In this short piece Apprising Ministries now draws to your attention one of the reasons why the postliberal cult of Emergence Christianity, being championed e.g. by Guru Brian McLaren and the Elvis of Emergence Rob Bell, is actually embracing the world at the expence of the exclusive Gospel of God. Thinking people need to ask themselves: Why are these Emerging leaders working so hard to broaden the narrow way to make room for unbelieving heretics like Marcus Borg and his reimagined liberal theology today called Progressive Christianity?

However, as usual the Bible sheds true light upon “Christian” compromisers and people-pleasers like Swami McLaren — They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them (1 John 4:5). And if you’re among those listening to these pathetic posers then you ought to wonder what this says about you (see—2 Corinthians 13:5). Concerning McLaren’s latest book of mythical mystical musings Dr. Gary Gilley is dead on target when he says in his review of McLaren’s Finding Our Way Again: The Return To The Ancient Practices (FOW):

McLaren peppers this book with his usual talk of the kingdom of God, which is identical to postmillennial liberalism of the early 20th century. (Online source)

This is precisely what AM has been laboring to warn the discerning about in articles like Emergence Christianity Repainting The Social Gospel And Liberation Theology. But I can’t make you actually follow the sources cited in order to see this for yourself. For many it’s easier to simply accuse me of misconstruing what these mystical dreamers like McLaren—and those he’s influenced like Bell—are spewing in Jesus’ Name. But regardless the facts are there; and just as the Apostle Paul, I will also ask — Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? (Galatians 4:16)

In FOW, among the man-pleasing myths (see—2 Timothy 4:4) Brian McLaren spreads, we read:

What’s gotten me into trouble, though, is my suspicion that a person can be a follower of the way of Jesus without affiliating with the Christian religion,… I am convinced that Jesus didn’t come to start a new religion; he came to proclaim a new kingdom… By a new kingdom, Jesus meant a new way of life, a new arrangement and set of values, a new order and a new array of priorities and commitments, a new vision of peace and how to achieve it. It was, in short, a new way that called for new practices (34, 35).

Here McLaren is in lock-step with liberal theologians—as is the “progressive” [read: postliberal] Borg—who have simply redefined what it means to be born again. So, instead of the doctrine of regeneration taught in the Biblical Christian faith, being “born again” now becomes being “transformed” aka reaching “enlightenment,” supposedly arrived at in an altered state of concsiousness through the practice of transcendental meditation. For the “Christian” this type of TM-lite is called Contemplative/Centering Prayer; but the truth remains, this is still “wordless prayer” in the “silence” of an altered state of consciousness.

Pastor Bob DeWaay does a great job demonstrating this, for those who wish to see, in his scholarly article Contemporary Christian Divination. There DeWaay shines Biblical light upon the “type of meditation that Christian mystics” such as mentor of Emergence Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster:

advocate [which] requires a different state of consciousness than normal, awake, thinking. That is why there is so much interest in dreams among mystics. Sleeping is one time that all humans are in a different state of consciousness. The alpha level of brain activity happens when people are entering sleep and waking up. The theta level is a where people go under deep hypnosis or deep meditation, and in the early stages of sleep.

Hypnosis and eastern meditative techniques purposely put someone in an altered state of consciousness with the hope of learning something about the unconscious or subconscious mind or contacting the world of the spirits. Christian versions of it suggest that God can be contacted by purposely entering an altered state of consciousness (though few like to call it that). (Online source)

And in closing this for now, meditating blasphemers like Borg even go so far as to say Buddha himself was “born again” as you’ll see clearly below from Marcus Borg: Buddha Was Born Again. So now you’ll understand why McLaren says what he does in spurious speculations about following Jesus without necessarily being a Christian; and, you’ll also know why these matriarchal meditators are so easy with their praise of Buddha and his bankrupt Buddhism centered on the self:

Enlightenment as an archetypal religious metaphor belongs to a mystical way of being religious. Outside of the Jewish and Christian traditions, the best-known enlightenment experience is the Buddha’s mystical experience. Such an experience leads to seeing everything differently. It is not simply an intellectual or mental “seeing,” as when we say, “Oh, I see what you mean.” Rather, enlightenment as a religious experience involves communion or union with what is, an immediate “knowing” of the sacred [i.e. God] that transforms one’s way of seeing.

So it is in John: enlightenment is a central metaphor for salvation. To have one’s eyes opened, to be enlightened, is to move from the negative pole of John’s contrasting symbols to the positive pole. To move from darkness to light is also to move from death to life, from falsehood to truth, from life in the flesh to life in the Spirit, from life “below” to life “from above.”

To be enlightened is to be born “from above” and “of the Spirit”—in other words, to be “born again.” Thus the “born again” experience in John is an enlightenment experience. (Reading The Bible Again for the First Time, 214, emphasis mine)

Below witness Marcus Borg as he “discusses the nature of Christianity as a spiritual ‘path’ or ‘way,’ particularly as it compares to other religions such as Buddhism.” And note how the unbelieving Borg is careful not to exclude supposed seekers as he opens by saying, “Christianity as ‘the way’; and I don’t mean that in the sense of Christian exclusivism, but for Christians, Christianity is the way…”

See also:

MARCUS BORG: “NON-EXCLUSIVE” AND “PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN”

MARCUS BORG ON THE BIBLE AND HIS “JESUS”

ROB BELL: SOUNDING MORE AND MORE LIKE “PROGRESSIVE” CHRISTIAN MARCUS BORG WHO DENIES THE DEITY OF JESUS CHRIST AND HIS BODILY RESURRECTION

ROB BELL AND MARCUS BORG

RICHARD FOSTER’S LEGACY ENDURES: CHRISTIAN LEADERS HELP TO MAKE IT SO

IF YOU TRULY LOVE “JESUS” THERE ARE NO BOUNDARIES FOR THE “CHRIST-FOLLOWERS”

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