The online apologetics and discernment work Apprising Ministries has been documenting the growing falling away of the mainstream evangelical community.

And I’ve warned you that there is a tsunami of apostasy—pushed along by 1 Peter 4:17 judgments—headed toward the church visible. Not a few of these judgments have come through evanjellyfish’s foolish embrace of the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church.

Being that the EC is simply another extention of the Druckerite selling of the church through Leadership Network this really doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

For such as these extending from the man-centered Church Growth Movement vomited out of Fuller Theological Seminary “church” is the product, and the Emerging Church is the “store” for the postmodern set, where the Purpose Driven/Seeker Driven version of evangelicalism ala Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren is the outlet selling good ol’ American business savvy.

Another sign of apostasy within the evangelical community is the cavalier way the Word of God is being handled. Case in point is provided by Christian Post today who tweeted:

(Online source)

The link takes us to a CP report by Nicola Menzie called New Bible Set for Public Release, Changes Jesus from ‘Son of Man’ to ‘the Human One’ where we find out that the “new edition of the Common English Translation (CET)” is set to “be released in print and made available to the public for the first time on August 1″ according to “publicist Audra Jennings.” Menzie informs us:

With the complete edition of the Common English Translation arriving from the printers this week and rolling into stores starting next month, associate publisher Paul Franklyn said the goal of translators was to make the Bible accessible and more appealing to readers of various backgrounds and denominations.

“There are a number of translations available for conservative churches,” Franklyn told The Tennessean. “This is trying to make a bridge between conservatives, moderates and liberals.” (Online source)

First of all, it isn’t up to translators to tamper with the texts of Holy Scripture to make what God has said “more appealing.” They are to bring forth what the original conveys into whatever language the translation is in. Secondly, with “trying to make a bridge between conservatives, moderates and liberals,” we see another attempt at Rodney King-can’t-we-all-get-along theology.

You might remember that in Supernatural Gatherings In The New Downgrade I talked about increasing syncretism in the mainstream of the church visible and an almost maniacal seeking of unity at all costs. Well, there can be none between conservative Bible-believing Christians and Bible-denying liberal unbelievers. The only way there is unity between those diametrically opposed camps is compromise.

And the ones who must do the compromising are always the conservatives; sure enough, here’s a good illustration as Menzie tells us that:

The publisher of the new version is hoping it will make the Bible understandable and attractive to as many people as possible. To that end, the new edition of the CET has made several “bold” translation choices, including changing Jesus’ “Son of Man” title to “the Human One.” (Online source)

Bold is really a gross understatement when you’re seeking friendship with the world and are arrogant enough to dare to alter one of the titles of God’s Messiah, Christ Jesus of Nazareth. You see, Son of Man speaks to the Deity of Christ; yet in an effort to please liberal unbelievers—who deny Who Jesus is—the CET translators attempt to over-stress His humanity in order to elevate the status of the self.

Son of Man is uios tou anthrōpou in the Greek and as J. Greshem Machen correctly brings out:

The true key to the title, “Son of man,” on the lips of our Lord is probably to be found in the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel, where “one like unto a son of man” appears in the presence of the “ancient of days” and receives an everlasting dominion…

the title “the Son of man” on the lips of Jesus is distinctly a Messianic title. It does not designate the humanity of Jesus as distinguished from His deity, but it designates Him as being that transcendent, heavenly Person who was to come one day with the clouds of heaven and be the final judge of all the world. (Online source)

This change to “the Human One” is not a translation issue at all; rather it’s one where these “over 100 biblical scholars from across two dozen denominations” are inserting a point of teaching, as is the CET being “gender-inclusive.” And just look who was pleased by that dubious decision:

In May, Fuller Theological Seminary voted to add the Common English Bible to the NRSV and the TNIV as translations that could be required for students doing biblical studies. “We wanted something that was an academically excellent translation from Greek and Hebrew, and one that reflected our strong position regarding women in leadership,” Dr. Joel B. Green, professor of New Testament Interpretation, told The Christian Post. (Online source)

Of course Fuller Theological Seminary would be pleased with this alteration of Holy Scripture. It’s really to be expected considering their “strong position” of rebellion against the Word of God, as well as FTS promoting and using universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt and his progressive/liberal “theologian in residence” Tony Jones, two-thirds of the unholy EC trinity of apostates with the other being Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren.

You can see for yourself in Fuller Seminary Promoting Emerging Church Heretic Doug Pagitt and Fuller Theological Seminary Professor Tony Jones And Christian Spirituality Cohort. Yes, the transition from a school once in service to the Lord into Fuller Theological Cesspool actually began many years ago as I showed you in Inerrancy Of Scripture And Fuller Theological Seminary:

Perhaps the most notable institutional example of the drift from affirming the inerrancy of Scripture to affirming the infallibility of Scripture was Fuller Theological Seminary. Its original statement of faith (written several years after its founding in 1947) contained the following article on Scripture: “The books which form the canon of the Old and New Testaments as originally given are plenarily [fully] inspired and free from all error in the whole and in the part.

These books constitute the written Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.”[1] Through the years, by hiring and attracting faculty and trustees who did not uphold the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, a revision of the original document became necessary. In 1971, the board of the school voted unanimously to adopt a new doctrinal statement in which the phrase “plenarily inspired and free from all error in the whole and in the part” had been removed: “Scripture is an essential part and trustworthy record of this divine self-disclosure.”

“All the books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, are the written Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.”[2] Clearly, Fuller Seminary moved away from the historic doctrine of the full inerrancy of Scripture and embraced a Bible that is infallible in matters of faith and practice but which can and does indeed contain errors in matters of history, science, geography, and the like. Reaction to this shift was pronounced.

Harold O. J. Brown lamented Fuller’s disconcerting drift from orthodoxy to liberalism, following similar swings at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton seminaries.[3] Harold Lindsell, in The Battle for the Bible, denounced forcibly this development at Fuller.[4]

Gregg R. Allison[5]

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Endnotes:

[1] Cited in Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), p. 107.