Rick Warren Joins Catholics For Evangelism Event: ‘No single denomination can complete the Great Commission on their own’
Former Saddleback Church founder Rick Warren was in Rome last week to attend and speak at Global 2033, a Roman Catholic evangelism event marking 2,000 years since the birth of Christianity. His presence there had a purpose: to convince and cajole Protestants into joining forces with Catholics to advance the Great Commission.
Speaking to EWTN (The Eternal Word Television Network, which features around-the-clock Catholic programming) Vatican reporter Andreas Thonhauser on why he was promoting a Catholic conference about evangelization, Warren offered:
Because no single denomination can complete the Great Commission on their own. There are 2.5 billion people in the world who claim to believe in Jesus Christ…Of the 2.5 billion people who follow Jesus in the world, they’re not Muslims. Okay, 1.3 billion are Catholic. Okay, so it’s an enormous, it’s about half of the Christian church are Catholic.
Warren dismissed concerns that by speaking at the event he hoped to convert Catholics to Protestantism.
No, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. We’re never going to… In John 17, which is Jesus’ last prayer before he goes to the cross… his great prayer there is the prayer for unity. It is still the unanswered prayer…
We’re never gonna have cultural unity, we’re never gonna have structural unity. I think there’s value- it takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. We’re never gonna have unity in doctrine, but we can all agree on one thing: every Christian understands we’re called to go. And still it’s possible to pray together.
…I pray with anybody who believes Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life. And these are brothers and sisters in Christ.
Warren concluded by singing his praises for EWTN and the positive way it had impacted his life, including the praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet
It’s an honor and I will just say we love EWTN, it’s been a great ministry in my life. And I’ll give you a personal testimony, that when I lost a son…it was the worst day of my life.
One of the things that helped me through was on EWTN, they were playing the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. And the Chaplet of Divine Mercy ministered to me and to my wife. And just doing that, it was a healing balm in my heart. And so thank you EWTN for all you’re doing.
