Unhealthy?
Feeling empty, run-down,
upside down...
a little round?
Feeling blue?
Listen up, little cup...You're vulnerable, and Rick Warren has a Daniel Plan, for you.
Advertised as, "God's Prescription for your health!" and with a year in the implementing at Saddleback Community Church, it's definitely a plan, but is it really a plan prescribed by God? Rick thinks so; and he markets it that way.
Concerned for peoples mental, physical, and spiritual well-being Rick Warren has hatched yet another plan for you and your life. He began promoting his clever plan in his own church last year, to make everyone healthy, balanced and fit. He enlisted the three wisest men he could find, called it the "Daniel Plan" and jumped right in.
Rick's three wise friends are doctors, each claimed to be experts in their own perspective fields regard "health." The three are highly publicized, best-selling authors, just like Pastor Rick. They are not only his personal friends, but supposedly co-creators in the project designed for Warren's congregation, and their names are Daniel Amen, Mark Hyman and Mehmet Oz, Rick makes it look biblical and sound biblical... but here is an interesting twist. "God's prescription" is not about learning from Jesus, or the apostles, but comes from getting information from Pastor Rick and friends. In fact, the first thing one can expect when beginning the Daniel Plan is to be spending time reading materials published by these guys, learning from them, taking in all of their expert advice regarding eating and exercise, so that your everyday lives are soon reflecting the wisdom of these great men.
Rick tells his hearers that the Daniel Plan is God's prescription and that it was inspired by the book of Daniel in the Bible, and tells a little story about how he, and overweight Rick, decided many people in his church were fat. Wanting to see a change in himself and help his church be healthy, he sought some help from the worlds wisest men.... Amen, Hyman and Oz, and...Whalla! Out popped the Daniel Plan, a collaborative effort of Rick Warren and his three wise men.
We are led to believe Rick is the instigator and that it is just Rick and these three helpers of his, who have worked on implementing this, but rest assured, this is no simple project. There is publishing to manage, the writing of program materials for participants as well as a 52 week curriculum plan with sermons, and computer programs to collect and store and analyze all the data from individual people who participate in the plan. It seems as if just overnight, Rick single-handedly, (well maybe with the help of his three benevolent friends, came up with this grandiose c
Do you notice that the story of Daniel in the Bible is a little different than the Daniel Plan of Rick's? In the Bible we do not see Daniel sitting under the feet of the wise men, consulting them about what he should eat and not eat or about what he should think and he should do? The wise men in the Daniel story were magicians, enchanters, diviners, seers, sorcerers... experts in all-things-Babylon, but Daniel, instead of inquiring of them, instead of conforming to their thinking, their wisdom, conformed his thinking to the ways of God. Reading the book of Daniel, we even see Daniel's special God-given wisdom, put all the wisdom of the king's wise men to shame.... so why does Rick's Daniel Plan have people listening instead to his personally selected "wise" men?
Apparently, Rick thinks these people should be listened to by people in the church. After all, as he says, "The Bible says, God wants you to be as healthy physically as you are spiritually," and apparently, Rick believes that their wisdom will help him be healthy physically, and help him bring more people into his church too. Rick says, without apology, "This is God's prescription for your health,"
God's Prescription? Really? God who? Daniel's God? The one he believed in and devoted himself to daily? Really?
If you were to do the Daniel Plan of Rick's, you would be spending valuable time and money reading and learning from these high profile men instead of the Bible. You would buy their books, watch their television programs webcasts, videos and be busy implementing their "expert" teachings into your life. You would probably be marketed via email, web advertisement on your Daniel Plan account and in your church bulletin and in your church lobby to buy their books, nutritional supplies, products and services on a regular basis too, with new celebrity wise men added occasionally too. Then seeing the results of their wise expertise, you too would be smart, knowledgeable, savvy on matters of health and human well-being... as they teach it.
At the end of the fifty two weeks, you would be well-versed in everything these wise men teach regarding the health of your body, your mind and soul as well as the failures of western medicine, what really causes disease, and how to look at your spirituality and your life. :Little, if anything will you lean information about having faith in the one true and living God. The reason is that, like the wise men in the biblical story of Daniel,
Rick Warren's wise men do not submit to God.
Daniel of the Bible, however,did.
Rick, teaches his hearers about Daniel; after all, this program is the Daniel Plan. He says, "For Daniel, what he ate was connected to his faith in God. He knew the only way to honor God with his body was to refuse the rich food from the king's table." Rick makes it sound as if Daniel was declining the food because it was "rich." (Not the reason at all.) So, in participating, for 52 weeks, in the Daniel Plan, what you get, along with the wisdom of Ricks hand selected wise men, is bible teaching... from Rick!
Rick will tell that what Daniel ate was connect to his faith in God and that the only way for Daniel to honor God with his body was to refuse to eat the kings rich food, but it wasn't simply because the food was too rich, fattening, or unhealthy that Daniel refused to eat from the King's table. It was because Daniel knew that the food the king was providing Daniel had been sacrificed to the many diverse religious idols they worshiped in the land of Babylon. Rick teaches something completely different than what the Bible says.
Also, Daniel didn't simply "refuse the rich food" or" refuse to compromise," (Daniel asked politely to be excused.) Why is it that Saddleback Church staff and Rick Warren is encouraging people, to "Be like Daniel, and refuse to compromise!" (See Session 6 of the Daniel plan.) and then, while claiming not to compromise,(using Daniel as our example,) does Rick Warren purposefully yoke himself and his hearers to the teaching and training of these three men?
Daniel Amen, says he is a Christian, and as such he teaches people that they need to have a brain-soul connection. He writes books so that people can learn from him how to be smarter, use more of their brain and help their brain and soul connect. He says, in his book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Mind, that without optimal brain function, it's "hard to be successful in any aspect of your life... including your feelings about God." (pg. 8.)
According to Amen, people struggling with things like "moodiness" and "negativity," do so because the "deep limbic center" of their brain,( a part that controls your bonding with other people and your moods,) is "off kitler." (Hmmm... limbic center?) That is interesting. This kinda sound a little like Rick Warren saying the church is not balanced properly, (or that the body of Christ is such that the hands and feet (limbs) have been amputated, and we are just a big mouth,") Rick believes Amen is the number one, world-class brain expert in the nation, and that people who want to have a healthy, happy brain, and mind, especially those in the Church who want to be "healthy"should listen, and learn from Dr. Amen.
Rick also enlisted a man named Mark Hyman to help with the metabolic side of loosing weight and gaining health. Hyman is not a professing "Christian," like Amen is, but as Rick's doctor, personally selected by Rick to help him get his "mind, body and health" in shape, Rick decided to let Dr. Hyman teach his "healthy" practices, not just to him, but also to his church..
Hyman advocates what he calls, Functional Medicine, (FM) which he says, "is the bridge that connects the dots between the whole story of medical science." FM which had it's start in the 1990's, is something akin to Integrated Nutrition; or Integrated Medicine, both ideas that are intended to incorporate medical care of a person's body or physical being with the mind and spirit too. Hyman teaches that in FM, there are seven core imbalances that, (much like the five purposes of church, as Rick teaches in his purpose drive church model) "have to be balanced systems or else... your body, can't be "healthy".
Like many other people, who have a cause to promote, Hyman enthusiastically works to sell and promote his cause and his cookbooks and nutritional books and his nutritional supplements to go along with his books, and his general expertise in ultra wellness as well as his political worldview about how the health of our planet is linked to the health of our diet...as well as his counseling and health coaching services; and now also through his Daniel Plan association with Pastor Rick!
Mehmet Oz, the third wise man in the bunch, also is not a professing Christian. This doesn't really matter to Rick either. Dispite this man's religious beliefs, Rick has yoked up with him too and for the last year, Oz has been co-leading the Orange County, Purpose-Driven Church, along with Drs. Amen and Hyman, into "optimal health." And while Oz may not be a Christian by profession, he does seem to be a very spiritual man.
Oz, a heart specialist by vocation, appears on a nationally syndicated television show from which he practicalizes medicine and disseminates information about many health issues for his audiences. His show teaches people watching television in America various facts and figures about health. Interestingly, he is well-versed in and promotes to his television viewers a lot of spiritual practices, making practices like Reiki, necromancy and hypnosis, common household terms and even suggesting people try them, like he did, sometimes as complimentary medicine. Oz is a spiritual man, but not Christian, and yet, Rick Warren promotes listening to Oz to Hyman and Amen, in order to obtain "God" prescribed "health."
When asked by skeptics about his enlisting these three men, and in particular, men with religious beliefs that stand in opposition to Christianity, in his planning and propagating the Daniel Plan, Rick defended his choices. In this Christian Post article, Rick said, "If I have a brain tumor, I find the best brain surgeon I can find. I'm not asking what his background is or what his belief is... If you're dying, you might even let an atheist save your life." Apparently, for Rick it is not an issue if these men are believers or not believers in the Lord Jesus Christ or not. All that matters is that they can help to save your life. Besides, they are the wise men, experts, the best in their fields. Their advice is, to to Rick, part of the Daniel Plan, "God's prescription for your health."
If you are not believing Rick about now, here is some good news.... God's prescription for Christians today is the same as it was for Daniel of the Bible. knowing God and His Word and putting faith and trust in only Him.
Christian see Daniel's God displayed in Jesus Christ who they believe is God incarnate, and who, as God, took away their sin when he died according to the scriptures and in three days, rose again. Daniel, captive in Babylon, faced many pressures, he encountered many situations wherewith he had to respond in faith, believing, trusting and honoring God and as a man of faith Daniel was given wisdom, health and deliverance from his trials and tribulation. Daniel, in a land where people thought you could serve any god of your own choosing or making, remained subject to only One, the true and living God.
Isn't it strange that this "Daniel Plan of Warren, Amen, Hyman and Oz, has little or nothing to do with the Biblical example of "Daniel," and in terms of religious beliefs of these men , the Bible and God's plan to redeem or save humans through faith in Christ, God's only begotten Son, is just not that important? Apparently, faith in the one true God doesn't matter, all that matters is that you listen to these wise man and learn from them so you can experience physical, mental and "spiritual" health.
The plan these four hatched for Saddleback and all its
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