Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt His Name together. (Psalm 34:3)

The Emergent “god” Is The Image Of Man

A.W. Tozer was right when he said that “mankind has succeeded quite well in reducing God to a pitiful nothing! The God of the modern context is no God at all. We must get back to the Bible and the ministration of God’s Spirit to regain a high and holy concept of God. Oh, this awesome, terrible God!” And this is the main problem with these men of the Emergent Church. The truth is that they are becoming even more deluded as they muse upon the so-called “divine mystery of the Sacred” (through Contemplative/Centering Prayer (i.e. transcendental mediation for the Christian) along with other deceived so-called “Christian” mystics and those in the other “faith traditions” Emergent is trying to bring together under their corrupt roof (see–2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).

However, at the same through their neo-orthodox view of Holy Scripture, which is a highly subjective and existential interpretation of the Bible, they actually are reducing this “terrible God” into a caricature of themselves. And it will tell you just how far off the rails the evangelical church is when I can write an article like Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (SBC) and Contemplative Spirituality and not receive even one single letter from any SBC pastor anywhere in that entire state! Or another one like Emergent Church Openly Accepts Homosexual “Christians” (ECHC) and it elicits nary a yawn from the ignominious idol that has now become evangelical-ism.

The president of the Southern Baptist Convention Dr. Frank Page says, “I see many valuable contributions to the SBC coming from the Emergent Leaders Movement. I believe it is a positive thing to see a broader number of participants in our convention’s direction. I personally applaud this movement” and nearly no one bats an eye. In fact, many spiritually obtuse Christians actually jump to the defense of the cult of postliberalism that is the Emerging Church. O, as soon as one dares to be critical of this Emergent rebellion against the Bible–which has become the darling of evangelicalism through its deceiving “missional” lingo–the hue and cry is: “It’s much too diverse to be categorized as a cult.” Wrong.

Once Upon A Time There Was No Emerging Church Movement

Ok we’ll do it this way; think with me now, there really was a time prior to what is now called by many the emerging church movement. I’ve covered this a number of times but apparently most people period are taking the attitude: “Ah, don’t confuse me with the facts I’ve already made up my mind.” In the Relevant Magazine interview I referenced in ECHC National Coordinator for Emergent Village Tony Jones is asked:

RM: Emergent doesn’t have a doctrine, but what are some of the key principles that hold you together?”

TJ: Just this morning, we came out with an anti-statement of faith that explains why we don’t have a statement of faith. I’d say that one of the core principles or convictions is that the very nature of theology is one of conversation and dialogue, not one of setting boundaries and safeguards from elusive historic orthodoxy. (emphasis mine)

Translation: The Emergent Church is, as I clearly stated at the outset, neo-orthodox (at best) and their subjective, existential and relativistic approach to the Christian faith is diametrically opposed to the proper historic orthodox and Biblical theology recovered during the Protestant Reformation. This is why our “anti”-theologian stresses “historic orthodoxy” is so allegedly “elusive.” And now we are going to take a step back to before this “diverse” emerging church blight on the Body of Christ came into existence. Jones is asked:

RM: Being as brief as possible, give a snapshot of the history of Emergent.

TJ: Basically, Doug Pagitt was working with Leadership Network in the late ’90s, and he was charged with gathering a group of innovative church leaders, kind of the next generation of the people they’d found in the ’80s. So Doug was in charge of getting those people together, and we started to gather. Very quickly, our conversations went from best practices, which is what the generation before us was really concerned with, and moved toward more philosophy and theology. We seemed to feel like we were in a new age of thinking about these things.

Within a few years, Leadership Network very graciously and gratefully pushed us out of the nest and said, “We’ve launched you guys. Here you go.” So there were about 20 of us, and we kept meeting and thinking about what does this mean to live life together as we’re planning churches and raising families. So we kept talking about life, philosophy, ministry, church planting and all of these things. What we were saying began to catch the attention of some people, and people began to ask us to write books and speak at conferences and start websites and whatnot. (emphasis mine)

Can you finally see that this group, which would later splinter off into the emerging church movement, came from that rotten root? This is why I labor in the strength of Christ to get evangelical leaders to understand the origin of this movement and to try and stop useless dialogues with men like this who are not going to listen to you. They have already “emerged” away from the faith; so let them go and follow Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. The Bible says of fools like this – They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us (1 John 2:19).

And you may also recall Jesus also clearly tells us: 

 

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. (Matthew 7:13-19, KJV)

Did Jesus Mean What He Said Or Not?

Do you seriously think the Master was simply airing out His lungs when He said these things? And you truly have no excuse because God already told you ahead of time that you will know these vipers. And not long ago even Dr. John MacArthur did a whole series on discernment, or more specifically the appalling lack thereof in the evangelical love shack, and you still didn’t listen. Can you really not sense God’s anger with the evangelical camp for giving these Emergent wolves in sheep’s clothing a voice within His Church? Then get ready, there will be increasing deceptions even more difficult to discern heading into the American Christian community the longer we dance with these deceiving spirits and their doctrines of demons.

Now listen carefully to what the National Coordinator and official spokesman for Emergent Village tells you about their view concerning who is in the “Christian” faith of the Emergent Church. “Theologian” of the anti-statement of faith Tony Jones says:

We have everything you could imagine. We have Texas Baptists who don’t let women preach, and we have lesbian mainline pastors in New England… As a follower of Christ and a theologian, I have no qualms speaking out about things that I don’t agree with. Emergent demands such rigor in the friendship accountability area that people who don’t want it will very quickly fall out of it. It’s not about theology, but you can’t come in if you aren’t ready for your theology to be challenged. (emphasis mine)

O yeah, to the undiscerning this sounds quite impressive but by not speaking out here against lesbian mainline pastors Jones obviously has “no qualms” with this absurdity in the Name of Christ. And just to make sure we aren’t misunderstood here Relevant then asks him:

RM: You mentioned earlier that you have lesbian pastors and conservative absolutists. It seems that it would create a tension point when it comes to endorsing that person’s view or platform.

TJ: If you believe that Christianity is–at its very heart–a tension-filled, dialectical endeavor, you have less problems with these tension-filled relationships with believers. Christianity is paradoxical. Life comes out of death. Jesus was fully human and fully divine. We haven’t yet found that there’s anything that justifies us breaking fellowship with somebody else who loves and is trying to follow Jesus.

Why would you break fellowship with someone because you have a different understanding of the atonement than they do? Or a different understanding of human sexuality than they do? It seems nonsensical that we’d give each other tests and try to hang it over someone else’s head and say, “Hey, dude. I’m going to break fellowship with you if we can’t come to agreement on this particular issue.” It just doesn’t seem to be the nature of human life… I certainly don’t think that the issue of absolute truth is a good reason to break fellowship with someone who’s trying to follow Jesus. (emphasis)

No Tony we can plainly see the anti-doctrine of so-called “friendship accountability,” or should I say that some of us can. And the fact is that the inclusive Emerging Church hasn’t found any reason to break fellowship with anyone who is a supposed “Christ follower” over anything…well that is, excepting those evil “fundies” – Emergent hypocrites! This piece is offered with the prayer that now those who are willing to look at the actual facts will see that wolves in sheep’s clothing like Jones are also saying that in the Emergent Church “Christian” gay is a-ok. Nope, Emergent doesn’t even see the need to break fellowship with unrepentant practicing sinners falsely claiming to be Christians.

And not only that, it’s also a-ok for these unregenerate reprobates to even be ordained into the office of teaching elder in further violation of the Word of God. Nice. Yet, despite repeated warnings the leadership within rapidly apostatizing evangelicalism continues to sleep on to their own demise…for this is what the LORD says:

“Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.” (Ezekiel 3:17-19, NASB)

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.