Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthem 28:18-20)

Mother Teresa and Teresa of Avila Peas In A Corrupt Spiritutal Pod 

Anyone familiar with Emerging Church icon Shane Claiborne knows that he was quite taken with the late Mother Teresa, who actually took her name out of her respect for so-called “Christian” mystic Teresa of Avila. Below are the words of Mother Teresa from my personal copy of her book Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations and Prayers. And therein you will be able to see the resulting deception gleaned from her practice of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism; a gospel of goodness with its resulting denial of the exclusive claims of the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ:

We never try to convert those who receive [aid from her organization] to Christianity but in our work we bear witness to the love of God’s presence and if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, or agnostics become for this better men — simply better — we will be satisfied. Growing up in love they will be nearer to God and find him in his goodness. Every human being comes from the hand of God and we all know what is the love of God for us. My religion is everything to me but for every individual, according to the grace God had given that soul. God has his own ways and means to work in the hearts of men and we do not know how close they are to him but by their actions we will always know whether they are at his disposal or not.

Whether you are a Hindu, a Moslem or a Christian, how you live your life is the proof that you are fully his or not. We must not condemn or judge or pass words that will hurt people. Maybe a person has never heard of Christianity. We do not know what way God is appearing to that soul and what way God is drawing that soul, and therefore who are we to condemn anybody? It matters to the individual what church he belongs to. If that individual thinks and believes that this is the only way to God for her or him, this is the way God comes into their life — his life. If he does not know any other way and if he has no doubt so that he does not need to search then this is his way to salvation. This is the way God comes into his life. (81, 82)

As loving of mankind as this might appear on the surface I think you’ll realize this is very definitely not the Gospel preached by Christ and His Apostles and which would cost each of them—save John—their lives. No making of disciples of Christ and no teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. However, you will also find that the above fantasy is completely consistent with the delusion which is received by those who practice the Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) of the spurious Spiritual Formation espoused by ordained Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard and his spiritual twin Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Roshi Richard Foster.

Like Teresa, Like Shane And Tony

It’s also an incontestable fact that the following view of the false religion of Islam—also consistent with Teresa—which Shane Claiborne and his mentor Tony Campolo portray below is the result of their own practice of CCP. First here is Campolo from his book Speaking My Mind:

a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God, which seem at odds with their own spiritual traditions but have much in common with each other. I do not know what to make of the Muslim mystics, especially those who have come to be known as the Sufis. What do they experience in their mystical experience? Could they have encountered the same God we do in our Christian mysticism? (149,150, emphasis added)

Actually Tony yes, they do, but it most definitely is not the God of the Bible. I previously used the following quote within Emergent Evangelical Prophet Tony Campolo back in February of 2006 which comes from an interview Claiborne did with Campolo called On Evangelicals And Interfaith Cooperation. It contains the following exchange between Claiborne and Campolo about a third of the way down the page:

SC: Both Muslims and Christians are very evangelical in the sense of desiring others to come to faith in their God. When we talk about inter-religious cooperation, does that mean that we need to stop trying to convert each other?

TC: We don’t have to give up trying to convert each other. What we have to do is show respect to one another. And to speak to each other with a sense that even if people don’t convert, they are God’s people, God loves them, and we do not make the judgment of who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.

I think that what we all have to do is leave judgment up to God. The Muslim community is very evangelistic, however what Muslims will not do is condemn Jews and Christians to Hell if in fact they do not accept Islam.

SC: That seems like a healthy distinction—between converting and condemning. One of the barriers seems to be the assumption that we have the truth and folks who experience things differently will all go to Hell. How do we unashamedly maintain a healthy desire for others to experience the love of God as we have experienced it without condemning others who experience God differently…
(Online source, bold mine)

Men and women, this is also not the Gospel of Jesus Christ but it is a primary online source giving you a glimpse at the gospel of goodness that these men personally believe. And this false teaching is completely consistent with the universalism one sees as they study mysticism as I have for years now. But if Campolo is right that “even if people don’t convert, they are God’s people,” then why should they convert in the first place?

Why should we even waste our time and money, not to mention risking our lives, to try and convert “God’s people”…ah, into “God’s people”? Men and women, it’s time now to finally awaken from your slumber and realize that if this reimagined emerging Christianity where all mankind is the family of God is true then there really is no Gospel left to preach. So I wonder, just who might have come up with that idea?

No, this is more than enough reason for me to tell people to stay away from the Emergent Church. And remember as Emerging Church spokesman Dan Kimball has revealed to us that  Emergent Wolves Enter Your Sheep Pens Through Youth Groups. The truth is that the time has arrived when we must reject these Emergent dreamers and their quasi-Christianity/Universalism with its warped and toxic postliberal repainted social gospel ala Walter Rauschenbusch. And when it is all said and done, in the end, Claiborne is really a Rob Bell with dreadlocks.

See also:

SHANE CLAIBORNE EMERGING CHURCH MYSTIC MUMBO JUMBO

TONY CAMPOLO WITH “MYSTICAL ENCOUNTERS FOR CHRISTIANS”

TONY CAMPOLO: “CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM” TRUMPS THE BIBLE