SPENCER BURKE: CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALIST WHO BELIEVES IN HELL

Concerning Emerging Church aka Emergent Church, now morphing into Emergence Christianity, leader Spencer Burke—founder of the aptly named THEOOZE.com “dedicated to the emerging Church culture”—in These Christians Radically Rethink What A Church Is we read from Rev. Eddie Gibbs of Fuller Theological Cesspool Seminary:

Burke is an “influential thinker” in the emerging-church movement. Burke’s influence stems in part from his website, TheOoze, which discusses issues facing the church today, said Gibbs, who, with another Fuller theologian, Ryan Bolger, is writing a book on emerging churches.

From my perspective, Spencer has flipped too far to the left, but he represents the voice of younger leaders within the emerging church,” said Gibbs, an Episcopalian minister who recently invited Burke to lecture at Fuller. (Online source)

Richard Rohr, the quasi-universalist Roman Catholic monk and teacher of the Contemplative/Centering Prayer of corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism, says of Burke’s book A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity (AHG), written with Barry Taylor:

Some Christians have the ability to make you want to be a Christian just by being who they are. They make the gospel alive, real, healing, and utterly attractive. I think Spencer Burke is just one of those people. In his writings he shares himself and his vision. (back cover)

And Emergence Christianity Guru Brian McLaren says:

The serious and concerned religious folks who would be most prone to attack Spencer and Barry for their title should, perhaps, realize that they are doing them a great favor, an act of courage and charity. They are showing those religious folks what about them is turning off and driving away millions of people … (ix)

Well, wouldn’t you know it; shock and surprise, what these millions don’t happen to like is the narrow pathway of the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, what does Spencer Burke offer them instead…ah, the broad pathway; what else?

Here below from his AHC we’ll hear fr0m Spencer Burke, the “influential thinker” of the Emergent Church, that Gibbs had in to lecture to his class. Where, according to Red Letter Roshi Richard Rohr, Burke is makes “the gospel come alive”; and the book in which Swami Brian McLaren tells us Burke is finally “showing those religious folks” (translation: Bible-believing) just what it is we’re doing wrong in our horrid ineptitude.

So now in the superior erudition of Emergence neo-Gnosticism, er—wisdom, Spencer Burke will now share that which will finally prevent ignorant un-enlightened Christians like me from “driving away millions of people”. And it’s actually really, really simple; just gut the Gospel:

One of my earlier titles for this book was I’m a Universalist Who Believes in Hell. The problem is that when I say “universalist,” I say it with tongue firmly in cheek… I’m attracted to universalism insofar as it acknowledges that many of the world’s religions contain true and valuable insights. On the other hand, universalism, as it is traditionally understood, still focuses on religion as the way forward, and I do not.

I don’t believe any single religion owns heaven or God—even a religion that tries to include everyone. When I say I’m a universalist, what I really mean is that I don’t believe you have to convert to any particular religion to find God. As I see it, God finds us, and it has nothing to do with subscribing to any particular religious view… Universalism says that a theology of grace implies salvation for all, because if grace could be limited to some people and not to others,… it is in fact no grace at all…grace is bigger than any religion. (196, 197, 198, emphasis his)

The Author of Wisdom, Jesus, says of fools like this — “Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14, NASB)

See also:

ROB BELL AND CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM 

DOUG PAGITT AND CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM

APPRISING MINISTRIES WITH A PEEK AT THE COMING SOTERIOLOGY OF EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY 

EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY: IMAGINE A GLOBAL FAITH WHERE EVERYONE’S ALREADY SAVED

SAMIR SELMANOVIC: GOD IS FATHER OF All RELIGION

CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM AFFIRMS SALVATION BY JESUS

FOUR KINDS OF UNIVERSALISM