Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man (Romans 1:22-23).

Sounds Good, Less Substance

The above heading, an adaptation of an old popular commercial, is quite fitting when we examine the Gnosticism of the mystic musings of Emergent Guru Brian McLaren. He is the classic example of this verse of Scripture – The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him (Proverbs 18:17, ESV). McLaren apparently sounds quite impressive to young people who have been indoctrinated into an emergent Christian agnosticism by apostate professors of church history in liberal Bible colleges. He seems to impress the neo-orthodox and liberal “Christians” looking for a way to avoid having to live up to the impossible standards of holiness taught in the Bible as well. Impossible standards, that is, unless you have truly been converted and regenerated by God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17) The doctrine of being born again through God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone is not my focus here so I make this point in passing because the new birth in Christ is decidedly not the emphasis in the soteriology of the neo-orthodox cult of the Emergent Church due to the so-called “Christian” mysticism of their contemplative spirituality.

The Leadership blog from Christianity Today is featuring a series with Guru McLaren called Brian McLaren’s Inferno: the provocative church leader explains his view of hell. The initial article opens with this introduction:

No contributor to Out of Ur has elicited more responses than Brian McLaren. Part of McLaren’s appeal is his courage to rethink long-held evangelical assumptions and call the church to shed the baggage of modernity. Brian’s critics, however, accuse him of throwing the orthodox baby out with the modernist bath water. In this interview McLaren discusses his view of hell and judgment, and explains why some have mislabeled him a universalist. Part one of this post also features fellow prophet Tony Compolo (sic).

So now we see that we have two Emergent prophets, Guru Brian McLaren and the “radical evangelical” Tony Campolo, and I tell you in the Lord that the evangelical community gives these false prophets a voice at their own peril. Because we live in a culture steeped in the relativism of secular humanism (allegedly “postmodernism”) we have slowly become conditioned to accept an incorrect view of tolerance. How this plays out is that when someone like myself comes along (and I am far from the only one) who has a boldness in presenting the historic orthodox Biblical Christian worldview I am immediately branded as “intolerant.” This is not true at all, in fact I have often said to people who disagree with me, “Let’s just agree to disagree agreeably.” If they happen to profess to be Christian then I will also refer them to Philippians 3:15-16 – Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (ESV). However Christ also told us to read the signs of the times and the lateness of the hour demands that we get straight to the heart of some serious spiritual matters in the dying American Christian Church. For an example you may wish to read Prognosis For The American Christian Church.

Now I wish to make this as clear as I possibly can. I do not hate men like the living spiritual teacher Richard Foster, Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo and/or other vipers from The Ecumenical Church Of Deceit (ECoD), what I hate is the antichrist doctrine that they are teaching. The Bible very pointedly says of Jesus Christ of Nazareth – You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness (Hebrews 1:9), and in turn the Master said to His true followers – as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you (John 20:21, KJV). Therefore as a Christian I must also love righteousness and hate wickedness. And if you are a Christian so should you. At this point the Emergent argument usually is: “Yes, but Jesus also told us to love one another, and when you use vitriolic language you are not showing love to those you disagree with.” O but here their logical structure collapses upon them. 1) God is love (see–1 John 4:8; 4:16), 2) Jesus is God in human flesh (see–John 1:1,14; Titus 2:13), so 3) Jesus is love in human flesh. As such when Jesus calls false religious leaders of His day “vipers,” “white-washed tombs,” and “children of the Devil,” He is acting in perfect love.

On another note, I have a reminder from God for evangelical leaders who sit by idly right now as this insidious cancer of the Emergent Church is eating away at your young – Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” Does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? (Proverbs 24:11-12) And further the Bible also tells men the Lord has chosen to place in positions of authority within His Church that they are to:

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! (Acts 28:28-31)

Do you really think that all of your book deals and your websites were actually your own doing, and that due to your big church that you are somehow above being called to account for your silence? Shame on you for keeping quiet in order to protect your own precious reputation, and worse yet, for even bringing these counterfeit teachers into your churches and your seminaries with their things taught by demons. Men and women, we need to understand these are perilous times we are living in. People will so glibly say that all the prophecies that need to be fulfilled before Christ returns have been fulfilled. Then there are many who will take this even further and are saying that they believe Jesus may return in our lifetime. Well, because this might be so, it would be a good idea to take a good long and most serious look at the amount of humanism within the Church of Jesus Christ in this country. A.W. Tozer was lamenting the lack of spirituality sixty years ago; do you seriously think it is better now? I tell you the Truth, we’ve become so content with a man-centered concept of the Christian faith that God the Holy Spirit, “brooding” in Tozer’s day, has long since departed and removed candlesticks from more “evangelical” denominations than you think.

And as far as Emergent prophets like Guru McLaren and his radical (read: apostate) sidekick Tony Campolo the time has come to ask ourselves a critical question. When this nebulous mystic “Christian” Gnosticism surfaced the first time did the Apostles and apologists of the early Church wish to sit down with the leaders of each strain and have “interfaith/spiritual” dialogue with them about how their views could help Christ’s true teachers better understand various issues of the their Christian faith? Obviously not as entire Books of the New Testament were written by Apostles to refute Gnosticism calling those who taught it “counterfeit teachers,” “false prophets,” and even “antichrists.” In fact a disciple of the Apostle John’s own disciple Polycarp by the name of Irenaeus wrote a lengthy and quite often scathing rebuke of Gnosticism called Against Heresies. It is from this series by Irenaeus that much of our knowledge as to what these original mystics were actually teaching comes from. I say original mystics because if you make the time to read my article The Emergent “One” you will see that the same teachings concerning “the spark of the divine” within mankind have once again come emerging through the so-called “Christian” mysticism of contemplative spirituality.

McLaren Is Deconstructing The Christian Faith

In returning specifically now to part one of the Leadership article and what would sure appear to be McLaren’s goal of deconstructing the whole of the Christian faith. The article first mentions Emergent Guru’s book The Last Word and the Word After That where “prophet” McLaren is said to “focus heavily on ‘deconstructing’ the evangelical view of hell.” Then the Emergent prophet is informed that there are “critics [who] think your deconstruction has moved to the point of your embracing a ‘universalist’ position.” And then Emergent “spiritual director” McLaren is asked, “Are you a Universalist?” Let’s watch as the dance begins…

McLaren: No, I am not embracing a traditional universalist position, but I am trying to raise the question, When God created the universe, did he have two purposes in mind—one being to create some people who would forever enjoy blessing and mercy, and another to create a group who would forever suffer torment, torture, and punishment? What is our view of God? A God who plans torture? A God who has an essential, eternal quality of hatred? Is God love, or is God love and hate?

It might sound surprising to state it that way, but you’d be surprised at some of the emails I’ve received. For example, someone quoted Scriptures like Psalm 5:5 or Psalm 11:5 and said, “If you don’t believe in a God of hate, you don’t believe in the God of the Bible.” Here’s my concern: if you believe in a god of hate, violence, revenge, and torture, it makes you very susceptible to becoming a person made in that god’s image.

Even though this subject is so controversial and I don’t like controversy, we have to address it because we’re dealing with our view of God, and the consequences of our essential view of God are staggering. The only thing that’s more important, I guess, is God’s view of us!

The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.

In the McLaren-speak we’ve come to expect from the Emergent Guru, he first states the obvious: “I am not embracing a traditional universalist position, but I am trying to raise the question,…” Has he ever taken a “traditional” position about anything regarding the Christian faith, and when isn’t McLaren trying to cast doubt and sow confusion with his questions? With languishing reasoning skills in our culture it might have been missed that while Emergent prophet McLaren initially answers “no” when asked if he is a universalist, he actually goes on to say that he does not embrace “a traditional universalist position.” This now leaves McLaren the wiggle room to simply redefine what he will mean by universalism. In typical McLaren fashion in part two of the Inferno piece this is exactly what he will begin to do. And the confusion sets in above as the Guru asks, “When God created the universe, did he have two purposes in mind—one being to create some people who would forever enjoy blessing and mercy, and another to create a group who would forever suffer torment, torture, and punishment?”

It’s been pointed out many times by others that McLaren’s rhetorical style is to set up straw men to masterfully knock down, and/or to introduce red herrings that the less experienced will go chasing after. The question the Emergent prophet is asking is an overstatement concerning what the historic orthodox Christian Church has taught throughout the years regarding the doctrine of Hell. Without judging his intentions, it seems here that McLaren is hinting at the doctrine of predestination. Satan knowing that there are obviously differing opinion as to exactly how God in His perfection, will decide, how He does decide, and/or how He has decided just who is part of the “elect,” cunningly aims his broadside here. But this much we do know for certain, absolutely no one deserves the grace of God and our Creator most certainly does not owe mankind anything in that He is obligated to save mankind from his own rebellion. No, the problem with allowing men like Emergent prophets McLaren and Campolo forums within the mainstream of the Body of Christ is that they are very much like the early Gnostics and Mormon Missionaries for that matter. Both deny the inerrancy and absolute authority of God’s Word in the Bible, and both the Emergent Church and the Mormon Church believe they alone have the “secret” knowledge with which to interpret the Scriptures.

So what ends up happening as you have a “conversation” with them is that all the time you think you are using the same terminology in your discussion, but they are simply redefining your words to fit their own theological system. I say it again, there will be nothing gained by fruitless dialogues with leaders within the Emergent Church as these new Gnostics are men who practice contemplative spirituality and then believe that “insights” they receive during their meditation will give them the proper understanding of the Christian faith. And yet when all is said and done, what we are seeing with alleged postmodernism and the neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church, which has now virtually created a Christian agnosticism, is that the Book of Jude is coming to yet another fulfillment as:

certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord (verse 4).