World Peace, Rick Warren and Tony Blair

Rick Warren has endorsed and is supporting English Prime Minister Tony Blair's 'Faith Foundation', an organization designed to find a common ground for all faiths to work together for a better world.

“The vision and values of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation are desperately needed today when every major issue in our world is influenced for good or harm by faith factors. It would be foolish to ignore how religious conviction impacts personal and national identity, poverty and education, extremism and reconciliation, disease and development, peace and progress. In any effort to help people learn to live and work together, we must engage the vast networks, resources, wisdom, and influence of the faith communities. My friends, Tony Blair is uniquely prepared with the gifts of temperament, knowledge, experience, leadership, and global respect essential for a task this great. I honestly don’t know of anyone better suited for this challenge. It’s why I agreed to serve on the Advisory Board. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s potential for doing good is staggering.”

–Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Church, from the Faith Foundation website, 5/30/08

“Last month in Westminster Cathedral, I set out the purpose of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. It will concern itself with the six leading faiths: Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jewish. Today we launch the first of a series of partnerships to give effect to that purpose.”

–Tony Blair, Faith Foundation website, 5.30/08

This concept of world peace intrigues me. It seems like a noble enough goal and something we should be working towards. What could be wrong with working side by side with non-Christian faiths to make a better world for us to live in? Is this a reasonable expectation....that we can actually improve our world by uniting with non-believers? What does the Bible teach about that type of unity?

2 Cor 6:
14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

What about world peace and harmony?

Rev 18:
2 And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 “For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”
4 I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;
5 for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 “Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.
7 “To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as a queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning.’
8 “For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.
9 “And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning,
10 standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’

Matt 10:
16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.
17 “But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues;
18 and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.
19 “But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say.
20 “For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.
21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.
22 “You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.

The church is quietly but resolutely being led astray from it's calling and it comes from within. The calling of the church, the true church, is to evangelize the world to Christ.

There's nothing wrong with social action but when it becomes the primary focus....when the Body of Christ begins to make compromises....when it unites with non-believers in the name of 'world peace'....it has abandoned the gospel and taken up a different banner.

Gal 1:
6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel;
7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!
9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
10 For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.
11 For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

2 Tim 4:
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
5 But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.