Apprising Ministries brings to your attention the following words from Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989) which were spoken circa 1986 about what he called the “Cult of Liberal Theology, or Modern Theology, if you will.” It’s certainly no secret that I have been most adamant and persistent in my criticisms of the emerging church movement—and most specifically the Emergent Church.

Well, here’s why: It’s because this exact same methodology that Martin talks about below, which he also tried in vain to draw to the attention of spiritually obtuse evangelical leaders, is being used right now in your mainstream evangelical denominations and seminaries by the Emergent progeny of these liberal vipers. We are thankful that so far they are still largely only at the corrupt Bibliology stage.

But like produces after its own kind; thus, snakes beget snakes. The theological poison once injected into the bloodstream of the mainline denominations by the prophets of liberal—or modern—theology killed them. And these are the spiritual fathers of the new liberal—or postmodern—theology of the emerging church. You need to know this: The Emergent poison currently being infused into your evangelical institutions and your young preachers—right now—is going to kill mainstream evangelicalism just as dead.

So don’t say you haven’t been warned…

There is a progression that takes place in liberal theology: It begins with a corrupt bibliology, a corrupt view of the nature and the inspiration of Scripture. They have a corrupt theology because once you are picking and choosing from the Bible what you want, your theology has to suffer from it, because your human reason is corrupt. From the corrupt theology proceeds a corrupt Christology, Jesus Christ loses His position, and the great doctrines of Who He is and what He did are diluted and finally destroyed.

From the corrupt Christology comes a corrupt pneumatology, that is a corrupt view of the Holy Spirit and of what the Spirit does and is doing in the Church. Then from this corrupt bibliology, theology, Christology and pneumatology liberal theology ends up in a complete lack of proper morality, and actually leads people away from what the Gospel says into unChristian and immoral positions.

[I was given] a job and [told]… “I want you to make a study of every major theological seminary in the United States; I don’t care what it costs. And I want you to document for me what happened to them. Are they orthodox, neo-orthodox, or liberal; and then I want you to tell me how they got that way.” So I did, and it was amazing what emerged. Point number one; every major theological seminary that has turned from orthodox Christianity began with disbelief of Biblical doctrine. There wasn’t a single exception.

This corrupt Bibliology then lead them to the next step. Their Theology began to be touched by it, their view of the Cross, the Virgin Birth were both immediately questioned; then came the miracles of Christ. And finally they had emptied the Gospel of all its content; they were simply using the outward shell so that they go on collecting money from the people and the churches; because they knew that if the people in the pew knew that they were apostate, they’d throw them out. So the strategy was hang on to the trust funds; hang on to the money we’ve got; hang on the properties we control, and we will gradually educate the laymen into this new approach to theology.

And then finally we will take control of everything. The gradual process of feeding you theological poison until you become immunized enough so that you don’t know what’s happening to you. And when you wake up to what’s happening to you, it’s too late they’ve got everything. That is not a baseless charge, I stand prepared to prove that the Cult of Liberal Theology in the United States has deliberately and consistently followed this methodology to entrap, control and dominate the denominations and the churches of the United States and our educational institutions…once the Bibliology became corrupt, gradually then the view of Christ Himself underwent change.
(The Cult of Liberalism, CD Rom, Walter Martin Religious InfoNet)