DOWN WITH SOLA SCRIPTURA

We have been discussed here at Apprising Ministries an escalating rebellion against Sola Scriptura in the Emergent Church. And in Faith House Manhattan: Project of Apostasy by Samir Selmanovic AM has introduced you to self-proclaimed “Presbymergent” Adam Walker Cleaveland. Cleaveland was a contributor to the recent book An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (EMH) co-edited by the Emergent Church leader Tony Jones and his Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt.

Now coming on the heels of  Phyllis Tickle and the Emerging Church: It’s Not If Sola Scriptura Ends But When and Emergent Church Theologian Tony Jones and his Unrepentant Homosexual Christians we now have even more reason to wonder Will Rob Bell Now Follow Tony Jones Out of the Closet? because with the lastest post by Cleaveland it really starts to appear that  The Emerging Church is Soon to Put Forth a Gay Face.

In “The Bible & Homosexuality: Enough with the Bible Already” filled with the usual whining that anyone who believes the practice of homosexuality is a sin doesn’t know; doesn’t care about, is afraid of, blah, blah, blah, gay people we can see the homosexual lobby is rapidly growing in the Emerging Church. Even so, I refer Cleaveland and cohorts to Ken Silva: It’s Time to Rethink the Issue of Homosexuality. Amidst his straw men and red herrings Cleaveland tells us:

presenting a coherent biblical argument for why homosexuality is not a sin and why our gay brothers and sisters should be fully welcomed into all areas of the church and ministry is not my point here. I think many people have done just that (Jack Rogers and Stacy Johnson come to mind), but they are easily dismissed by many because they apparently don’t have a “high enough view of scripture.”

Well – if that’s the problem – then I say, “Enough with the Bible already!” This issue has been on my mind a lot recently, for a variety of reasons, but most recently because Sarah and I gathered with some friends from our church and watched the documentary, “For the Bible Tells me So.” (Online source)

In fact Cleaveland sums his post up thusly:

If it is the Bible that is causing us to delay accepting and celebrating LGBT persons as being fully human and fully created in the image of God, just as they are, then perhaps we need to say, “Enough with the Bible already…” (Online source, bold his)

Lord willing, should AM survive there will be more to come but for now I try yet again to bring to the attention of the slumbering evangelical community that the above views are already deeply embedded in many of your youth groups who have been corrupted by this Emergent rebellion against the Bible for nearly ten years now. And the existential approach to this issue of homosexuality is the result of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism masquerading as Spiritual Formation.

Well, the Rip Van Winkles in evangelical leadership had best awaken soon because it truly is as was pointed out in We Feel Homosexuality Is Not A Sin. Evangelical Bible colleges and seminaries filled with neo-orthodox (at best) professors were using books like Self-Esteem: The New Reformation by Robert Schuller and Celebration of Discipline by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster to begin emptying the terminology of the historic orthodox Christian faith of its original Biblical usage all the while recasting it with the meaning of semi-pelagian (at best) human potential.

 Then this set of pastors was sent out; maybe even to your church, where they have bred the new breed pastors littering the landscape today. But evangelical leaders simply slept on refusing to listen to warnings like the following from Dr. Walter Martin (circa 1985) and so we arrive at this pathetic time in the history of the Christian Church. Well, it’s not like mankind hasn’t been here before — everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25):

The culture does not annul the Law of God; God’s Law stands whether the culture stands or not. What you are getting from the Cult of Liberalism is what is known as moral relativism. Do you understand that; moral relativism, which means you get away with whatever you think in your heart you can get away with…in effect, the end justifies the means…

And you’re right back to the Jesuits; the end justifies the means. No, it doesn’t. [There were] an awful lot of dead bodies in the Inquisition because they thought the end justifies the means—Jews and Christians… [The Cult of Liberalism] is theologically corrupt because it is Bibliologically corrupt. It denies the authority of Scripture; it ruins its own theology.

And it ends in immorality because the only way you could have gotten to this homosexual, morally relativistic garbage—which is today in our denominational structures—is if the leadership of those denominations denied the authority of  the Scriptures and Jesus Christ as Lord. That is the only way you got there. (The Cult of Liberalism, available Walter Martin Religious InfoNet)

See also:

APPRISING MINISTRIES: SHOCKING NEW EVIDENCE JESUS CONDEMNED THE PRACTICE OF HOMOSEXUALITY

TODD FRIEL: A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE ROB BELL SAYS PUBLICLY PRACTICING HOMOSEXUALITY IS OK FOR CHRISTIANS

BRIAN MCLAREN, THE EMERGING CHURCH, AND HOMOSEXUALITY: WHAT’S SO HARD ABOUT THAT?

ROB BELL AND CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM

DOUG PAGITT AND CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM