I will bow down toward Your holy temple and will praise Your name for your love and Your faithfulness, for You have exalted above all things Your name and Your word. (Psalm 138:2)

What Exactly Is There To Argue About; If You Really Do Believe What The Bible Says

A little bit ago in the Apprising Ministries piece Status Quo Christianity And Taking The Bible “Seriously” I referred your attention to a short post by lesbian “Christ-follower,” GLTBQ activist, and co-leader of the Richmond Emergent Cohort, Adele Sakler. We first met her courtesy of Emerging Church aka Emergent Church, now morphing into Emergence Christianity (EC), theologian Tony Jones in his Announcing Queermergent post.

For those who may not know, Sakler aka Existential Punk, heads up that Queermergent EC group. In her aforementioned musing, this person who’s living in open defiance of the Bible, erects a most sacred straw man of Emerging/ent/ence pseudo-Christianity:

Reading the Bible as a literal book without taking into account of seeking out what the authors might have really intended is disingenuous to them and the scriptures…

Among the problems for these EC neo-Gnostics, and their rebellion against Sola Scriptura, is they are relatively recent comers so 1) “the historic orthodox Christian faith,” as renouned apologist Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989) would so often put it, has heard this screed many times before; and 2) the proper Protestant hermeneutic has always been historical-grammatical i.e. precisely what Sakler says she believes we should do.

In his very helpful little book Essential Christianity Dr. Martin, who converted from liberal theology and knew their pet arguments very well, gives us a lay-level understanding of the plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture and its critical importance:

The Word of God [the Bible] is God in His Word, speaking to us by His Spirit, through whom the message was initially inspired and infused into the souls and minds of His servants. These “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:18-21). Speaking through the prophets, God bore record in the Old Testament of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ the Living Word.

In the New Testament God testifies to the apostles and the disciples of the Incarnation of His Word (John 1:1, 14). These truths are confirmed experientially by the witness of the Holy Spirit, who carries on the work of confronting men with the written Word, which points them to the living Word. (21)

This is precisely why these EC rebels against the final authority of the Bible, like Adele Sakler and the “Rev.” Anne Robertson of something called the Massachusetts Bible Society (MBS) in the video below, must obfuscate the texts of Scripture that confront their false views/teachings with murky mystic myths and through tired old arguments already answered long ago; bottom line: They just don’t like what the Bible says.

My good friend, and Christian apologist, Chris Rosebrough correctly calls it a “theological smörgåsbord-i-tis” as you’ll hear in Jay Bakker And Westboro Baptist Church Suffer Same Spiritual Disease. And, no matter how kindly you try to do so, when you attempt to correct them about this very serious error concerning the only correct Christian approach to Scripture be prepared for their cries of “attack.”

But even those who do not claim to be in Christ recognized the truth of what Rosebrough said as you can see in Jay Bakker and Fred Phelps from former “fundamentalist minister” Brother Richard. Apparently now spending his “days building nontheist community, and encouraging others to come out of the atheist closet” at his Life Without Faith Richard said:

According to Chris Rosebrough from FightingForTheFaith.com, our friends at Westoro Baptist Church, and Jay Bakker (son of Jim and Tammy), are suffering from the same spiritual disease: “Theological Smörgåsbord-i-tis.”

That’s right, they both treat the Bible as a sacred salad bar. Westboro Baptist Church chooses only the law (God’s wrath), and Bakker only grace (God’s love). For those of you who don’t know, Jay Bakker is part of a new breed of Christian ministers who preach what is know as the “Emergence Gospel.” (Online source, bold his)

Not surpisingly “gay affirming pastor” Jay Bakker is accusing him of saying unspecified things “aren’t true,” which you’ll also see he has done with Rosebrough in Jay Bakker Misses The Point. But because Bakker’s false teachings are set to further infect the larger visible church now that Jay Bakker Is To Speak For The 2009 ELCA Youth Gathering I was lead of the Lord ala Titus 1:9 to try and offer Biblical pastoral correction and admonition to him.

However, rather then actually reading what I—and others—have been saying to him in genuine Christian love, and then going to the Scriptures, he has instead elected to play the martyr card publicly all the while whining that I’m attacking him personally. When the truth is crystal clear e.g. from Because I Love Jay Bakker And GLBTQ People that I am not attacking Bakker personally at all, and I will say I again that I actually do respect him.

Those Who Do Not Revere God’s Word Must Be Confronted; Before It’s Too Late

Unlike many others around the EC Bakker is honest about what he believes; Rob Bell could learn from him. And God alone be praised, this presents a good opportunity in the midst of my brother choosing to end his own life Wednesday to demonstrate how the pastor-teacher truly sent by Jesus should now be reacting to a veritable onslaught of toxic doctrine being spread as spiritual cyanide by EC vipers and then injested by kind-hearted men such as Jay Bakker.

And this also brings me back around to Anne Robertson of MBS below who responded to, what I see as a genuine request on Bakker’s part, to have people pray for me:

@jaybakker You have our prayers for Ken Silva 9:53 PM Jul 8th from TwitterFon in reply to jaybakker (Online source)

As nice as that is, however, Bakker’s point is that I need to be changed from my so-called harsh and unloving attacks, i.e. a hater in their pseudo-street parlance, over to his very wrong understanding of God’s grace. The fact is men like Bakker have made this attribute of God into an idol and have also over-emphasized it to the point of the antinomianism the Lord has warned us would be coming—again—and again:

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 4, ESV)

Well, I’m not here in ministry to win some kind of a popularity contest; which is good for me, just Google my name if you want see an actual witness of one being attacked. And this is not some kind of an intellectual game. Whether these EC dreamers want to acknowledge it or not, eternal souls hang in the balance, and mainstream evangelicalism is—right now—devoid of leaders willing to confront these white-washed tombs.

Now, is Jay Bakker, or Adele Sakler, or Anne Robertson, one of such; I don’t pretend to know, God knows. However, I can tell you this: Right now the Lord is not going to hear prayer from them, or others in their camps following foolish teaching, concerning someone like me who, in his unworthy state, is still holding up His Word as my standard. How do I know that you ask; easy, because God the Holy Spirit told us so.

And in His infinite wisdom He did so through the lowly faith-filled man whom the song Amazing Grace actually references in the line: Was blind; but now I see. God rebukes those who’d make an idol out of His grace by the pen of John Newton, a very undeserving wretch—like me—who literally means, “how sweet the sound.” As the Lord attempted to instruct an earlier group of religious leaders just as wrong as EC pastors like Jay Bakker et al are right now He says through His holy man:

“We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him.” (John 9:31)

And Bakker, along with Robertson, are in sin right now concerning Holy Scripture; they do not properly fear God or they would never say the kinds of things they do against the Word of God. Sadly, their view of the Bible is the same as was my brother’s; pick and choose what we want to believe, and then “question” the rest when we don’t like what it says. Below you’ll hear Robertson ever so sweetly hiss how she’s takes the Bible “seriously, but not literally.”

But as I pointed out before, if you’ve ever wondered what Satan sounded like when he seduced Eve into questioning what God said, now you’ll know…

See also:

DON’T BE FOOLED BY THOSE WHO ONLY SAY THEY LOVE SCRIPTURE

MARCUS BORG AND ROB BELL: THE BIBLE IS NOT A DIVINE PRODUCT WITH DIVINE FINAL AUTHORITY?

THE EMERGING CHURCH SOWING ITS NEO-ORTHODOX CONFUSION ON SCRIPTURE

NEO-ORTHODOX APPROACH TO THE BIBLE PERFECT FIT FOR EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY

JOHN MACARTHUR: EXISTENTIAL NEO-ORTHODOXY DENIES SOLA SCRIPTURA

BOB DEWAAY: EMERGENT CHURCH ASKS “HAS GOD SAID?”

HERESCOPE: THE EMERGING CHURCH—CIRCA 1970