But I have this against you: you have abandoned the love [you had] at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. (Revelation 2:4-5, CHSB)

The Missional Future Is So Blind It Has To Wear Shades

In an article called “Dancing in the Pulpit” from the Graphic of Pepperdine University one can get a really good look at what the Emergent “missional” future is for the rapidly apostatizing Southern Baptist Convention. Oops; excuse me, make that the “Jesus Convention” under the non-leadership of Dr. Frank Page. In fact Dr. Page said he sees “many valuable contributions to the SBC coming from the Emergent Leaders Movement” for which Erwin McManus is the SBC poster “barbarian”:

Oil paintings, salsa dancers, information tents, a breakfast café and a live band — where can all these crafts and commodities be found in one place? These can all be found at a typical Sunday morning service at Mosaic. That is right. It is a church.

On a recent Sunday morning, following a comedic skit depicting a rough-edged football coach ironically inspiring band-nerds to “play-hard,” Erwin McManus spoke to a diverse theater full of people. McManus, the full-time pastor of Mosaic, sat on a bench, garbed in jeans and a t-shirt. Instruments from the contemporary worship service lay strewn about him, and his face was projected onto a large screen. (Online source)

Yes, all very relevant indeed. And cultural architect Erwin McManus, who is also a distinguished furturist with along with Leonard Sweet and his Emergent Quantum Spirituality, has a theology of “the Kingdom” that is completely consistent with his friend Emergent “Rabbi” Rob Bell. And though each eschews the Emergent label, it’s little wonder why McManus would be in line with the warped and toxic understanding of the actual Gospel of Jesus Christ by the new cult of liberal theology the Emergent Church.

Erwin was among those considered by Doug Pagitt to be a part of the original Terra Nova project of Leadership Network. I’m not going into all of that right now but what you are beginning to see is the Devil bringing the Rick Warren seeker sensitive CEO-type business types in the Purpose Driven section of his Ecumenical Church of Deceit (ECoD) with their dominion theology together alongside the Brian McLaren Christ followers and the Emergent reimagined social gospel of their “Jesus” of the cause du jour.

The alleged “King’s Kids” of the Word Faith section of the ECoD have always been Kingdom Now. And what these fools among them are doing is convincing the spiritually naïve that the Church is going to “transform” society and bring about the hopes, dreams and aspirations of God to have His Kingdom on the earth now. Right. The omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent LORD God Almighty–the Creator of all the universe–a Being so pure, powerful and holy that we would immediately disintegrate in His awful presence has mere “dreams” for this cursed creation.

God Himself Works Out All Things According To His Own Good Pleasure

Know this; the Glorious and majestic, great and mighty, completely sovereign God of Biblical revelation has no dreams, hopes and aspirations because He doesn’t need anything or anyone to accomplish whatever He wills. But leaving these issues aside, for now, the aforementioned article also gives us another piece of key information about the missional future of these Kingdom thinkers and Kingdom players of the new Emergent SBC:

The Los Angeles Times reported recently that Mosaic leaders aim to contemporize church life, making it relevant to our 21st century culture, while still remaining true to its conservative Southern Baptist roots. Mosaic, however, does not subscribe to all Southern Baptist stances. It, for example, has women pastors.

That’s right, it would seem that the inclusive future of the new and not so improved TNIV SBC includes women pastors. No more obnoxious obeying the text of the pastoral epistles, which by the way, have no qualification for women to hold the office of elder. According to the Bible the pastor is the senior teaching elder and for a women to hold this position in a church where people archaically adhere to what the Bible actually says violates 1 Timothy 2:12. For more on that see my article Thoughts on Women Pastors.

But hey, isn’t postmodern thing great; now we would be able to remain “true” to our “conservative Southern Baptist roots”, all the while ignoring the fact that historically churches have been put out of the SBC for having women pastors. To borrow from Montell Jordan, now that the Emergent TNIV SBC is filling up with Christ-following missional Kingdom thinkers and Kingdom players, “This is how we do it!” Yep, it’s emerging all good and anything goes as long as you’re transforming [read: acquiescing to] culture and “winning” the world to the power point Jesus you have created.

Which brings me to my last point in this missive. At Christian Research Network today we ran the post Furor Over Baptist’s Gay-Baby Article which then links the reader to a story at the Christian Post which concerns well respected evangelical and Southern Baptist leader Dr. Albert Mohler. I find it interesting that Dr. Al Mohler has time to speculate on the issue of whether a baby can be born homosexual, which liberals and pro-gay organizations are now running with, but as SBC president Dr. Frank Page embraces the very theology Mohler worked hard getting out of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary he apparently has nothing to say about that.

The story speaks of the growing furor concerning his sexual speculations and quotes Dr. Mohler as opining:

“I wonder if people actually read what I wrote,” Mohler said in a telephone interview. “But I wrote the article intending to start a conversation, and I think I’ve been successful at that.”

Silence Provides Fertile Ground For Acceptance

You know Dr. Mohler, I can certainly relate to what you say there. I am not commenting on the homosexuality issue here, but what I am bringing to the attention of the Body of Christ is that when I as a fellow SBC minister wrote Dr. Mohler a couple of years ago asking him privately for his position on The Purpose Driven Life he did not even have the courtesy to ask a member of his staff to respond.

And then this year, knowing he that would not answer, I wrote Dr. Mohler a letter which is published in Apprising Ministries: Dr. Al Mohler Unanswered Letter asking for his intervention concerning Oneness Pentecostal and Word Faith heretic T.D Jakes preaching again in a Southern Baptist church. So, this time I don’t bother even writing to Dr. Mohler and go straight to the Church. I will ask publicly what people have been writing to ask me about. Where is Dr. Albert Mohler’s voice as the missional serpent of the Emergent Church, with its Reformation-hating core doctrine of Gnostic contemplative mysticism, begins to swallow the SBC whole?

Now personally I’m not going to hold my breath for any of the men mentioned above to respond. But this much I can tell you in the Lord: Subjective experiential interpretation of the Bible plus women pastors plus Missional times praxis over doctrine equals Revelation 2:5 –

I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent.