DOUG PAGITT A CHRISTIAN MESSAGE?


The introduction to the Crosstalk radio program for May 16, 2007 informs us:

Ingrid began this edition of Crosstalk by featuring a recorded interview she conducted with emergent pastor Doug Pagitt, pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s also the co-author of a book entitled, Emergent Manifesto of Hope.

Doug discusses how he feels the gospel is understood and embedded within other social and spiritual systems. He also discusses his disagreement with the concept of the depravity of man, as well as his definition of the gospel,

Another part of the program features a portion of an interview with Dave Flemming, once a conservative evangelical pastor who eventually began to embrace a wider spirituality.

In the end we’re left with this question: Does the emergent church represent a new manifesto of hope or confusion? Pastor Bob DeWaay of Twin City Fellowship in Minneapolis, Minnesota, joins Ingrid to help answer that question, bringing clarity and discernment concerning this new movement that’s challenging the Church today. (Online source)

Recently Dr. John MacArthur clearly stated concerning Doug Pagitt:

Let me just cut to the chase on this one: [Doug] Pagitt is a Universalist. What he was saying is real simple. He was saying when you die your spirit goes to God and judgment means that whatever was not right about you, whatever was bad about you, whatever was substantially lacking about you, gets all resolved. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Buddhist, a Hindu or a Muslim—doesn’t matter whether you’re a Christian really; we’re all going to end up in this wonderful, warm and fuzzy relationship with God. That’s just classic universalism. (Online source)

Pastor Bob DeWaay, who also appears with Ingrid Schlueter on the aforementioned Crosstalk program, debated Doug Pagitt in The Emergent Church and Postmodern Spirituality Debate and afterward DeWaay told me, “I have never debated theology with someone who claimed to be a Christian that I had so little in common with.”

Whatever you make of the above assessments by those two respected pastors, Apprising Ministries can tell you that the words spoken below by Doug Pagitt from the Crosstalk program are not those of a pastor-teacher who has has been sent by Christ Jesus:

Ingrid Schlueter: So what you’re saying is that the question of whether the Gospel exists in other religions is a thrilling question that we should be asking.

Doug Pagitt: I think it’s the biblical question. Yes, I think it’s the right biblical question. I think, I find that you couldn’t read the New Testament without that question being raised and without the answers to it being the answers that we should be paying to; which is there is no culture or religion which holds God in complete isolation or purity. (15:25-15:56)

And then a bit later along the same line:

Ingrid Schlueter: So we could interpret what you’re saying as how is God at work; how is the Gospel present within Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism—all of the different religions of the world.

Doug Pagitt: Yeah, for sure because—I mean—Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, those are not—I me—they are the right way to say ‘em. They are “isms,”right; so they are a school of thought, and they are also embedded in a particular cultural setting. And so I think someone could say, “yes, I can see how God—how God is expressed, talked about, understood, through these schools of thought.” Which I find to be quite helpful and they’re not all in contrast with my Christianity. (17:05-17:47)

The question you need to begin asking your local evangelical church leadership right now is: What are men like this, who know not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, doing in our youth groups?

“[In the Emerging Church] the idea that there is a necessary distinction of…creation from creator is being reconsidered.”

Doug Pagitt (Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Churches, 142.)

See also:

DOUG PAGITT SAYS JOHN MACARTHUR PREACHES A PERVERTED GOSPEL

MARK DRISCOLL CALLS BOTH EMERGING CHURCH PASTORS ROB BELL AND DOUG PAGITT HERETICS

DOUG PAGITT AND THE EMERGENT CULT