Rick Warren Teams Up with New Ager Leonard Sweet

From Lighthouse Trails:

Rick Warren has invited New Age proponent Leonard Sweet to speak at the 2008 Saddleback Small Groups Conference called Wired. The theme of the conference is "Prepare your church for spiritual growth and connectivity." Unfortunately, spiritual growth and connectivity ala Leonard Sweet could be a panentheistic, mystical dose of the New Age - and it isn't the first time Warren has found comradeship with Sweet. As Ray Yungen explains in A Time of Departing, Sweet and Warren came together in 1994 for their Tides of Change audio series. Yungen describes Warren and Sweet's relationship as well as Sweet's beliefs:

In the set, Warren and Sweet talk about "new frontiers," "changing times" and a "new spirituality" on the horizon.Later, in Sweet's 2001 book, Soul Tsunami, Warren gives an endorsement that sits on the back as well as on the front cover of the book. Of the book, Warren says:

Leonard Sweet ... suggests practical ways to communicate God's unchanging truth to our changing world.1Some of these "practical ways" include using a labyrinth and visiting a meditation center.2 Sweet also says, "It's time for a Post Modern Reformation,"3 adding that "The wind of spiritual awakening is blowing across the waters."4 He says that times are changing and you'd better "Reinvent yourself for the 21st century or die."5

Sweet also states:

Mysticism, once cast to the sidelines of the Christian tradition, is now situated in postmodernist culture near the center.... In the words of one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, Jesuit philosopher of religion/dogmatist Karl Rahner, "The Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, one who has experienced something, or he will be nothing." [Mysticism] is metaphysics arrived at through mindbody experiences. Mysticism begins in experience; it ends in theology.11

Read the rest here...

See more on the Warren & Sweet connection here...