They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. (1 John 4:5)

Robert Schuller’s Man-Centered New Reformation Taking Deeper Root

What utter foolishness in this recent anti-Christian blether which you will hear from cultural architect and distinguished futurist Erwin McManus, lead actor pastor of Mosaic. God doesn’t “imagine” anything, the Bible clearly says – Whatever the LORD pleases, He does, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps (Psalm 135:6).

And as far as leading “culture,” this comes from the huge misunderstanding inherent in the man-centered emerging church and the new evangelicalism that the Church is to bring into fruition God’s “dreams” for the earth. The problem created by this false teaching, as we see above, is that God doesn’t have any dreams or goals. Whatever the Lord desires He brings to pass according His will. Nothing can prevent this. As it is written – There is no wisdom and no understanding, And no counsel against the LORD (Proverbs 21:30).

This even goes for the neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church and its culture-loving new evangelical counter-part. Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren aside, the actual purpose of the local church when it comes together is for the building up of believers. As Dr. John MacArthur and others have correctly pointed out its true purpose is for edification. The Body of Christ, the Church universal itself, is to represent Christ as ambassadors in this fallen world. We are to follow His Example to seek and save that which is lost.

Then as the Master also said – “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And this does not mean disciple the nations themselves by some foolish goal of “changing the future” of their cultures so that they will want to “catch up to” the Church.

People who are not in Christ do not have “a spiritual instinct”; they are, in fact, dead to the one true and living God of the Bible. And dead men have no instinct, so they sure cannot catch up to anyone. Enough of this love of self (see–2 Timothy 3:2) nonsense; we must return to preaching the actual Gospel of Jesus Christ, let God call whom He will out from their cultures, and then we are to make disciples by teaching them to obey everything Jesus has taught us.

And this is what the American Christian Church has forgotten and this kind of thing is exactly what A.W. Tozer is talking about in The Passion for Publicity: