Sozo over at Reasons Why continues the discussion on pragmatism and the Purpose Driven Life. He notes that there haven’t been many Biblical defenes of PDL. I guess I would ask first, what is seen as unbiblical in PDL? When I read the book, I felt it was a nice, contemporary discussion of priorities and spiritual disciplines. In short: your first priority should be to glorify God, your highest purpose is to bring others into His kingdom, and you begin to cultivate Christlikeness through personal purity, prayer and Bible study. I didn’t have the impression the book was presenting some kind of gimicky formula, ala “The Prayer of Jabez.”
This isn’t to say I think the book is a revolutionary or even a top-notch discussion of these topics — merely that I think it’s generally sound.
On the question of Warren’s use of scripture — he does, frequently, employ faulty exegesis, if you could call it exegesis at all. But it’s “harmless error” in a sense, because the principles are still correct. In another sense, it’s not harmless, because it sets a bad model for others to follow. Perhaps more on that in another post.