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

Tell Us A Bedtime Story About Your God’s Hopes And Dreams For Our World Doug

While Emerging Church Pastor Doug Pagitt is not as well known as some of these spiritually nebulous new breed Christ-followers such as his friend Rob Bell or Dan Kimball still Pagitt is without a doubt an important player in the postliberal cult of the Emergent Church. Emerging church Guru Brian McLaren provides some background in his book A Generous Orthodoxy:

In the late 1990’s, I was invited to become part of Leadership Network’s Young Leader Networks (YLN), also briefly known as the Terranova Project. I was grandfathered in as the network’s “old guy,” having moved beyond 39 in 1996. In 2001, I met with Doug Pagitt to discuss our future plans, YLN having just been launched by Leadership Network to continue on its own as an independent entity…

[Pagitt]’s the pastor of Solomon’s Porch (www.solomonsporch.com) in Minneapolis, former leader of YLN, and (then was) still well shy of 40. One of us–I can’t remember which (a sign of good collaboration or an aging memory, or both)–came up with a new name for the group emergent. (www.emergentvillage.com). We had no idea how fitting the name was and how helpful it would be in our ongoing work. (275, emphasis mine)

Apprising Ministries presents this to give you a bit more insight into the theology of the man-centered reformation once prophesied by Robert Schuller and the myopic misunderstanding of the glorious and majestic, great and mighty, LORD God Almighty of Biblical revelation inherent within postevangelicalism and the Emerging Church; here now is Doug Pagitt from An Emergent Manifesto of Hope:

We want to be friends in the Jesus way, and we need others to transform us so that we may find and join in God’s hopes and dreams for the world. The Emergent imagination is at its most basic level a call to friendship–friendship with God, with one another, and with the world. (18, 19, emphasis mine)

Yes, a lovely human sentiment indeed; but in reality this is what the actual Jesus of the Bible says — You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4, NASB). O, but didn’t you know God the Holy Spirit inspired i.e. guided James to write that for Jesus? And do you not remember Jesus telling us:

But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His Own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is Mine and make it known to you. (John 16:13-15)

The tragic truth is that men like Pagitt do speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them; why, he even comes right and tells you this is their goal in the first place. And the sad fact is it’s well past time for the Rip Van Winkles in leadership positions within the rapidly apostatizing evangelical camp to awaken from their spiritual coma before these vipers of the Emerging Church postevangelical repudiation of Sola Scriptura swallow whole the entire American Christian Church.

See also:

DOUG PAGITT AND THE CULT OF THE EMERGENT CHURCH