or how conscientiously he tries to explain himself. His words will always be seen as coming from a lying, deceptive, New age peddling, false teacher. Regarding this particular book, Warren's involvement is explained in my article Roger Oakland: Truthteller or Storyteller?, under OAKLAND #6 response).



LTRP #9: "In the book, The Emerging Church, we found 17 sidebar commentary statements by Rick Warren. Only one was a disagreement and a weak one at that: Dan Kimball was talking about people who didn't like churches that looked like Wal-Marts but preferred buildings with beautiful architecture."
RESPONSE: I do not know from Warren's comments what he was talking about. Consequently, I cannot respond to this remark by him. He seems to have had something in his mind, but without his elaboration, there is not much to comment on. One disagreement certainly wouldn't amount to "often," but once more, this is hardly worthy of calling Warren a liar and a New Age deceiver.



LTRP #10: "The fact that Rick Warren tells us here that he wouldn't have even put his name on this "wonderful" book had he known that Brian McLaren was a commentator too seems preposterous. . . . [And] it is hard to believe he would not have seen the book in its final form for approval prior to printing."
RESPONSE: Here we see the "liar, liar" implication again. But Warren's statement is not really all that preposterous. He has publicly voiced disagreements with McLaren before and since this email. Warren is especially disturbed by the post-modernism (relativism, non-objective truth assertions) that can be found throughout certain segments of the Emerging Church. discussed some of these issues with me during my 2005 interview with him (see following transcript, excerpted from my book (Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him):

Clearly, Warren has reservations about various aspects of the Emerging Church. This is why he has never fully endorsed everything found within it. LTRP, however, has completely dismissed: 1) the actual nature of the Emerging Church as a widely diverse movement; and 2) the actual views of Rick Warren regarding the movement. 

As for it being beyond belief to the Dombrowskis that the book could possibly be published without Warren seeing the completed manuscript, it is unbelievable to them because I would venture to say that they have never been asked to be contributing authors to a compilation book by a major publishing house. 

What they do not seem to know is that in a compilation book such as The Emerging Church, the material taken from various individuals is usually put together by the publisher, effectively keeping each author fairly ignorant about what is going on at the publishing house. It is common, in fact, under such circumstances for each author to not see what the other authors involved have written. A person (for example, Rick Warren), is contracted to do a certain piece (like a chapter, commentary, side-bar, or foreword)—and that's it. Then, a year or so later, suddenly, there is the book. Most of it, if not all of it, is new to each individual author (this, of course, is not the case in a book written by a single person).

And I say this as someone who has been a contributing author to four major compilation works (The Kingdom of the Cults [1997 edition, ed. Hank Hanegraaff], Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, Baker's Encyclopedia of Cults and World Religions [not-yet-published], and Abuse Your Illusions: The Disinformation Guide to Media Mirages and Establishment Lies). In all four instances, I never saw anything that the other authors had written. In fact, with regard to Abuse Your Illusions: The Disinformation Guide to Media Mirages and Establishment Lies, four chapters before my chapter on Mormonism and Racism, there is a chapter by ex-Christian pastor Dan Barker, who debunks the resurrection of Jesus and basically says it is a lie! I had no idea that this Barker individual was going to be included in the book, let alone what he was going to say about the resurrection. Does this mean that I now deny the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ and I am an atheist? Hardly.

Furthermore, it must be noted that Warren's foreword in The Emerging Church is in support of the book as being an important contribution to the study of the Emerging Church. It is not necessarily an endorsement of either: a) the Emerging Church as a whole; or b) all aspects of the Emerging Church. In other words, although Warren may think that the Emerging Church is an important thing to be discussed, dealt with, and looked at (via the very book he contributed to), he may not agree with everything being taught in the book or in certain sectors of the Emerging Church. This is obvious from his interview with me (see above excerpt from my interview with Warren).

One glaring truth comes out from taking a close look at how the Dombrowskis responded to Warren's email. This truth lies in how many corrections by Warren to Mair's book were not mentioned by LTRP. These corrections, as well as his own perceptions of the book, loudly call into question the reliability of Mair's volume, which LTRP used as a primary source of information on Warren. 

As they have admitted, "Lighthouse Trails learned of Rick Warren's connection to Ken Blanchard through a book called A Life With Purpose, written by Hollywood biographer, George Mair" (LTRP, "Purpose Driven Resisters - Must Leave or Die," June 2006). The Dombrowskis not only failed to mention Warren's many important corrections, but they dismissed them entirely! This indicates that they were not reading Warren's email with an eye toward better understanding the issue. They were reading it with a fine-toothed comb, looking for anything they might find that could be used against Warren.  

Contrary to their assertion that the "majority of the statements in his email were not true," all of the statements by Warren were indeed true. The ones that they found a way to spin negatively, they used. The rest, they ignored, as can be seen by taking a final look at just how few "statements" they quoted out of the email for their analysis (see email above). And yet they have continued to state the following:

"I personally believe Warren's effort to debunk the book was an attempt to conceal some of its observations. What George Mair didn't realize was that in his candid account of Warren, and in his efforts to offer this testament of praise, some things were revealed about the pastor that might have gone undetected by the average person. For instance, Mair explains how New Age prophet Norman Vincent Peale was at the foundation of the church-growth movement and furthermore 'many of Peale's uplifting affirmations originated with an 'obscure teacher of occult science' named Florence Scovel Shinn.' Referring to many of the methods that Peale taught and his 'unification of psychology and religion,' Mair says, 'Saddleback distinctly bears the stamp of Reverend Norman Vincent Peale'" (LTRP, Warren on ABC Nightline - ABC Misses the Mark: Rick Warren and Purpose-Driven Strife).

This is perhaps one of the most unbelievable statements to appear on any of the LTRP Internet pages. It concerns the resoundingly flawed unauthorized biography of Rick Warren titled A Life With Purpose by celebrity/Hollywood tabloid biographer George Mair. The volume is rife with errors and flawed assumption by Mair who demonstrated with painful clarity that he knows little about Warren, church history, American Christianity, or Saddleback Church. So awful was this book, that Warren actually wrote to LTRP  in hopes of enlightening them to the utter shamefulness of the volume being called a biography of him (see Warren's email to LTRP).

But rather than believing what Warren has had to say about his own life, ministry, beliefs, and history, LTRP has continued to accuse Warren of lying and trying to cover up the truth! LTRP has even posted an entire article ripping apart Warren's email, trying to show where he was seeking to be deliberately deceptive. For more information on George Mair and his wildly inaccurate book on Warren, see my article George Mair: Lessons On How NOT to Write A Biography.