Apprising Ministries correspondent and Christian Research Network contributor Jim Lupacchino has an important story at his Watcher’s Lamp website that’s related to the AM post The Morphing Emerging Church Movement. In his Virginia Baptists Promoting Emergent Phyllis Tickle Luppachino informs us:

The Baptist General Association of Virginia’s (BGAV) Mission Board shares The Parish Paper :

The Virginia Baptist Mission Board is proud to provide copies of the Parish Paper free of charge to members of our constituency!

Co-edited by knowledge experts Herb Miller, Lyle Schaller, and Cynthia Woolever, monthly issues of The Parish Paper provide ideas, insights, research-findings, and practical methods that strengthen the effectiveness of congregations in accomplishing God’s purposes through their various ministries.

The April 2010 edition asks the question: What Can We Learn from the Emerging Church Movement? ( Good timing considering the 2010 BGAV’s 21-C church growth conference was immersed in emergent methodology).

Within the text is favorable reference to emergent mystic and author, Phyllis Tickle. The article claims that the emergent movement is no threat to Christianity.

Oh, really?… (Online source)

Lupacchino has great reason to be concerned because Phyllis Tickle is the Empress of the sinfully ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—that morphed into Emergence Christianity (EC)—and is now a cult of a postliberalism firmly entrenched with the mainstream of pretending to be Protestant evangelicalism. Lupacchino then goes on:

Listen to Phyllis Tickle in her own words describe the following:

• Ancient mystic’s interpretation of the Christian history
• God is both male & female, both father and mother, God is both man and woman
• We are hearing more about the FACT ( emphasis mine ) that all religions are the same…they go to the same place…to the same God. They differ in their cultural context  
• All religions have their own mysteries. We must hold on to the mysteries that make us Christians
• Judaism held to the concept that the voice of God loved men so much, the “she sent her daughter” to speak with men. Known as “the daughter of the voice of God.”

And here’s the grand finale….

• An erotic relationship exists between man and “the daughter of the voice of God.”
• When we take communion we are eating our God, the body and blood of our God ( that is the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation )
• We are “FEEDING THE “GOD” WITHIN US”.
• The Spirit is reinvigorated within us as we take those elements

Thanks to Chris Rosebrough at The Museum of Idolatry for the audio clips. (Online source)

Now it’s important to give you some context concerning this grievous mistake being made by the Baptist General Association Of Virginia (BGAV) aka the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. The BGAV is one of the two Virgina state conventions aligned with the national Southern Baptist Convention; interestingly enough, the other just happens to be called the Southern Baptist Conservatives Of Virginia.

The document Luppachino discusses above is the April 2010 Parish Paper called What Can We Learn from the Emerging Church Movement? This foolish paper is woefully misinformed, and not only promotes the heretical Phyllis Tickle (seen below denigrating Sola Scriptura), but it’s also a full-on embrace of this EC—which is a very decidedly anti-Protestant de-formation of the Christian faith:

The emerging church is primarily a reform movement within Christianity. But most examples of the emerging church seem to emphasize reforming the practices (how we worship; the nature of how to be the church) more than reforming the beliefs. Among the wide variety of emerging church practices, the following are prominent: no denominational ties, no church building, alternative worship, and “doing the gospel” instead of merely “discussing the gospel.”

Emergent churches are not trying to create a new religion or a new denomination. They are Christian, even if they have “let go” of some of the creeds. They don’t have doctrines or dogmas but instead talk about “values.” They say “everything is under scrutiny” but say “following Christ is the anchor.”

Phyllis Tickle sees the emerging church movement as evidence of a historic seismic shift–on par with other big shifts such as the Great Reformation of the early 1500s. She asserts that Christianity is in another “hinge” time; …

2. Worship renewal or alternative worship. Emerging church forms of worship took hold in the U. S. in the late 1990s… Some emerging church worship draws on an eclectic range of ancient traditions [i.e. Counter Reformation Roman Catholic mysticism] such as the type of mysticism common among American Quaker congregations during the last two hundred year [sic]…

Emerging church or emerging ideas? Some people argue that even the label of “emerging church” has become so muddled that we should drop its use. Whatever its label, the movement has always been about emerging ideas. Not all ideas are created equal, and sorting the wheat from the chaff continues in and around the movement.

The emerging church movement poses no threat to Christianity. Rather, it enhances its spread and health. There is no need for anger about the traditional church’s present condition or guilt about missed opportunities in the past. The arc of change is longer than any of our lifetimes, and we do not yet know the impact of the emergent church’s response to that change.

How can our congregation make a place for people who are attracted to new forms of being the Church? (Online source, emphasis in original)

It’s quite obvious from the above that the author, Cynthia Woolever, has at best a very superficial knowledge of this subject. That aside for now, the over-aching question would be: Why would Southern Baptists of Virgina, in the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, be encouraged to embrace the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church and it’s refried Roman Catholic mysticism?

See also:

VIRGINIA SOUTHERN BAPTISTS ENCOURAGED TO EMBRACE THE EMERGING CHURCH

SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION AND “INSIGHTFUL” EMERGING CHURCH HERETIC TONY JONES

IN THE EMERGING CHURCH OOZE CONVERSION IS OUT 

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

RADICAL APOSTATES, RICK WARREN AND PETER SCAZZERO

BOB ROBERTS, JR: CHRISTIAN, JEW AND MUSLIM “TRIALOGUE”

PASTOR KEN SILVA—THE HIJACKING OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY