This is a bit of a follow up to the Christian Research Network post Jesus Was/Is Wrong! Regular readers of Apprising Ministries may remember Adam Walker Cleaveland, 29-year-old Minister for Youth & Young Adults and self-proclaimed progressive Presbymergent, from AM pieces like Faith House Manhattan: Project Of Apostasty By Samir Selmanovic and Enough With The Bible Already; Make Way For Homosexuality In Evangelicalism.

Cleaveland actually has long been working closely with leaders within the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—morphing into Emergence Christianity (EC). Cleaveland is well known enough to even be a contributor to the recent book An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (EMH) co-edited by the dubious duo of the EC, heretical quasi-universalist pastor Doug Pagitt and his equally heretical “theologian in residence” Tony Jones.

As a matter of fact, recently at his popular EC site Pomomusings Cleaveland did “an on-going blog series called Plurality 2.0” that featured EC guru Brian McLaren and gay affirming “pastor” Nanette Sawyer, who’s supposedly one of the “most important voices for the future of Christianity” who’ll “speak into our future” in order to “shape the future of our faith” at Christianity 21 (C 21). You might also recall that C 21 is an upcoming EC event being put on by Jones and Pagitt.

Following is a specific taste of Cleaveland emerging arrogance that becomes quite emergent in his “sermon [which] was preached at Asbury United Methodist Church in Livermore, CA on September 6, 2009.” It’s called Rethinking Church: If Jesus can be wrong…, where using Mark 7:24-30, Cleaveland foolishly attempts to make a case that Jesus “was just being kind of jerky” when He dealt with the Syrophoenician woman:

it’s pretty clear why Jesus may have been needing some “Jesus time” – you know, some self-care, a little alone time. And then in walks this pagan – this Syrophoenician woman…I can almost imagine Jesus seeing her as soon as she walks in and just (BIG SIGH)… “another person…?”

But she’s desperate…her daughter is demon-possessed and she knows Jesus can help – she’s heard the stories everyone has been telling. He’s the only one. And her request isn’t unreasonable, right? He’s done this before – exorcised demons…healed children when they weren’t present…so she asks. She doesn’t know where else to turn.

And maybe he was having a bad day, we don’t really know, but Jesus replies: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” There it is. Now there are some who have tried to “tame” it down a bit – to say the type of dogs that Jesus was referring to could have been small house dogs…imagine a cute little Labradoodle puppy…now, that’s not so bad, right?

But…there isn’t really a lot of evidence for that interpretation, other than a strong desire not to make it sound like Jesus – loving and grace-filled Jesus – was just being kind of jerky. Jesus’ response – that the children should be fed first – is in reference to the fact that the Gospel was first for the Jews – but he doesn’t say she’ll “never” get the Gospel, that she’ll never have the chance for salvation: it’s more like “first things first.”

But yet she still challenges him on that – she challenges his mission. Even though Mark tells us that Jesus entered the Gentile territory to be alone – not to engage in mission – it is the woman who pushes back, who engages in a sparring match with Jesus…and wins.

Now whether Jesus initially made his statement because he really was trying to get rid of her — or because it was a roundabout way of teaching the disciples something — we’ll never know. But the woman wins their argument. Her reply back to Jesus points toward the future when the Gentiles – when ALL people – will be included in God’s plan of salvation. And Jesus knows she’s right…

And he knows he was wrong…to be there, whether he was looking for ministry opportunities or not, and to ignore this pagan woman of faith, was wrong… She comes as an outsider who has a real, deep insight into the way things SHOULD be. And so he admits he was wrong. She won the argument… (Online source)

So for Cleaveland Jesus is wrong and—much like Brian McLaren Imagining A Different God—for the EC, out goes the one true and living God of the Bible and in comes the god of Open Theism with a man-shaped hole in its heart, who’s essentially little more than a bigger version of mankind. Don’t waste your time with these mockers and false prophets of Emergence Christianity and their Emerging Church:

Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds.” (Jeremiah 14:14, NASB)

See also:

DOUG PAGITT INVITES YOU TO CHRISTIANITY 21

DID NADIA BOLZ-WEBER JUST CALL JESUS “A SCHMUCK”?

THE NEW CHRISTIANS WITH CHRISTIANITY WORTH BELIEVING—NO SOLA SCRIPTURA: YES, WOMEN PASTORS AND QUEER CHRISTIANS

APPRISING MINISTRIES WITH A PEEK AT THE COMING SOTERIOLOGY OF EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY

THERE IS NO SPIRITUAL SWITZERLAND

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINNING FOR MAINSTREAM EVANGELICALISM

EFFECT OF APPRISING MINISTRIES