Rick Warren Gives Hearty Endorsements on Covers of Two Books by Meditation-Promoting Authors

Note: As we prepared the news story below about Rick Warren’s recent endorsement of Dr. Daniel Amen’s new book, it came to our attention that Rick Warren has also this year placed his endorsement on the back cover of Dr. Mark Hyman’s new book, The Blood Sugar Solution.  Hyman, like Amen, is a proponent of eastern-style meditation practices. In his book, Hyman calls New Age meditation advocates such as Deepak Chopra, Dean Ornish, Dr. Oz, Daniel Goleman, and Christiane Northrup his “co-creators in medicine’s transformation” (p. 374). Rick Warren’s endorsement sits on the back cover along with the names listed above. His endorsements of these two books will have profound implications on untold numbers of people, including Christians.

“Rick Warren Gives Hearty Endorsement for Dr. Amen’s Meditation-Promoting Book, “‘Use Your Brain to Change Your Age””

“I want to stay sharp, and that’s why I read everything Dr. Amen writes, and you should too!” – Rick Warren, (back cover, Use Your Brain to Change Your Age, May 2012

When Dr. Daniel Amen’s book Use Your Brain to Change Your Age came out this year, it was somewhat surprising to learn that Rick Warren’s name was on the back cover, giving a hearty endorsement of the book. Clearly, we could see Warren is very much drawn to Dr. Daniel Amen to say that the book is “another incredibly helpful book” and that he reads “everything Dr. Amen writes.”  Amen is part of the trio-doctor team that Rick Warren has partnered with to present the Daniel Plan (a health program that includes meditation techniques) to Saddleback Church members and to thousands of Purpose Driven churches around the world.

Dr. Oz and Dr. Hymen are the other two doctors in the team, and all three are proponents of eastern-style meditation practices. After receiving criticism about his partnering with the three doctors for the Daniel Plan, Rick Warren came to his own defense, saying that he does not believe in New Age meditation and promotes only “biblical meditation.” But his recent endorsement on the back of Dr. Amen’s book, Use Your Brain to Change Your Age, sends out the opposite message.

While Rick Warren denies that he is an advocate of eastern-style meditation practices, his statements, promotions, and endorsements over the last nearly two decades paints an entirely different picture. Lighthouse Trails has documented his resonance with New Age type meditators for almost ten years. We also sent Warren a copy of Ray Yungen’s book, A Time of Departing, when it first came out when we naively thought we could warn and inform him of mystical spirituality. He wrote back a personal note thanking us and admitting that the issue was a “hot topic.” What we didn’t know at the time was that Warren was already promoting spiritual formation (contemplative spirituality) at least as far back as his first book in 1995, The Purpose Driven Church, where he identified the movement as a valid message and a wake up call for the church.

Along with lots of common sense practical advice such as eating healthy, exercising, and taking supplements, Amen’s new book encourages the use of meditation practices and yoga. This would certainly be expected in one of Amen’s books. In his book, Making a Good Brain Great, he promotes “Sa Ta Na Ma” meditation, a form of Kirtin Kriya yoga. His website also tauts these types of practices. So the big deal here isn’t that he has written this book – that’s what New Age meditation teachers do. The big deal is that Rick Warren, who so many look to for spiritual guidance, continues to point his followers toward New Age mystical practices and do it in the name of Christianity. Those who realizes the significant role meditation will play into end-time deception throughout the world as we move closer to the return of Jesus Christ will find this information sobering and troubling.

As the video below illustrates where Amen is talking about the benefits of meditation, Rick Warren is affirming what Amen is telling him.