By using warped and toxic teachings of EC leaders like Emerging Church rock star pastor Rob Bell the mainstream of the visible church has been poisoning its own young; and since squishy evanjellyfish has now followed the mortally wounded mainline denominations out of the closet, with its man-love of heart murmur spirituality at the expense the God-centered spirituality of sola Scriptura, I’ve also been giving you peeks at its bleak future of division and compromise of God’s Word.

Let me remind you here that, not only is Tony Campolo a leading spokesman for this postmodern progressive de-formation of the Christian faith—Liberalism 2.o—he’s also still quite influential within younger sectors of evangelicalism as well. It’s important to remember, that as admirable as some of his social concerns are, Campolo is actually in bed spiritually with his fellow Red Letter Christian (RLC) friends Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren and universalist Roman Catholic mystic Richard Rohr.

Other notable RLCs would be Campolo’s disciple Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, progressive/liberal historian Diana Butler Bass, and Tony Jones, the progressive “theologian in residence” at the Emerging Church of universalist Doug Pagitt; a spiritual motley crew if there ever was one. Against this background I’ll point you to the following tweet this morning by Campolo:

(Online source)

If you didn’t know “the Wild Goose” reference has a double meaning; first, Celtic Christianity calls the Holy Spirit an Geadh-Glas, the Wild Goose, and “teaches that the Holy Spirit is the representative of God’s femininity.”[1] Secondly, it’s the name of an upcoming apostasia-palooza called the Wild Goose Festival (WGF), which has the Emerging Church buzzing with excitement. The link Campolo provides takes us to Pentecost: The Coming of the Wild Goose by Jim Wallis where he informs us:

In two weeks, my family and I will be headed down to Shakori Hills, North Carolina for the Wild Goose Festival. In the Celtic Church, the symbol for the Holy Spirit is a wild goose — wild, free, and untamed. The festival will be a weekend of justice, spirituality, music, and the arts. It is an “and” kind of space, more than an “either/or.” It will, no doubt, be a busy weekend. But I am looking forward to it, not just for the activities, but for the reminder that it is by chasing after the wild goose, the Holy Spirit’s movement, that we see ourselves, and our world, transformed. (Online source)

As you watch the promotional video for WGF below you’ll see a veritable who’s who of heretics who’ll be embarking upon some Wild Goose Chase after another spirit (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:4); this includes all the people I’ve mentioned above, as well as others quite familiar to AM such as gay-affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker, self-professed “queer inclusive” ELCA pastrix Nadia Bolz-Weber, EC interspiritual leader Samir Selmanovic, Christian universalist Chad Holtz, and the Empress of Emergence Phyllis Tickle.

It’s also interesting to note that among the speakers we find outright purveyors of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) in Living Spiritual Teacher and Jesuit priest John Dear as well as Carl McColman of the spiritually whacked website Anamchara and author of The Big Book of Christian Mysticism: The Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Dear is a disciple of Thomas Merton, the Golden Buddha of CSM and just take a look at who recommends McColman’s book:

The history section of WGF tells us:

The Wild Goose Festival began as a simple but potent idea: What if Greenbelt could happen in a unique United States context?

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Greenbelt is an arts, music, justice and spirituality festival that’s been happening in the UK for nearly 40 years. (Online source)

I talked about Greenbelt a couple of years ago in Greenbelt Festival A Peek At Future Inclusive Christianity where I explained it’s really another glimpse of the all-inclusive faith these Emergent Christ-followers find worth believing; and in fact, this perversion of the Christian faith may have already slithered into the Young Adult and Youth ministries of your own local church. Essentially, it’s really a spiritual free fall out into the delusion of creating your own Christianity with a mystic mush god made in your own image.

The wise Christian will have nothing to do with these neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience; with no gravity, they will only drift deeper into spiritual outer space. While debunking the mythology of Dallas Willard, a major perpetrator of CSM along with his twin Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, Bob DeWaay hits upon the critical issue with this pragmatic existentialism:

If pragmatic tests are the means of determining which practices are valid, and if these people feel closer to God and more like Christ through their practices, then Willard has no valid way of rejecting their practices. Having no valid argument, he resorts to an invalid ad hominem argument.

He cannot have it both ways. Either God’s Word determines both how we come to God and how we grow in grace, or humans determine these things by pragmatic means. (Online source)

As I close this out, for now, I bring your attention to a piece by Dr. Al Mohler entitled An Unmitigated Theological Disaster — Kirby Godsey Strikes Again. You may wonder what this has to do with the Wild Goose Festival; in a word, everything. Consider the opening quote Mohler uses and, if you’ve been following what I’ve been covering here lately at Apprising Ministries, see if it doesn’t sound mighty familiar:

“Most Christians assume that Christianity is the one and only  religion that is God-inspired and that carries the imprimatur of God’s  blessing,” laments R. Kirby Godsey. In his new book, Is God a Christian?,  Godsey sets out to oppose that assumption and to argue that “the  stakes for mankind have grown too high for any of us to engage our faith  as if our understanding of God represents the only way God’s presence  may be known in the world.” (Online source)

Did you recognize the theme song of the emerging Wild Goose set; in Emerging Church Leader Samir Selmanovic Worships With Witches I told you this WGF speaker sings it this way:

Can it be that the teachings of the gospel are embedded and can be found in reality itself rather than being exclusively isolated in sacred texts and our interpretations of those texts? If the answer is yes, can it be that they are embedded in other stories, other peoples’ histories, and even other religions?…

God’s table is welcoming all who seek, and if any religion is to win, may it be the one that produces people who are the most loving, the most humble, the most Christlike. Whatever the meaning of “salvation” and “judgement,” we Christians are going to be saved by grace, like everyone else, and judged by our works, like everyone else…

For most critics of such open Christianity, the problem with inclusiveness is that it allows for truth to be found in other religions. To emerging Christians, that problem is sweet… Moreover, if non-Christians can know our God, then we want to benefit from their contribution to our faith.[2]

This is what underlies the Wild Goose mythology, and it’s not Christianity; it’s at best the heresy of Christian universalism, and at worst, it is pagan universalism. So, while Al Mohler is discussing someone not necessarily aligned with Emergent Wild Goosers, what he says fits these deluded dreamers perfectly:

In When We Talk About God … Let’s Be Honest, Godsey embraced positions that the church has openly declared to be heresy. In Is God a Christian?,  Godsey just picks up where he left off in his earlier book, but this  time he is even more explicit in his embrace of radical pluralism.

“Christians need to get over it,” he admonishes. “Jesus is not God’s  only word.” As he explains, “Every person is a word from God that has  never been spoken and will never be spoken again in exactly the same  way.” He also admonishes Muslims to “get over it” when they claim  exclusive status for the Qur’an. The very idea of exclusivity is a  “peril” that “simply defies reason.”…

For the most part, Godsey studiously avoids engaging the biblical  text. That is at least consistent with his marginalization of biblical  authority. “The notions of inerrancy and infallibility are treacherous  human fallacies,” he argues. In his earlier book, he had asserted that  “the authority for our faith should not rest on the Bible alone, or even  primarily.”…

Instead, he argues that Christians should “weigh scripture against the  word that we have heard and seen from God in Jesus.” At this point,  Godsey is left in an untenable position. What does he know of Christ  apart from the Scriptures? This is a familiar predicament for liberals  who deny biblical authority but claim a knowledge of Jesus. Whatever  knowledge of Jesus we have apart from the Bible is just a figment of our  imagination. If the Bible is not the authoritative source of divine knowledge, we are left with nothing more than our own imagination and arbitrary judgment. We can make Christianity anything we might want it to be.

In the place of the Bible, Godsey claims human reason as his authority. Thus: “No rational pathway can lead us to the conclusion that Christians alone or Muslims alone have sole access to the ultimate reality that underlies the meaning of the universe.” Based on that judgment, Godsey then argues that claims of exclusivity are immoral because such claims turn Christianity “into a self-centered, narcissistic religious system that says to the rest of the world that they must become like us if they wish to be accepted by God.”…

There are different forms of universalism and inclusivism within theological circles today, but the most intellectually embarrassing form of pluralism is the very one that Godsey champions. He writes as if all the religions of the world are basically similar, when even a cursory knowledge of the belief systems of the world reveals how dissimilar they are. Godsey does not even privilege monotheism, arguing that Christians should see adherents of all other religions as “equals before God.” (Online source)

You need to know that the people I mentioned earlier are all on that same broad path; some further along than others, but they are on it nonetheless. My question is: How far down this wide road to destruction does mainstream evangelicalism itself have to get before it finally recognizes the New Downgrade? The sad fact is, these associated with this Wild Goose Chase after another spirit have absolutely no business whatsoever teaching in the heart of the Christian community:

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. (Romans 16:17-18)

Wild Goose Festival – June 23 – 26, 2011 – Shakori Hills Farm, NC from Wild Goose on Vimeo.

_________________________________________________________________________
End Notes:

[1] http://tiny.cc/y22d1, accessed 6/12/11.

[2] Samir Selmanovic, “The Sweet Problem of Inclusiveness – Finding Our God in the Other,” in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones editors [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007], 192, 195, 196, emphasis mine.

See also:

BRIAN MCLAREN SPEAKS AS A UNIVERSALIST

TOXIC THEOLOGY OF DOUG PAGITT

THE EMERGING CHURCH, DOUG PAGITT & PROCESS THEOLOGY

DOUG PAGITT AND HIS SOLOMON’S PORCH AFFIRM HOMOSEXUAL SIN

ROB BELL AND POSTMODERN NEO-LIBERALISM

BIG TENT CHRISTIANITY IS A POSTMODERN PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM

MORE ON—THE gOD OF THE EMERGING CHURCH

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First, it is necessary to understand what sola Scriptura does and does not assert. The Reformation principle of sola Scriptura has to do with the sufficiency of Scripture as our supreme authority in all spiritual matters. Sola Scriptura simply means that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture.

It is not a claim that all truth of every kind is found in Scripture. The most ardent defender of sola Scriptura will concede, for example, that Scripture has little or nothing to say about DNA structures, microbiology, the rules of Chinese grammar, or rocket science. 

This or that “scientific truth” for example, may or may not be actually true, whether or not it can be supported by Scripture—but Scripture is a “more sure Word,” standing above all other truth in its authority and certainty. It is “more sure,” according to the apostle Peter, than the data we gather firsthand through our own senses (2 Pet. 1:19). Therefore Scripture is the highest and supreme authority on any matter to which it speaks. But there are many important questions on which Scripture is silent. Sola Scriptura makes no claim to the contrary.

Nor does sola Scriptura claim that everything Jesus or the apostles ever taught is preserved in Scripture.  It only means that everything necessary, everything binding on our consciences, and everything God requires of us is given to us in Scripture.

Furthermore, we are forbidden to add to or take way from Scripture (cf. Deut. 4:2; 12:32, cf. Rev. 22:18-19). To do so is to lay on people’s shoulders a burden that God Himself does not intend for them to bear (cf. Matt. 23:4).

Scripture is therefore the perfect and only standard of spiritual truth, revealing infallibly all that we must believe in order to be saved, and all that we must do in order to glorify God. That—no more, no less—is what sola Scriptura means.

The Westminster Confession of Faith defines the sufficiency of Scripture like this:

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men (1:6).

The Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church include this statement on sola Scriptura:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation (article 6).

So sola Scriptura simply means that Scripture is sufficient. The fact that Jesus did and taught many things not recorded in Scripture (Jn. 20:30; 21:25) is wholly irrelevant to the principle of sola Scriptura. The fact that most of the apostles’ actual sermons in the early churches were not written down and preserved for us does not diminish the truth of biblical sufficiency one bit. What is certain is that all that is necessary is in Scripture—and we are forbidden “to exceed what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6).

Scripture clearly claims for itself this sufficiency—and nowhere more clearly that 2 Timothy 3:15-17. A brief summary of that passage is perhaps appropriate here as well. In short, verse 15 affirms that Scripture is sufficient for salvation: “The sacred writings . . . are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Verse 16 affirms the absolute authority of Scripture, which is “God-breathed” (Gk. theopneustos) and profitable for our instruction. And verse 17 states that Scripture is able to equip the man of God “for every good work.” 

So the assertion that the Bible itself does not teach sola Scriptura is simply wrong. (Scripture, Tradition, and Rome, Part 2)

John MacArthur

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HT: Email Brigade

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The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Preaching The Good News of Doubt?

Here at Apprising Ministries, a main focus of this particular online apologetics and discernment work has been monitoring and exposing of the now upgraded Emerging Church 2.0 with its newer, more clearly delineated, postmodern Progressive Christian theology.

This new, and not improved, liberal theology—a Liberalism 2.0—is what this sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church will often refer to as “big tent” Emergence Christianity. You’re likely aware of leaders within this EC—seeker driven for the “counter-culture”—movement like the Emerging Church trinity of apostates, Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, and his friend Tony Jones, the progressive “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch.

Having been embraced by spiritually obtuse evangelicals, vipers such as these have long been teaching counterfeit forms of Christianity to young mainstream evangelicals. I have also told you that there will be nothing gained by foolish “conversation” with these types of Apostles of Unbelief in the EC, and among their number you’ll find mystics like those pictured above; rock star Emerging Church pastor Rob Bell and his good friend Peter Rollins. 

In Peter Rollins Denigrates God’s Word In The Big Tent I showed you that Rollins made an appearance at the lastest apostasia-palooza of the Emerging Church called Big Tent Christianity: Being and Becoming the Church. There my friend John Chisham, pastor of River of Life Alliance Church in Marshall, Minnesota documented via the tweet below part of Rollins’ message and his view of God’s Word:

Not all that surprising really in Rollins’ case that he’d find the Scriptures “incoherent considering my opening text; the same with gay-affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker heads up a rather rapscallion, and largely Biblically illiterate, bunch in the Emerging Church who’ve crowned themselves Outlaw Preachers. Bakker agreed with his friend Peter Rollins so he retweeted:

In fact, back on October 10 Rollins was speaker once again at Bakker’s support group called Revolution NYC, which is trying to pass itself off as a church. Rollins’ ramble, which is one of the silliest things I’ve heard in a long, long time, was an ode to doubt he called: Why The New Atheists Don’t Go Far Enough. Frankly, I’m starting to think that Rollins is an atheist himself cloaking himself with a coat of sheep’s skin. His latest motto is:

(Online source)

Can’t you see it now, the new Emergent Doubter’s Translation with reimagined verses like Matthew 14:31 — Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why didn’t you doubt more?” How about a doubt-filled Mark 11:23 — “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and musters up enough doubt in his heart, to be not believing that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.”

Then there’s Luke 24:38 — And he said to them, “Know why are you troubled, not enough doubts arise in your hearts?” Or how about Mark 9:24 — Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “Oh no, I believe; help me have unbelief and divine doubt!” And the classic John 20:27 —  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not believe, but doubt and not believe.” But what you may not know is this kind of love of doubt isn’t new at all; it’s always a part of liberalism.

Here’s an excerpt today at Pyromaniacs from Charles Spurgeon, who was dealing with the evil forebears of the Emerging Church. This sermon entitled ”The Three Witnesses” was originally preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Sunday morning, 9 August 1874:

I feel sick to death of the common talk about the healthiness of doubting and the beauty of “modern thought.” This talk is only the self-praise of a set of concealed infidels treacherously lurking in God’s church. (Online source)

Yeah, these Emerging Church teachers like Peter Rollins and Rob Bell are really on the cutting edge alright…of the 19th century…

See also:

ROB BELL, PETER ROLLINS AND PHYLLIS TICKLE TOGETHER ADVANCING EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY

ROB BELL, PETER ROLLINS, AND QUEERMERGENT’S ADELE SAKLER 

ROB BELL IS DEFINITELY NOT LIKE JESUS

TOXIC THEOLOGY OF DOUG PAGITT

EMERGING CHURCH LEADER SAMIR SELMANOVIC WORSHIPS WITH WITCHES

BIG TENT CHRISTIANITY A GROUP HUG IN THE EMERGING CHURCH

ST. PAUL DENVER UNITED METHODIST BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN INTERSPIRITUAL COMMUNITY

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All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work

Enemy Troops Advancing Steadily In The Church

Apprising Ministries is doing what we can to cover, and document, issues within the visible church while spiritual blindness grows and a tsunami of apostasy approaches.  

I’ve told you that evangelicalism made a horrible mistake when it embraced the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emerging Church—a veritable Trojan Horse full of heresy—headed by, among others, the unholy Emergent Church trinity of apostates, Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, and his friend Tony Jones, the progressive “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch.

Part of their loathsome legacy is bringing into the mainstream a new postmodern form of “big tent” Progressive Christianity—a Liberalism 2.0—sometimes referred to by these rebels against the final authority of God’s Word as Emergence Christianity; and along with this postmodern rebellion comes demonic deconstructionists and irrational philosophers whose goal it is to even attack thought itself.

Putting this in spiritual terms it basically goes like this: Having so deeply penetrated the visible church, largely because people have become lovers of self (cf. 2 Timothy 3:2), Satan is advancing his, “Did God actually say” (cf. Genesis 3:1) at an unprecedented level. Then, at the same time, he is unleashing his deceitful spirits spewing their teachings of demons (cf. 1 Timothy 4:1), which has the effect of authoring so much confusion (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:33) that even men who should be evangelical leaders are questioning cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith.

We just might be living in the most gelatinous generation of Christians ever; I fear that if this leadership we have within the church visible today had been around in the days of, say, Sabellius and/or Arius, then the only creed we’d even have in the Christian faith would likely have come from that noted pop “theologian” Rodney King. *sniff* *sniff* The one hole-y and Roman Catholic Church now quietly confesses, “Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

One of those irrational philosophers foisted upon the mainstream evangelical community by the Emerging Church is Peter Rollins. To give you some perspective of Rollins’ influence, in Emergence Pastor Rob Bell To Have Friend Peter Rollins In Conference I showed that none other than the rock star pastor of the EC Rob Bell calls him his friend. In fact, Bell just had Rollins in to preach his message of doubt via an “interview” on the stage at the highly influential Mars Hill Bible Church.[1] 

In Peter Rollins Denigrates God’s Word In The Big Tent I showed you that Peter Rollins made an appearance at the lastest apostasia-palooza of the Emerging Church called Big Tent Christianity: Being and Becoming the Church; there John Chisham, pastor of River of Life Alliance Church in Marshall, Minnesota documented via the tweet below part of Rollins’ message.

We’ll now see Rollins’ view of God’s Word:

(Online source)

Borrowing From Tom Petty: The Church Is Free Fallin’; Yeah, It’s Free Fallin’

And as I previously pointed out, wouldn’t you know it, gay-affirming EC “pastor” Jay Bakker, who heads up a rather rapscallion—and largely Biblically illiterate—bunch crowning themselves Outlaw Preachers, wanted to make sure we knew he agreed so he retweeted:

I warned you recently in Doug Pagitt And The Emerging Church Gay Agenda that Jay Bakker is point man for the EC’s advance of their pro-gay agenda in trying to convince your young that the deviant and sinful lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex, i.e homosexuality, is a viable one for the regenerated Christian. The way they are doing this is through relentless propaganda e.g. books they write, which are actually published by evangelicalism’s own publishing houses, and then used in their Young Adult and Youth ministry as well as in ”alternative worship services.”

And men like Rollins are the EC’s Apostles of Unbelief. You think I’m kidding; think again. As you can see here Rollins’ tagline at his website is to glorify…doubt:

(Online source)

What you may not know is this kind of love for doubt isn’t new; it’s always a part of liberalism, and even Charles Spurgeon dealt with it in the Downgrade Controversy:

Find if you can, beloved, one occasion in which Jesus inculcated doubt or bade men dwell in uncertainty. The apostles of unbelief are everywhere today, and they imagine that they are doing God service by spreading what they call “honest doubt.” This is death to all joy! Poison to all peace! The Savior did not so…[2]

However, what is different today is that there doesn’t appear to be a Spurgeon anywhere on the horizon. Though it never made it to the light of day, in the combox of Rollins’ post To believe is human… to doubt is divine I shared the below…apparently Rollins wasn’t up for *ahem* the conversation:

Ah, but if the Bible’s such a “crazy incoherent mess” then we’re free to believe…oops, I mean doubt, whatever things we want to. Yeah, everybody knows; no, make that doesn’t know, that we human beings are…um, hey wait a minute; now that I think about it, we ourselves are such a crazy incoherent mess.

Hmm, I say that we  should doubt Peter Rollins. I mean he did say it was divine; so I’m suggesting you divinely doubt dreamers like Rollins and his mystic friend Rob Bell. Believe what God says in the Bible.

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Endnotes:

[1] http://marshill.org/teaching/files/2010/08/082910.mp3, accessed 9/29/10.

[2] http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/03/shall-we-fraternize-with-those-who-bury.html, accessed 9/29/10.

See also:

ROB BELL, PETER ROLLINS AND PHYLLIS TICKLE TOGETHER ADVANCING EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY

ROB BELL, PETER ROLLINS, AND QUEERMERGENT’S ADELE SAKLER 

ROB BELL IS DEFINITELY NOT LIKE JESUS

TOXIC THEOLOGY OF DOUG PAGITT

BIG TENT CHRISTIANITY A GROUP HUG IN THE EMERGING CHURCH

ST. PAUL DENVER UNITED METHODIST BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN INTERSPIRITUAL COMMUNITY

GO WRONG IN DOCTRINE, GO WRONG IN LIFE

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People say, ‘Do not be negative; let us be positive; let us just preach the simple gospel’. But the Bible is full of negatives, full of warnings, ever showing us these terrible possibilities. If you find in yourself a dislike of the warnings of the Scripture and of this negative teaching, it is obvious that you have been duped by the wiles of the devil. You have not realized the situation in which you are placed.

The movements to which I am referring can be best classified and considered along the following lines. We start with Heresies within the Church, which have been caused and produced by the devil and his powers. I am not concerned to go into the detail of heresies; I am simply concerned to emphasize the fact of heresies, the fact of movements within the life of the Church that have so often led to terrible trouble and produced a state of chaos.

A heresy is ‘a denial of or a doubt concerning any defined, established Christian doctrine’. There is a difference between heresy and apostasy. Apostasy means ‘a departure from the Christian truth’. It may be a total renunciation or denial of it, or it may be a misrepresentation of it to such an extent that it becomes a denial of the whole truth. But a heresy is more limited in its scope. To be guilty of heresy, and to be a heretic, means that in the main you hold to the doctrines of the Christian faith, but that you tend to go wrong on some particular doctrine or aspect of the faith. The New Testament itself shows us clearly that this tendency to heresy had already begun even in the days of the early Church.

One of the first things you are to learn in this Christian life and warfare is that, if you go wrong in your doctrine, you will go wrong in all aspects of your life. You will probably go wrong in your practice and behaviour; and you will certainly go wrong in your experience… We read about these things constantly in the newspapers. Some are rejoicing because Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are drawing nearer together. ‘What does the past matter?’ they say, ‘Let us have the right spirit, let us come together, all of us, and not be concerned about these particularities.’ I have but one comment to make about this matter, and I regret to have to make it. To me, all such talk is just a denial of the plain teaching of the New Testament, a denial of the Creeds and the Confessions and the Protestant Reformation! It is carnal thinking, in addition to being a denial of the truth.

According to the teaching of the Bible, one thing only matters, and that is the truth. The Holy Spirit will honor nothing but the truth, His own truth. But that, He will honor. To me the most marvelous thing of all is that, the moment you come to such a conclusion, you realize that in a sense nothing else matters. … Nothing matters in the spiritual realm except truth, the truth given by the Holy Spirit, the truth that can be honored by the Holy Spirit. Is there anything more glorious in the whole of the ld Testament than the way in which this great principle stands out? God often used individual men, or but two or three, against hordes and masses. Is there anything more exhilarating than the doctrine of the remnant? While the majority had gone wrong, the ones and the twos saw the truth.

Take a man like Jeremiah. All the false prophets were against him. There is a man who had to stand alone. Poor Jeremiah – how he hated it and disliked it! He did not like being unpopular, he did not like standing on his own, and being ridiculed and laughed at, and spat upon, as it were; but he had the truth of God, and so he endured it all. He decided at times to say nothing, but the word was like fire in his bones, and he had to go on speaking it. Obloquy and abuse were heaped upon him, but it did not matter; he was God’s spokesman and God’s representative. Similarly Moses had to stand alone when he came down from the Mount where he had met God. To stand in isolation from one’s fellows, but with God, is the great doctrine of the Old Testament in many ways. And it is emphasized in the New Testament also. (Online source)

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

See also:

THE NEW DOWNGRADE AND ITS APOSTLES OF UNBELIEF

ROB BELL IS DEFINITELY NOT LIKE JESUS

TOXIC THEOLOGY OF DOUG PAGITT

CORRECTING TONY JONES

JIM WALLIS SAYS YOUR SALVATION ISN’T YOURS

JAY BAKKER PREACHES ON TWITTER

BIG TENT CHRISTIANITY A GROUP HUG IN THE EMERGING CHURCH

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Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. 

I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:97-105)

Emerging Church 2.0 Big Tent Christianity An Attack On The Authority Of God’s Word

Apprising Ministries has been bringing to your attention the lastest apostasia-palooza of the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emerging Church called Big Tent Christianity: Being and Becoming the Church (BTC), thrown by the Transforming Theology network team of Dr. Philip Clayton, whom I’ve introduced you to e.g. in Philip Clayton With “Big Tent” Christianity In The Emerging Church. I also told you that heading up BTC’s who’s who of heresy is the unholy Emergent Church trinity of apostates, Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, and his friend Tony Jones, the progressive “theologian in residence” at Pagitt’s Emergent Solomon’s Porch.

In Big Tent Christianity Is A Postmodern Progressive Liberalism I explained in much detail the importance of the presence of uber-liberal theologian Harvey Cox among this spiritually motley crew; the fact is, he’s very instrumental in assisting progressive Christian theologian Philip Clayton while they continue cobbling together their new postmodern form of “big tent” Progressive Christianity—a Liberalism 2.0—sometimes referred to by these rebels against the final authority of God’s Word as Emergence Christianity. One suprise speaker at BTC, who hadn’t been advertised, was philosopher/theologian Peter Rollins. 

Last night a “Rev.” Laura Barclay, who “was ordained” in violation of God’s Word by “proudly progressive” Wake Forest Baptist Church “in 2008,” tweets:

(Online source)

Now you might remember from Rob Bell, Peter Rollins, And Queermergent’s Adele Sakler I told you that such lofty EC royalty as Brian McLaren and Phyllis Tickle are huge fans of Rollins themselves, as is rock star Emerging Church pastor Rob Bell who’s gushed Rollins is one of the freshest voices I’ve heard. As a matter of fact, Rollins is fresh off his Interview with Rob Bell at Mars Hill last Sunday. As he introduces his friend, Rob Bell tells us:

We have another , ah, distinguished guest with us, um, with us. I’ve been looking forward to this morning, for so long. Several years ago, one of our elders gave me a book by an Irish writer, named Peter Rollins—it was his first book—it was called how not to speak ofgod. (Rollins interrupts) Um, one of our elders said, she had read this over and over again, and it was one of the most significant theological works, um, that had spoken to her in all sorts of ways. So I read the book and I said, “I must meet this mysterious, illusive, Peter Rollins”…

And so, the summer of 2008 , I went to Northern Ireland, um, and Peter picked me up at the train station—and I think we talked for two days straight. Um, and since then, um, I’ve come to value his frendship and perspectives. (1:57-2:33; 2:51-3:03)

So, exactly what does “this mysterious, illusive” Rollins tell us is part of that “fully embodied faith”; well, it sure doesn’t seem to include respect for Holy Scripture as he postulates progressive drivel like: “The Bible is a crazy mess.” And wouldn’t you know it, gay-affirming EC “pastor” Jay Bakker, who heads up a rather rapscallion, and largely Biblically illiterate, bunch crowning themselves Outlaw Preachers, wanted to make sure we knew he agreed so he retweeted:

It turns out Rollins said a bit more as evidenced by the following tweeted last night from BTC by John Chisham, pastor of River of Life Alliance Church in Marshall, Minnesota:

(Online source)

Hmm, God’s Word “kind of doesn’t make sense” to Peter Rollins and his friend Jay Bakker; you know, it seems to me that I remember reading somewhere that:

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
(1 Corinthians 2:14)

See also:

PRETENDING THAT BIG TENT CHRISTIANITY IS THE CHURCH

PETER ROLLINS DARLING OF EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY

PETER ROLLINS NEXT TO JOIN ROB BELL?

ROB BELL IS DEFINITELY NOT LIKE JESUS

*UPDATE* DID JAY BAKKER SAY JESUS SINNED?

JAY BAKKER REFLECTS THE SAD CONDITION OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH

THE NEW DOWNGRADE AND ITS APOSTLES OF UNBELIEF

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You need to understand that this spurious CSM—the refried Roman Catholic mysticism “discovered” by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, and now perpetrated within the mainstream of evangelicalism as supposed Spiritual Formation with an able assist from his spiritual twin SBC minister Dallas Willard, was a core doctrine in the EC right from its hatching in Hell. In Good Shepherd Church Going Ape…Almost I gave you another pathetic exhibit of how just how squishy—man-pleasing—evanjellyfish is becoming as a result of practicing this mysticism.

In The Gloves Must Come Off yesterday I told you that there will be nothing gained by foolish “conversation” with unregenerate Apostles of Unbelief in the EC; and among their number you’ll find mystics like rock star Emerging Church pastor Rob Bell and his good friend, heretical quasi-universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt who heads the Emergent Solomon’s Porch where the equally heretical Tony Jones happens to be his “theologian in residence,” who’ve long been teaching counterfeit forms of Christianity to young mainstream evangelicals.

The quicker you come to understand that such as these long ago jettisoned the proper Christian spirituality of Sola Scriptura—of course we can experience God in His Word—for myth-based mysticism the better for you; for you see, their mentors like Living Spiritual Teacher and Roman Catholic mystic Richard Rohr along with his fellow Red Letter Christian pal Living Spiritual Teacher and leading Emergent Church guru Brian McLaren, are just as off spiritually as the original Gnostics, which were being roundly rebuked by the authors of the New Testament.

A couple of years ago in Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) Of Spiritual Formation Is Reckless Faith I pointed you to Reckless Faith: When The Church Loses Its Will To Discern , oft-overlooked 1994 book by Dr. John MacArthur. In this book, one of our Lord’s most trusted generals told you—three years before their even was any Emerging Church—why in this postmodern time these neo-Gnostics, who’re neo-orthodox in their theology (at best), would run to embrace mysticism:

Neo-orthodoxy is the term used to identify an existentialist variety of Christianity. Because it denies the essential objective basis of truth—the absolute truth and authority of Scripture—neo-orthodoxy must be understood as pseudo-Christianity… Neo-orthodoxy’s attitude toward Scripture is a microcosm of the entire existentialist philosophy: the Bible itself is not objectively the Word of God, but it becomes the Word of God when it speaks to me individually.

In neo-orthodoxy, that same subjectivism is imposed on all the doctrines of historic Christianity. Familiar terms are used, but are redefined or employed in such a way that is purposely vague—not to convey objective meaning, but to communicate a subjective symbolism… Thus while neo-orthodox theologians often sound as if they affirming traditional beliefs, their actual system differs radically from the historic understanding of the Christian faith. By denying the objectivity of truth, they relegate all theology to the realm of subjective relativism.

It is a theology perfectly suited for the age in which we live. And that is precisely why it is so deadly… [Contemplative Spirituality aka] Mysticism is perfectly suited for religious existentialism; indeed, it is the inevitable consequence. The mystic disdains rational understanding and seeks truth instead through the feelings, the imagination, personal visions, inner voices, private illumination, of other purely subjective means. Objective truth becomes practically superfluous.

Mysticial experiences are therefore self-authenticating; that is, they are not subject to any form of objective verification. They are unique to the person who experiences them. Since they do not arise from or depend upon any rational process, they are invulnerable to any refutation by rational means… Mysticism is therefore antithetical to discernment. It is an extreme form of reckless faith.[1]

Now I’ll be blunt; if you can’t see what MacArthur has just told you fits these Emerging Church mystics perfectly, then in my view it’s because you just don’t want to. Charles Spurgeon dealt with their fetid forebears in the original Cult of Liberalism; do you remember what it would cost him in the Downgrade Controversy? Too bad in this New Downgrade, while so many praise him, there doesn’t appear to be any Spurgeon on the immediate horizon. If there were, here’s what he’d be saying:

Beloved, your risen Lord wants you to be happy. When He was here on earth, He said, “Let not your heart be troubled”; He says just the same to you today. He takes no delight in the distresses of His people. He loves you to believe in Him and be at rest.

Find if you can, beloved, one occasion in which Jesus inculcated doubt or bade men dwell in uncertainty. The apostles of unbelief are everywhere today, and they imagine that they are doing God service by spreading what they call “honest doubt.” This is death to all joy! Poison to all peace! The Savior did not so…

I have not much patience with a certain class of Christians nowadays who will hear anybody preach so long as they can say, “He is very clever, a fine preacher, a man of genius, a born orator.” Is cleverness to make false doctrine palatable? Why, sirs, to me the ability of a man who preaches error is my sorrow rather than my admiration.

I cannot endure false doctrine, however neatly it may be put before me. Would you have me eat poisoned meat because the dish is of the choicest ware? It makes me indignant when I hear another gospel put before the people with enticing words, by men who would fain make merchandise of souls; and I marvel at those who have soft words for such deceivers.

“That is your bigotry,” says one. Call it so if you like, but it is the bigotry of the loving John who wrote—”If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”

I would to God we had all more of such decision, for the lack of it is depriving our religious life of its backbone and substituting for honest manliness a mass of the tremulous jelly of mutual flattery.

He who does not hate the false does not love the true; and he to whom it is all the same whether it be God’s word or man’s, is himself unrenewed at heart. Oh, if some of you were like fathers you would not have tolerated in this age the wagon loads of trash under which the gospel has been of late buried by ministers of your own choosing. You would have hurled out of your pulpits the men who are enemies to the fundamental doctrines of your churches, and yet are crafty enough to become your pastors and undermine the faith of a fickle and superficial generation.

These men steal the pulpits of once orthodox churches, because otherwise they would have none at all. Their powerless theology cannot of itself arouse sufficient enthusiasm to enable them to build a mousetrap at the expense of their admirers, and therefore they profane the houses which your sires have built for the preaching of the gospel, and turn aside the organisations of once orthodox communities to help their infidelity: I call it by that name in plain English, for “modern thought” is not one whit better, and of the two evils I give infidelity the palm, for it is less deceptive.

I beg the Lord to give back to the churches such a love to his truth that they may discern the spirits, and cast out those which are not of God… (Online source)

________________________________________________________________________________
Endnotes:

[1] John MacArthur, Reckless Faith: When The Church Loses Its Will To Discern [Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994], 27, 28.

See also:

DID JESUS ARGUE DOCTRINE?

THE EMERGING CHURCH SOWING ITS NEO-ORTHODOX CONFUSION ON SCRIPTURE

IS ROB BELL EVANGELICAL?

PD/SD PASTOR SCOTT HODGE AND THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MYSTICISM

SADDLEBACK CHURCH, RICK WARREN, AND SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES

MARK DRISCOLL AND NEO-REFORMED NEW CALVINIST CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY

THE PERILS OF ‘WANNABE MYSTIC’ CHRISTIANITY BRETT MCCRACKEN

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The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from “Under Constraint,” a sermon preached Sunday morning 28 April 1878 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London:

I have not much patience with a certain class of Christians nowadays who will hear anybody preach so long as they can say, “He is very clever, a fine preacher, a man of genius, a born orator.” Is cleverness to make false doctrine palatable? Why, sirs, to me the ability of a man who preaches error is my sorrow rather than my admiration.

I cannot endure false doctrine, however neatly it may be put before me. Would you have me eat poisoned meat because the dish is of the choicest ware? It makes me indignant when I hear another gospel put before the people with enticing words, by men who would fain make merchandise of souls; and I marvel at those who have soft words for such deceivers.

“That is your bigotry,” says one. Call it so if you like, but it is the bigotry of the loving John who wrote—”If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”

I would to God we had all more of such decision, for the lack of it is depriving our religious life of its backbone and substituting for honest manliness a mass of the tremulous jelly of mutual flattery.

He who does not hate the false does not love the true; and he to whom it is all the same whether it be God’s word or man’s, is himself unrenewed at heart. Oh, if some of you were like fathers you would not have tolerated in this age the wagon loads of trash under which the gospel has been of late buried by ministers of your own choosing. You would have hurled out of your pulpits the men who are enemies to the fundamental doctrines of your churches, and yet are crafty enough to become your pastors and undermine the faith of a fickle and superficial generation.

These men steal the pulpits of once orthodox churches, because otherwise they would have none at all. Their powerless theology cannot of itself arouse sufficient enthusiasm to enable them to build a mousetrap at the expense of their admirers, and therefore they profane the houses which your sires have built for the preaching of the gospel, and turn aside the organisations of once orthodox communities to help their infidelity: I call it by that name in plain English, for “modern thought” is not one whit better, and of the two evils I give infidelity the palm, for it is less deceptive.

I beg the Lord to give back to the churches such a love to his truth that they may discern the spirits, and cast out those which are not of God… (Online source)

Charles Spurgeon

You can read the rest of this sermon excerpt and join in the discussion right here.

See also:

DOUG PAGITT, JOHN PIPER, AND KARMA KICK-BACK

N.T. WRIGHT SPEAKING AT REDEEMER NYC OF TIM KELLER

JIM WALLIS AND SOJOURNERS WHINE ABOUT CIVILITY FOR THOSE HIJACKING CHRISTIANITY

JESUS, RECONSIDERED: BRIAN MCLAREN AND AL MOHLER ON NPR

BRIAN MCLAREN AND HIS NEW EMERGING PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

“CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE” BY RICHARD FOSTER AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THEOLOGICAL ERROR 

9 MARKS: INTERVARSITY PRESS SEEMS ADRIFT

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Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

Apostles Of Unbelief As Peas In A Corrupt Pod

Well, maybe not, but with Shane Hipps Accepting A Teaching Pastor Job With Rob Bell two thirds of Bell’s Poets Prophets Preachers are now on staff at Mars Hill Bible Church. If popular emerging church philosopher Peter Rollins were to also join the fold then we’d have heretical trifecta.

For those who don’t know, like Shane Hipps, Rollins is a friend of Rob Bell and in the piece referenced below my friend Cecil Andrews of Take Heed Ministries in Northern Ireland tells us that Rollins himself is relocating to the United States from Ireland:

Back in June 2007 I posted an article to our web site that highlighted a local Northern Ireland expression of ‘The Emerging Church’ – this group is known as IKON and was led by Peter Rollins… Since then Peter Rollins has developed strong connections with ‘emergent church’ figures in America such as Rob Bell, who ‘pastors’ a ‘church’ in Michigan and Brian McLaren, who would fall into the ‘itinerant evangelist’ category.

On Sunday morning, 11^th October 2009 Peter Rollins was interviewed on the local BBC Radio Ulster programme, Sunday Sequence, about his upcoming [Friday 16^th October] move to live in America [close to New York]. In this article I want to firstly let you hear that interview and would ask you to note in particular how Peter Rollins emphasises the supposed ‘complexity’ and ‘ambiguity’ that should be ‘celebrated’ in his subverted form of emerging Christianity… (Online source, bold his)

Andrews is dead-on-target concerning the heavy connections Rollins has with EC luminaries ala guru Brian McLaren. As I pointed out previously in Peter Rollins Darling Of Emergence Christianity McLaren quite literally gushes concerning this EC apostle of unbelief. From the Foreword of How (Not) To Speak Of God, a very aptly titled book by Rollins:

I am a raving fan of the book you are holding. I loved reading it. I have already begun widely recommending it. In the last two days I have recommended it to three rabbis, and in recent weeks, to many Christian leaders… It helped me understand my own spiritual journey more clearly, and it gave me a sense of context for the work I’m involved in…

Even Empress of Emergence Phyllis Tickle says of How (Not) To Speak of God: 

Here in pregnant bud is the rose, the emerging new configuration, of a Christianity that is neither Roman nor Protestant, neither Eastern nor monastic; but rather is the re-formation of all of them. Here, in pregnant bud, is third-millennium Christendom.

Make no mistake; Peter Rollins is fast becoming a major player within the cancerous cult of Emergence Christianity; a postliberalism that’s now metastasizing throughout mainstream evangelicalism itself. It’s actually a Liberalism 2.0 that comes complete with the virus of corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism which then goes to work shorting out one’s critical reasoning skills.

You can read Andrews article in its entirety right here.

See also:

THE EMERGENCE OF POSTMODERN APOSTLES OF UNBELIEF

SHANE HIPPS AND ROB BELL TEACHING HERESY

IS ROB BELL EVANGELICAL?

NOT THE GOSPEL OF JESUS ROB BELL; IT’S NOT ANYWHERE NEAR IT

ROB BELL, PETER ROLLINS, AND QUEERMERGENT’S ADELE SAKLER

ROB BELL, PETER ROLLINS AND PHYLLIS TICKLE TOGETHER ADVANCING EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY

TONY JONES, PETER ROLLINS AND ROB BELL

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