False Teacher of the Day #21: Greg Laurie (2024)

Greg Laurie has been a prominent figure in Christendom for quite some time. He is the senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowshipin Riverside, CA, one of the largest churches in America. Many have touted him as being the next Billy Graham. In the likeness of Billy Graham’s crusades, Laurie has invested endless efforts in his Harvest Crusades since the early 1990s, reaching audiences in the hundreds of thousands at every event. Laurie’s popular style of watered-down preaching and making the adulterated Word of God more palatable to the world has helped his empire grow tremendously, and transform Laurie into a celebrity.

As with nearly all celebrity Christian luminaries, there comes a time when the message they deliver has becomeso devoid of any convicting biblical substance that nearly anyone, whether they profess Christ or not, will be lured in by their seductive charisma. Their following essentially becomes a cult of personality, and their notoriety gains them indiscriminate immunity from nearly all criticism.

Statistics from Greg Laurie’s crusades show that among the thousands of people who touted their “decision” for Jesus at these gatherings, only 3 to 6 percent of them show any fruits of salvation one year later. Why could this be? Phil Johnson from Grace to You says that Greg Laurie’s current associations are representative of his theological drift, and that his “doctrinal boundaries are so hazy that there’s hardly any variety of popular religion or spiritual chicanery that he won’t align himself with, as long as it calls itself ‘Christian,’ and gains a large following.”

This statement couldn’t be more accurate. Perhaps one of the most spiritually dangerous assemblages of professing Christians this year will be The Gathering. The Gathering is described as a “National Solemn Assembly to unite the Body of Christ in America — all believers, regardless of race, age, or denomination — in prayer for forgiveness, wisdom, and provision for our nation.”

But see, here’s the problem, and what makes this event especially dangerous. The Gathering is filled with many popular names that are accepted in mainstream evangelical circles. Most of these compromised celebrities will speak a little bit of truth mixed with error. They are the bridge between true Christianityand blatantly false Christianity. They are the seducers, who deceive even the electif that were possible (Matthew 24:24). They are the ones that many sincere but undiscerning followers of Christ will be drawn away by because their books and materials are promoted in their churches.

Many popular names like former Southern Baptist President, Ronnie Floyd, Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Billy Graham, former ERLC president, Richard Land, the wildly popular Benham Brothers, NAR Apostle Samuel Rodriguez, Word of Faith pastor of Gateway Church, Robert Morris, and other compromisers such as Jack Graham, James Robison, Kay Arthur and Priscilla Shirer….and Greg Laurie.

There are two possibilities here. Either Greg Laurie is so undiscerning that he has no idea that this event is filled with false teachers, Gospel-compromisers, and self-promoting charlatansor he is well aware of their worksand sees nothing wrong with them.

The latter is more plausible.

Of course, being praised as “one of the greatest evangelists alive,” by one of the greatest con artists alive, Steven Furtick, is quite telling. Of course, Laurie returns the favor, promoting the arch-heretic, Steven Furtick’s Scripture-denying book, Crash the Chatterbox, on Twitter.

Laurie is an ecumenist–that is, he wants to tear down doctrinal divides between professing Christians and see them join hands under a superficial unity. Laurie took it upon himself to pronounce 2016 Republican presidential primary candidate, Marco Rubio, saved, even though Rubio unashamedly made it clear that he was fully theologically and doctrinally aligned with the Roman Catholic church. And one of Laurie’s associate pastors, Jeff Lasseigne, in a now-deleted video, claims he has asked Christianity’s greatest enemy of all time, the pope, to pray the upcoming Crusades, while jokingly tapping a bobblehead statue of the pope that he has on display in his office.

Greg Laurie has admitted to involving Roman Catholic churches in his crusades.

He also gave thestage to sedevacantist Roman Catholic, Mel Gibson, to promote his upcoming movie. Laurie and his associates at Harvest do not see the damning doctrinal error that the false church of Rome adheres to. With Greg Laurie, it isn’t about sound doctrine and a solid Gospel message that saves–it’s about “filling the stadiums with youth” to “bring about revival.” It’s a numbers game. It’s about “uniting denominations” into a single, watered-down, inoffensive, ear-tickling, man-pleasing entertaining religion of harmonious solidarity.

It’s this doctrinal shift and slide into apostasy that has caused John MacArthur to withdraw his endorsem*nt from the Harvest Crusades. Laurie has stopped preaching thefull counsel of God. He does not distinguish himself from other false teachers or distances his message from other false gospels. He has accumulated for himselfteachers to suit his own passions (2 Tim 4:3). He is building the false kingdom and preparing the way for the harlot church to flourish. His gate is very wide, and wide is the gate that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13). The charismatic persona of this man is very seductive and enticing–having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power (2 Tim 3:5). Those who follow him down his path, be warned, it’s not a safe path.

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. –Jude 1:4