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 Rev. Robert H. Schuller, founder of Southern California’s Crystal Cathedral megachurch and host of the “Hour of Power” televangelism broadcast, announced Sunday he will retire after 55 years in the pulpit and his daughter will take over.

The 83-year-old Schuller told his congregation that Sheila Schuller Coleman will become sole lead pastor, after sharing that role with her father for the past year… (Online source)

As you can see, Robert Schuller: Father Of The New Reformation, would be leaving us with yet another violation of God’s Word with his daughter pastrix Coleman. 

However, there now seems to be more to the story because Apprising Ministries has an email sent out last night from Crystal Cathedral Ministries where pastrix Coleman, “Director of Ministry & Mission,” informs us that her father Robert Schuller is not retiring:

Pastrix Coleman then goes on to tell us:

In my comments following the commissioning ceremony this morning, I made it very clear that nothing was changing as a result of the commissioning service today. It was merely an affirmation of the denomination. Further, I made it clear that it was my call to stand beside my father, to pray for him so he can continue to preach his unique and positive message from this pulpit for the rest of his life.

So is he, or isn’t he retiring; only his daughter seems to know. But unfortunately, it would now appear we can expect more man-centered myth coming from Robert Schuller and his corrupt Chrystal Cathedral.

See also:

ROBERT SCHULLER MENTOR TO RICK WARREN ON THE LOVE OF MAN: CHRIST DIED FOR NEGATIVE SELF-IMAGE

JOHN MACARTHUR: SEEKER-FRIENDLY MOVEMENT IS THE NEW LIBERALISM

ROBERT SCHULLER—THE HUMPTY DUMPTY OF EVANGELICALISM

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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 the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.

There’s Nothing New Here Under The Sun

This Apprising Ministries piece comes about because of a post today from Cambourne Christian Fellowship called (One of) The Poisonous Roots of Post-Modern Theology. I now tap my keyboard for the insight Jesus has given Pete to recognize the awful impact that Robert Schuller has had upon the visible church. [1] Pete works an interesting, and accurate, angle concerning the murky mystic roots of what Christian apologist Chris Rosebrough is calling Liberalism 2.0:

Psychologist, Dr Helen Schucman published the 3 volume book, “A course in miracles”(ACIM) in 1975. It was the result of 7 years of channelled messages by a spirit guide who called himself Jesus. Although Christian terminology is used throughout, the principals taught are overtly “New Age.” (Online source)

From 21+ years in the ministry fields of apologetics, Comparative Religion, and evangelizing non-Christian cults, I recognized immediately that Pete’s brought out a key element here with ACIM. Not only is its doctrines of demons channeled from seducing spirits but ACIM is also steeped in the type of philosophical psycho-babble so common with those who practice Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), with its meditation in an altered state of consciousness called Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP).

Both Robert Schuller and his mentor in liberal Christianity Norman Vincent Peale have been involved in the practice of this kind of transcendental meditation-lite. Now consider the following from Bob DeWaay from his Critical Issues Commentary article Faulty Premises of the Church Growth Movement:

Since the advent of the modern church growth movement which dates from the 1950’s, pastors and local churches have been under massive pressure to do something to facilitate church growth. The movement was founded primarily by two people, independently. Those people are Donald McGavran and Robert Schuller. Donald McGavran wrote The Bridges of God in 1955. C. Peter Wagner claims that this book, “launched the Church Growth Movement.”

Rick Warren cites McGavran’s book as being influential early in his ministry. About that same time Robert Schuller started his ministry in California which became the Crystal Cathedral. Later, in 1970, Schuller founded the Robert Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership, where he has trained many key leaders in the Church Growth Movement including Bill Hybels and Rick Warren. It is accurate to say the McGavran is the intellectual founder of the movement and Schuller the most visible popularizer of the movement. (Online source)

So imagine the impact when Schuller, “the most visible popularizer” of the semi-pelagian (at best) Church Growth Movement, blesses ACIM. As Pete correctly explains:

ACIM was mainly read in New Age circles until it was championed on Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power” by Dr Gerald Jampolsky… The promotion of ACIM by Robert Schuller was not a mistake. Schuller has always sought to shift the boundaries of Christian Orthodoxy. His writings show an attempt to turn the truth of the Gospel on its head. “A person is in hell when he has lost his self-esteem.” (Self-Esteem, The New Reformation, pp.14-15).

Turning the Gospel on it’s head is precisely what Schuller’s wide-reaching influence has done. In that very book cited above you may recall that Schuller wrote that ”classic theology has erred in its insistence that theology be ‘God- centered,’ not  ‘man-centered.’” [2] Schuller was a fore-runner of postmodern Humpty Dumpty language ala Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren where words mean whatever the speaker wants them to mean, which makes actual dialogue virtually pointless because one never truly knows what exactly they mean when speaking. 

You are probably aware that Schuller’s Self-Esteem: The New Reformation was used in most mainline seminaries beginning in the late 1980′s. However, you may not know, as I do from personally investigating this issue, that is was also used in many mainstream evangelical seminaries as well. So with this in mind, now as you survey the teachings in that latter community, factoring in its now open embrace of the EC with its core doctrine of CSM, you just might be able to see a little bit more clearly through the postmodern fog in the church visible today.

As I close this out for now, let me point out that we’re seeing the idea of personal salvation under increasing attack. You may recall my piece from earlier this year Katharine Jefferts Schori Calls Individual Salvation Heresy/Idolatry where I told you that Schori actually sounds a lot like more and more leaders in the sinfully ecumenical Emergent Church e.g. like EC icon Rob Bell, who’s a protégé of McLaren’s. Now look at the following from Christian apologist Mike Oppenheimer in his post Another Possible Gospel of Robert Schuller’s:

The book, A Course in Miracles has been taught at Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral and is right in line with Schuller’s philosophy… His new reformation is not repentance or a renewed sense of dependence on God and his word… In fact he states: “I don’t think anything has been done in the name of Christ that and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality and, hence, counterproductive to the evangelism enterprise than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition.“ (Online source)

More and more people are wondering today how it is that we’re suddenly in this tsunami of apostasy; but the truth is, it’s really been right there all along…we just weren’t paying attention.

________________________________________________________________________________
Endnotes: 

1. For more the interested reader is referred to Robert Schuller: Father Of The New Reformation, accessed 3/6/10.
2. Robert Schuller, Self Esteem: The New Reformation, (Waco: Word, 1982), 64.
3. Timothy Wallace gives us a good look at the difference here in God-Centered vs. Man-Centered Theology, accessed 3/6/10, and my Man-Centered Gospel Vs. God-Centered Gospel will prove helpful as well.

See also:

JOHN MACARTHUR: SEEKER-FRIENDLY MOVEMENT IS THE NEW LIBERALISM

THE NEW CHRISTIANITY OF BRIAN MCLAREN AND THE EMERGING CHURCH

BRIAN MCLAREN INVITES YOU ON HIS QUEST TO DESTROY CHRISTIANITY

IF YOU TRULY LOVE “JESUS” THERE ARE NO BOUNDARIES FOR THE “CHRIST-FOLLOWERS”

YOU LOVE JESUS; GOOD FOR YOU, BUT WHICH ONE?

JAY BAKKER AND WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH SUFFER SAME SPIRITUAL DISEASE

SHANE HIPPS CO-TEACHING PASTOR WITH ROB BELL

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After parting ways with his father’s Crystal Cathedral, Robert A. Schuller left preaching to start a television career. The son of The Hour of Power founder Robert H. Schuller Sr. recently acquired AmericanLife TV with GodTube founder Chris Wyatt… (Online source)

Most people were curious about what differences theologically may have contributed to the younger Schuller’s departure. Apprising Ministries finds the following most interesting; CT’s Sarah Pulliam asks:

What theological differences do you have with your father?

My father has a different method. He likes to go more into the psychology, and I like to go more into biblical teaching. But the goals are the same, the visions are the same. I don’t think that was a problem. (Online source, emphasis added)

And, based upon what Robert A. Schuller is about to tell us, it would appear the methods really aren’t that far apart either: Use human ingenuity to give the people what they want:

Why are you leaving preaching?

I’ll probably have 5- to 10-minute messages throughout the program, but it won’t be sitting down with three points and a poem. Chris Wyatt resigned a month before I left the Cathedral because his investors told him they wanted to take God out of GodTube. Chris discovered through GodTube that nobody listened to preaching. People are interested in other ways to communicate the message, such as interviews as opposed to a talking head. (Online source, emphasis added)

Well in Show Your Faith By What You Do Charles Spurgeon, who was a genuine preacher of God’s Word, tells us what people are really interested in; keeping Christ from reigning over them:

The resolve of human nature until it is renewed is always this: “We will not have this Man to reign over us.” Men might be willing for Christ to save them, but not for Him to reign over them.

See also:

ROBERT SCHULLER: FATHER OF THE NEW REFORMATION

ROBERT SCHULLER TAPS DAUGHTER TO CO-LEAD CRYSTAL CATHEDRAL

THE NEW CHRISTIANS WITH CHRISTIANITY WORTH BELIEVING—NO SOLA SCRIPTURA: YES, WOMEN PASTORS AND QUEER CHRISTIANS

JOHN MACARTHUR: SEEKER-FRIENDLY MOVEMENT IS THE NEW LIBERALISM

ARE YOU MINDING THE THINGS OF GOD OR THE THINGS OF MEN?

YOU LOVE JESUS; GOOD FOR YOU, BUT WHICH ONE?

IF YOU TRULY LOVE “JESUS” THERE ARE NO BOUNDARIES FOR THE “CHRIST-FOLLOWERS”

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Christian Post is reporting:

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller hasn’t quite passed the baton of leadership yet following the resignation of his son, Robert A. Schuller, as senior pastor of his famed Crystal Cathedral church.

But the 82-year-old televangelist isn’t holding it alone anymore, according to an announcement first made Sunday to his 10,000-large megachurch and then to the public Wednesday.

“As announced in church this past Sunday, I believe God has called me back to give leadership once again to this ministry,” Schuller wrote in Wednesday’s announcement regarding the elevation of his eldest daughter, 58-year-old Sheila Schuller Coleman, to the rank of “Directing Leader”…

In his announcement Wednesday, Schuller thanked [interim senior pastor Juan Carlos] Ortiz for his positive impact on the ministry and said he would be carrying on as a teaching pastor at the church, suggesting that Coleman’s elevation satisfies the need for a senior pastor… (Online source, emphasis mine)

Right in line with what I’m talking about in You Love Jesus; Good For You, But Which One?, this isn’t the God of the Bible (see-1 Timothy 2:12); but it is likely yet another emergence of the mystic mush god with the man-shaped hole in his heart.

You know, the one who’s singing Feelings as he stands pathetically begging people to love him.

See also:

ROBERT SCHULLER: FATHER OF THE NEW REFORMATION

JOHN MACARTHUR: SEEKER-FRIENDLY MOVEMENT IS THE NEW LIBERALISM

EVANGELICALISM REJECTING SOLA SCRIPUTRA IN LUST FOR NEO-GNOSTIC EXPERIENCE

MOVE OVER PASTORS FOR SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS/GURUS

IF YOU TRULY LOVE “JESUS” THERE ARE NO BOUNDARIES FOR THE “CHRIST-FOLLOWERS”

IS ROB BELL EVANGELICAL?

NADIA BOLZ-WEBER: SERMON ON JUDAS AND GRACE GONE WILD

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I’ve said this many times: I can listen to a guy preach—put anybody in front of me—and I’ll tell you what his view of Scripture is by what he says.  If he doesn’t preach out of the Bible, I know what his view of Scripture is, I don’t care what he says.  I don’t care if he wants to die telling me he’s a believer in inerrancy, if he gets up and does not preach the Word of God, that’s his view of Scripture leaking all over the place.  Look, every preacher preaches for impact, for effect, for result.  You’re up there saying what you think is going to get you the best result. 

If you think it’s foolishness and fun n’ games and song n’ dance and sermonettes for Christianettes—if you think it’s that kind of stuff—that’s what you’re going to do; but if you know, as Al [Mohler] was saying, that the power is the truth, that God has, as we’ve heard all week, has invested his power, as R.C. [Sproul] said, in his Word, then that’s what you preach.  I mean, it’s that simple!  It comes down to this loss of preaching.  And I’ll tell you, how do you know it’s the new liberalism?  Because you can’t stop a seeker-friendly movement, because it’s going to be redefined, it’s going to be redefined, it’s going to be redefined…  It’s relentlessly being redefined because the culture changes so fast in a media-driven society.  It changes so fast! 

You know, Schuller is the architect of this.  Robert Schuller is the absolute father.  The grandfather of the movement, who was a little bit below the radar, was Norman Vincent Peale.  Norman Vincent Peale is a classic liberal.  The primary impact that Norman Vincent Peale has had on the world is through his leading disciple, Robert Schuller, who said to me, “I can sign the confession of my denomination and makes the words mean anything I want them to mean.”  Well, that’s classic neo-orthodoxy—or liberalism (whichever).

So, you’ve got Norman Vincent Peale, who creates this kind of liberal, social gospel; his number one disciple, positive-thinker Robert Schuller; Robert Schuller develops this concept of the church many years ago, where he goes into Orange County and he goes door-to-door, passes out cards, and tells people to write down what they want a church to be, and then he gives them what they ask for.  He said in a speech at N.R.B. many years ago, “If you want to know how to build a church, ask the community, and give them what they want.”  His most famous disciple trained into that model is Bill Hybels, and the second is Rick Warren.  Rick Warren says, himself, that when he left seminary, he drove right to the Crystal Cathedral and was mentored there. 

So, there’s a flow going on here.  And where is it going?  It’s going toward the Emerging Church.  That’s why you can have all those people—Rick Warren and Brian McLaren—way out on the edge of the Emergent Church, you can have all those people at the same conference in San Diego all speaking, and, in between, sessions on Yoga.  If you just look at the roots of something—and look where it’s going: if you let the culture define the church, there’s no way to catch up. 

So, now you go to Schuller’s church, you wouldn’t find anybody whose hair wasn’t gray, because they had their little niche for that little cultural group, and they go to the grave with them.  And the same is going to happen with the others and the others and the others…  It’s not transcendent.  It’s not trans-cultural.  It’s not even beyond their tiny little chronological zone.  And that’s the problem with it, because if it’s culturally defined, it is its own worst enemy; it’s planned obsolescence.  (Online source)

John MacArthur

See also:

NO-CONTROVERSY FOR THE NEW DOWNGRADE

GOOD REASON WHY ROB BELL CRIES LOUDLY FOR UNITY

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

READ THE SIGNS OF THE TIME

DON’T ASK HOW PEOPLE FEEL ABOUT IT—PROCLAIM THE WORD OF GOD

ARE YOU WILLING TO TELL THE TRUTH?

PHIL JOHNSON: JOYRIDING ON THE DOWNGRADE AT BREAKNECK SPEED

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Sola fide and sola gratia as used in the Protestant Reformation mean that while the sinner is dead in his trespasses and sins God Himself sovereignly regenerates those whom He will. As His gift God gives them the faith to believe in Christ, and they repent of their sins. This is actually diametrically opposed to any of the seeker-friendly postevangelical movements e.g. the Purpose Driven Life as taught by Rick Warren.

The sad fact is that the contemporary American Christian Church largely believes in synergism (man cooperates with God), while in stark opposition to the synergism of apostate Roman Catholicism, the Reformers (even before John Calvin) taught monergism (soli Deo gloria). Yet to a great extent today the Emerging Church movement overall, and voices in this Emergent rebellion against Sola Scriptura like Rob Bell in particular, also strongly believe in synergism (at best).

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The Bible Of The Apostasy

The Christian faith as presented today to allegedly postmodern America by postvangelicalism and Emerging Church leaders like  simply does not square with the what the texts of the Bible say when taken at face value. This shouldn’t surprise us when we see Rick Warren using The Message translation and with the neo-orthodox view (at best) view of Scripture of Emerging Church leaders like Rob Bell. But this new reformation of Christianity Lite fathered by Robert Schuller would never have cost any of the Apostles their lives.

Rather, the first century Greeks and Romans would have flocked to a faith where you can do whatever your own religious system called for and then at the same time just incorporate whatever parts of the things Jesus of Nazareth taught that you happened to like. Can you now begin to see the Emergent Church for what it really is? Can you see the Word Faith Church for what it really is? And now can you see current evangelicalism for what it has become?

You see once it was only liberal theologians who would attempt to pit “Paul’s” theology against that of Christ Jesus of Nazareth as if what they taught under the direct inspiration of God the Holy Spirit was in opposition. But by the late 1960’s evangelical leaders like Billy Graham actually held the door to our Lord’s Church open for heretics like his good friend Robert Schuller and in reality helped usher him in to teach this rubbish to the evangelical community at large.

The fact is that Robert Schuller’s book Self-Esteem: The New Reformation (SE) might as well be the “bible” of this current apostasy because firmly rooted in its Gnostic philosophies of the metaphysical Mind Science cults are the self-promoting blasphemies of the vile Word Faith Movement (WF) as spewed forth by brazen heretics and false prophets like Benny Hinn and Rod Parsley.

This poisoned spiritual water of WF is also the very same polluted well that the “kindle, gentler” self-centered musings of Joel Osteen spring forth. One of the most popular of the plethora of man-pleasers in the cult of WF the smiling Osteen quietly teaches the exact same aberrations and outright heresy once put forth by the late Kenneth Hagin, which comprise the very same spiritual cyanide that is currently espoused by WF cult leader Kenneth Copeland.

Schuller’s influence can also be seen in how through such broad acceptance by evangelicals it has even laid seeds of corruption in the more orthodox teachings of men like Charles Stanley as well. And it is this same apparent desire to please men that has twisted people like Rick Warren into religious associations like the one he had with the “Father of Modern Management,” the late Peter Drucker.

Bill Bright: The Prophet Of The Wonderful Plan

Now listen to Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who tells Christianity Today that when his fellow charismatic and Pentecostals lament a supposed lack of prophets in the modern world he then refers them to Bill Bright – “ ‘God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.’ Think about that. That was a major prophetic statement into his generation (November 2005, 44).”

Oh Brother Haggard, was it ever. In fact Schuller opens his broadcasts with the nauseatingly saccharine, “God loves you, and I do too.” And it was this very same umbilical cord that would later carry Satan’s spiritual venom from Schuller into Rick Warren to mainstream American Christianity when Warren found his plan of purpose driving him to became the most prominent leader within the Ecumenical Church of Deceit (ECoD) of postevangelicalism.

We will also note that Bill Bright’s own wonderful plan would be to become one of the driving forces behind the apostate document Evangelicals And Catholics Together, a fiasco from which the evangelical camp will never recover. So yes indeed, one could say that Bill Bright did happen to be a prophet alright because without question he would end up forecasting the Purpose Driven pillar of the ECoD.

I Will Make Myself

Men and women please wake up, the very title of Schuller’s book Self-Esteem really does give its serpentine source away: “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14)…”ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5, KJV). Can you see it? Have you ever heard the American motto: The Self-made Man? Or how about the old satanic classic: “God helps those who help themselves.”

This kind of thing plays very well to our independent American culture doesn’t it? So open your eyes, what does this then tell you about who is really driving this pagan postmodern nation? And even now the Devil has gotten the evangelical camp to buy his oldest lie; the very lie that he fell for in his own delusion: “I will be the master of my own fate, I am the captain of my own soul; I will make myself; I am…my own…god.”

Among the doctrines of demons that Schuller would teach in SE, which would tragically go on to poison, paralyze and finally mortally wound what has now become evangelicalism, we find the source of the current infatuation with secular psychology – “Are we aware that theology has failed to accommodate and apply proven insights in human behavior as revealed by twentieth-century psychologists?” ( 27)

But you see here’s where the evangelical “love train” originally jumped track because we were already warned:

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Colossians 2:8).

And just as in the history recorded within the texts of the Bible God called for people to make choices to either follow what He says or what the world says, so the Lord called His Church in America to do the same. Our history will show that evangelicalism would instead choose to follow people like Robert Schuller and those twentieth century psychologists down a pragmatic sinner sensitive road into the ECoD of “one size fits all” Christianity Lite.

However, as usual the Master cuts straight across this man-pleasing teaching when He says – “Enter through the narrow gate.” Then Jesus refers to the broad way, which also happens to pass right back through the Church of Rome with her apostate Roman Catholicism on its way into Hell, as the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it (see–Matthew 7:13-14).

The Return Of Liberalism And Pitting Christ Against Paul

In his book SE Robert Schuller makes the ludicrous comment: “Classical theology has erred in its insistence that theology be ‘God-centered,’ not man-centered.’ ” In his excellent piece A New Reformation? The Faulty Gospel of Robert Schuller Joseph P. Gudel comments on the following foolish statement from Schuller:

One might legitimately ask why Dr. Schuller believes classical theology errs so gravely. His answer: Luther and Calvin were listening to the wrong person! He asks the following rhetorical question: “Luther and Calvin, we know, looked to the Book of Romans in the Bible for their primary inspiration. Were they, unknowingly, possessed more by the spirit of St. Paul than by the Spirit of Jesus Christ? Are we not on safer grounds if we look to our Lord’s words to launch our reformation?” [18] The implication is that what Jesus said in the gospels overrides everything else in the Bible.

For Schuller then, some parts of the Bible (i.e., what Jesus said as recorded in the gospels) have more authority than other areas of the Bible. In other parts of SELF- ESTEEM: THE NEW REFORMATION, Dr. Schuller is more explicit. “But can anything be above the Scriptures? Yes, the Eternal Word transcends the written Word. Christ is the Word made flesh. Christ is the Lord over the Scriptures; the Scriptures are not Lord over Christ… The Bible must not compete with the Lord for the seat of glory. We are ‘saved by the blood,’ not ‘by the Book.’ We believe in the holy Trinity, not a holy Quadrangle. Christ must be, at all times, Lord over the Scriptures.”

In his own thorough analysis of Schuller’s “cult of self-esteem” Dr. Walter Martin provides the following from SE regarding “Dr. Schuller and Scripture”:

Labels such as evangelical, fundamental, charismatic, liberal contribute to polarization and produce a climate of implied or outspoken distrust. Where the Protestant reformation was a reactionary movement, the twentieth century reformation must be a reconciling movement. Luther and Calvin we know looked to the book of Romans in the Bible for their primary inspiration.

Were they unknowingly possessed by the spirit of St. Paul than by the Spirit of Jesus Christ? Are we not on safer grounds if we look to our Lord’s Words to launch our reformation? We believe in a holy Trinity, not a holy Quadrangle; Father, Son, Holy Spirit and the Bible.

Dr. Martin then continues with the following very insightful comments actually revealing a primary and very rotten root from which sprang the current highly subjective and existential rejection of  sola Scripura ala neo-orthodoxy in this postevangelicalism masquerading as the historic orthodox Christian faith:

Nineteenth century liberalism put Paul and Christ at odds with each other. “Go back to Jesus, forget Paul.” Dr. Schuller tells us the Reformers built on the Book of Romans and the spirit of Paul, but we’re going to build the new reformation of self-esteem on Jesus and the Lord’s Prayer.

We are right back to nineteenth century liberal theology. We are right back to attacking the unity of the Scriptures for Dr. Schuller does not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. And therefore we are faced with the destruction of the authority of the Scripture, and [instead] with a reliance upon subjectivism or human interpretation to tell us [what God has said]. He juxtaposes Christ against the Scriptures so that Christ is above Scripture. Listen, should there be any doubt in your mind:

But can anything be above the Scriptures? Yes, the Eternal Word transcends the written Word. Christ is the Word made flesh. Christ is the Lord over the Scriptures…

And finally Dr. Martin is quite correct when he says:

Might I point out that Christ was never over the Scriptures in His life. In fact Christ said the Scriptures had to be fulfilled by Him or He wasn’t the Messiah. He said the Scriptures cannot be broken. He said sanctify them through Thy Truth Father; Thy Word is Truth.

He was subject to the Scriptures, never above it. What are you left with when you turn away from that? You are left with your interpretation of the Scripture, and that interpretation is faulty and dangerous. (Robert Schuller and the Cult of Self-Esteem, CD Rom, available from Walter Martin Religious Infonet)

And here we see another of the Trojan Horses in which Satan’s forces have penetrated the walls of our Lord’s Church for him to ask man yet again: “Yea, hath God said?”

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