EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY—A POSTLIBERAL CULT SLITHERS INTO EVANGELICALISM

By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jul 22, 2009 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Devotions, Emergence Christianity, Emergent Church, Features

In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:12)

But Must You Be So Blunt In What You Say?

Now I readily acknowledge there are those who have taken serious exception to my calling the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—morphing into Emergence Christianity (EC)—a postliberal cult. However, I stand by this assessment from years of personal study of EC teachings, as well as dialoguing with many within it; just the same as I once did with the non-Christian cult of Mormonism.

The EC has largely succeeded in knocking out the pillar of Sola Scriptura, which is leading to the widespread acceptance of Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster. Foster, who was a key mentor of the EC, “mentoring” it in a spurious Spiritual Formation along with his dutiful disciple and spiritual twin Dallas Willard. You need to understand that Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), with its alleged inner transformation [read: existentialism], was a core doctrine from its inception.

Herescope is currently doing a very in-depth series called The Emerging Church—Circa 1970 where you’ll see why the EC had to topple Sola Scriptura to bring in its reimagined so-called “Christian” mysticism. And you can see for yourself in Richard Foster Forming Protestant Southern Baptist Convention Spirituality just how far this foolishness is now spreading within the heart of mainstream “Protestant” evangelical community.

But what’s critical to understand here is that, as a Quaker, Richard Foster adheres to the dead wrong teaching of mystic Quaker founder George Fox of an alleged Inner Light supposedly already within in all men. This is what the CSM blather about some so-called “true self” is all about; in fact, for many it’s a reimagined version of the teaching of classic mysticism of “the divine spark”—allegedly of God—within all of mankind.

AM debunks this in The Real Truth About Your “True Self” and Understanding The New Spirituality: God Indwells Mankind. As more and more succomb to this wrong understanding of the Fall and the true nature of unregenerate man they end up with a compromised message concerning Jesus. It becomes so focused on pleasing the people they are preaching to that men like these have ended up with a mystic god of unconditional love with a man-shaped hole in his heart.

But This Is What We Feel God Is Saying To Our Hearts

However, if one takes this EC theology to its logical conclusion you’ll see why we would have no real need for missions or for true evangelism at all. So now can you figure out who is actually behind this kind of false teaching? And you’ll need to know that if you are going to stand for the absolute Truth of the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ today, then you are going to have to be willing to come into conflict with these core teachings of the postliberal cult of the EC.

As a matter of fact the battle is very similar to that fought by men like J. Gresham Machen who had to come into conflict with the original Cult of Liberal Theology, which would go on to spiritually poison the mainline denominations. And that’s why we now have such an influx of anti-Reformation teaching—particularly against the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible—which leads to women in the pastorate, and finally to openly practicing homosexual “Bishops” in authority over local pastorates inside what are supposed to be evangelical churches.

So is it any real wonder that we’re seeing “gay affirming EC pastors” like Jay Bakker now gaining prominence e.g. Jay Bakker To Speak For ELCA Gathering. Or that we’re observing Christianity 21: Emerging Voices Of A Pseudo-Christian Faith put on by Tony Jones and his pastor Doug Pagitt, which also features a couple of other Sola Scriptura-rejecting EC “pastors” Nanette Sawyer, prominent in the PCUSA for advancing homosexuality, and the “queer inclusive” Nadia Bolz-Weber.

All you need to do to see this plainly is to take a look at what liberal theology did to mainline denominations like the Episcopal Church, the Congregational Church and the Methodist Church. If the Lord tarries we are going to witness this same domino effect happen within the mainstream evangelical community as well, and in this generation we are going to have to come to grips with this neo-liberalism (i.e. a postliberalism), which has already come slithering into major evangelical denominations e.g. the SBC (Slowly Becoming Catholic) and the AoG.

Men and women, the most important issue before us is that once you punch out the absolute and final authority of what God has unambiguously said in the Bible, then cardinal doctrines of the historic orthodox Christian faith will all, eventually, topple one by one. And if we aren’t willing to come into conflict soon; inevitably, each of these great doctrines will tumble until all that will be left is but a very hollow shell of the glorious Gospel that gallant Christian soldiers marched onward—the Cross of Jesus going on before—to proclaim unashamedly to this lost world.

EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY—A POSTLIBERAL CULT SLITHERS INTO EVANGELICALISM

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