They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. (Isaiah 44:18)

Seeking Spiritual Loopholes To An Inclusive Global Religion Of The Love Of Self

Dr. Samir Selanovic, who was serving on the Coordinating Group for Emergent Village, contributes a chapter called “The Sweet Problem of Inclusiveness: Finding Our God in the Other” in a recent book edited by Emergent anti-theologian Tony Jones and his pastor Doug Pagitt entitled in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Selmanovic gives further indication where we are headed with this inclusive interspirituality of the Emergent Church when he denies the Gospel of Jesus Christ and shares with us instead his Emerging Church doctrines of demons:

We have experienced great joy in God’s embrace of humanity through Jesus Christ…but Christianity’s idea that other religions cannot be God’s carriers of grace and truth casts a large shadow over our Christian experience. Does grace, the central teaching of Christianity, permeate all of reality, or is it something that is alive only for those who possess the New Testament and the Christian tradition? Is the revelation that we have received through Jesus Christ an expression of what is everywhere at all times, or has the Christ Event emptied most of the world and time of saving grace and deposited it in one religion, namely ours…

Can it be that the teachings of the gospel are embedded and can be found in reality itself rather than being exclusively isolated in sacred texts and our interpretations of those texts? If the answer is yes, can it be that they are embedded in other stories, other peoples’ histories, and even other religions?…

God’s table is welcoming all who seek, and if any religion is to win, may it be the one that produces people who are the most loving, the most humble, the most Christlike. Whatever the meaning of “salvation” and “judgment,” we Christians are going to be saved by grace, like everyone else, and judged by our works, like everyone else…

For most critics of such open Christianity, the problem with inclusiveness is that it allows for truth to be found in other religions. To emerging Christians, that problem is sweet… Moreover, if non-Christians can know our God, then we want to benefit from their contribution to our faith. (191, 192, 195, 196, emphasis mine)

The logical theological conclusion to the Emergent Church and the interfaith/interspiritual goal of seeking to bring all religions together is the utopian “dream” of a Global Family aka universalism expressed below by a Dave Parker of something called The Living Room: More Than A Faith Community.  A dream, which I will add, Parker also calls “God’s dream.” The text comes from a video clip now no longer available, which Apprising Ministries first showed to you in Emergent Church: Dreaming Of Another god. 

Sadly, this all too familiar mystic mantra of the Cult of Liberal Theology that swallowed up the mainline denominations is now becoming all too familiar refrain even within mainstream evangelicalism as it further embraces the tenets of Progressive Theology ala Marcus Borg and its lite version as espoused by Tony Campolo:

In this community, young and old, Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, upper class and lower class, middle class, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual–everyone–found commonality and community at the foot of the cross. And God was adding to their number daily those who were being saved. And by saved, I mean that a kingdom of God mindset was being sculpted, and refined and fleshed out in lives.

But this is not the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ. And to those with eyes that see, not surprisingly, centered as the Emerging Church is on the self (i.e. mankind) and existential experience, this sort of “mindset” salvation is much closer to your local church than you may think. One, if they want to, can see this in recent AM pieces like Emergent Church Theologian Tony Jones and his Unrepentant Homosexual Christians and Todd Friel: A Matter of Time Before Rob Bell Says Publicly Practicing Homosexuality is Ok For Christians.

However, I encourage you to note that salvation in Parker’s dream is not based upon the human being first being individually regenerated by God the Holy Spirit as Scripture teaches. Rather, his human reasoning; a neo-Gnostic “mindset” about some subjective feeling he has after a universal atonement [read: at-one-ment], is his criterion for deciding what he wishes God was like. This becomes crystal clear as Parker went on to say, “And I thought to myself that’s the kind of community I want to be involved in.”

Men and women, look deeply into this fickle feelings-oriented approach to theology not all that different from what is taught by Rob Bell and you will be looking into the very face of deeply spurious spirituality spewed by seducing spirits with their deceptive doctrines of demons. This is what is right now exploding across evangelicalism through corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism ala Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic “Roshi” Richard Foster with a scholastic spin from his spiritual twin ordained Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard.

As I said before, so I say again: The evangelical community has embraced these emerging vipers of the Emergent Church, which is clearly a cult of postliberal theology, at their own peril…and…tragically…at the peril of your youth…

See also:

THE CULT OF LIBERAL THEOLOGY ROTTEN ROOT OF THE POSTLIBERAL EMERGING CHURCH

CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY OF RICHARD FOSTER ROOTED IN THE EASTERN DESERT AND THOMAS MERTON

THE TERMINOLOGY TRAP OF “SPIRITUAL FORMATION”

EMERGENT CHURCH: IMAGINE A GLOBAL FAITH WHERE EVERYONE’S ALREADY SAVED

 SAMIR SELMANOVIC: GOD IS FATHER OF All RELIGION

BRIAN MCLAREN: THE EMERGING CHURCH VIEW THAT JESUS CAME FOR GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION

DR. RICHARD MOUW: EVANGELICAL ECUMENISM