Davos Surprise: Rick Warren
The biggest surprise of Davos so far for me? Rick Warren. Being a cosmopolitan atheist type, I’d heard of him, of course, but thought he was, well, author of a bestselling self-help book and pastor of a megachurch somewhere. What I didn’t realise was that he’s been coming to Davos for years, and that he can work his magic on Masters of the Universe – and cynical hacks – just as much as he can on his congregation at home.
“If you’re a global leader, you have to realise that the future of the world is not secularism,” he said at a panel on faith and modernity moderated by Tony Blair. “There is going to be more religion, not less. You may not like it, but that’s the way it is.” [Read the full post here]
Brian McLaren at Davos
Brian McLaren is asked by Sierra Club radio to talk about the environment and theology from a Christian and evangelical viewpoint. Listen here.
Brian speaks really well and its a good intro to his book called Everything Must Change, which outlines a plan to tackle the spiraling threat of a dysfunctional economical system. Brian will be speaking at DAVOS World Economic Forum in Switzerland this week and will be rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s top leaders in their fields. I hope he is able to bring God’s agenda to the table. [Read the full post, with links, here]
Two evangelical leaders, Rick Warren and Brian McLaren, who recently signed the common faith agreement Loving God and Neighbor Together, which called for Christian and Islamic leaders to work together, showed up in Davos, Switzerland, this week at the World Economic Forum.
This is quite significant. Davos featured a “West-Islamic World Dialogue” with a “Council of 100 Leaders (C-100) Promoting dialogue and cooperation between the Western and Islamic worlds.” According to one report, the purpose of the C-100 is sustain “In-depth Dialogue and Discourse” and leverage “Global Cooperative Action” with a network designed to:
- Catalyse change and make progress in one of the most pressing global issues of our time
- Advance thought leadership to shape and guide the agenda of West–Islam dialogue
- Participate in the discourse among members of a network of influential leaders with eminent knowledge
To underscore the increasingly spiritual nature of the WEF’s economic focus, note the “Ancient Wisdom on Modern Questions” webpage link. This is truly a global interfaith movement.
Rick Warren attended Davos last year. You can see a clip of him doing an interview at Davos this year here. According to Warren’s bio posted at the World Economic Forum website, he is still a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. WorldNetDaily has previously reported on Warren’s prevarications regarding this issue.
Brian McLaren of Emergent Church fame also attended Davos. He is set to go on a book tour for his new book Everything Must Change. He, like the New Apostolic Reformation leaders, is calling for a paradigm shift — not unlike James Rutz’s Megashift — called Deep Shift to “engage in personal formation and theological reformulation for global transformation.” One of his sponsors is Faith at Work, part of the marketplace transformation movement, which is eerily similar to the WEF’s global business development.
While Robert Schuller was hosting his Rethink Conference this past weekend, these other evangelical leaders were actively engaged in this “theological reformulation for global transformation” with the power elite in global economics. It is no coincidence that the “apostles” of the New Apostolic Reformation are calling for a radical redistribution of the planet’s wealth, often referred to as the “kingdom economy” or the “transfer of wealth.“
To see the shape of the evangelical church to come, study the “theological reformulation for global transformation” embedded in this TransformWorld covenant document. Our previous post discussed Transform World’s vision.
The Truth:
“Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations, they set up their ensigns for signs.” (Psalm 74:4)