But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. (2 Timothy 3:1-9, ESV)

Tony Jones Is Out Of His League With Bible-Believing Men Like Me

Yesterday here at Apprising Ministries in Tony Jones On Christianity 21 Apostasia-paloosa I reminded you that this upcoming conference of the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—morphing into Emergence Christianity (EC)—called  Christianity 21 (C21) is set to kick-off this weekend. And from the world of Twitter the EC is all a-buzz in excrement excitement.

As you probably know, this EC fantasy-fest C21 is being put on by JoPa Prodictions, the company of heretical quasi-universalist pastor Doug Pagitt, half of a most dubious duo of the EC along with his equally heretical “theologian in residence” Tony Jones. The first splash these apostates (at best) made was promoting Phyllis Tickle, the Empress of this EC back in December of last year.

Interestingly enough, a friend called me today to make me aware that I’d been mentioned by name by Jones at his blog at the interspiritual website Beliefnet. A real tactical blunder on the part of Tony Jones; you see, he’s been thoroughly warned concerning his sins against the Body of Christ, and since he’s refused to repent I’m one who feels now Jones should be treated as a pagan or a tax collector.

 Even so, it turns out that in his post What, Exactly, Is an Evangelical? (answer: not people like him) Jones shares his love for those EC “opponents” who are Bible-believing Christians:

Our theological opponents outflanked us (to the right) — first the academic types, like Al Mohler and David Dockery, then the crazies, like Ken Silva and Lighthouse Trails — and, having outflanked us, they defined us.  So now the popular definition of emergent among anyone right of center seems to be that emergent has forsaken truth, de-deified Jesus, and use pages of the Bible to line our bird cages. 

All lies, of course, but the internet noise around such things is now to loud to overcome. (Online source)

Yeah, it’s a real good thing there aren’t any who self-identify as “emergent” *cough* Tony Jones *cough* who’ve “defined” those of us, um, “crazies”; right. Talk about lies; but sadly, their “internet noise,” not to mention the rotten theology espoused by Jones and Pagitt practically dominates evangelical publishing houses, they have far greater access into the mainstream of evangelicalism than I do.

It’s amazing to me that Jones, who’s studying for a doctorate, isn’t able to reason any better than he demonstrates again in this piece. He opines:

Like many others, Rob has felt disenfranchised from the term “evangelical” because of the political activity in that name, as well as the general cultural distrust of that word, detailed in the book, unChristian (and others). (Online source)

People like Rob Bell, easily the Elvis of Emergent, as well as Jones, Pagitt et al have been trying to make “evangelical” into something else entirely i.e. preach a different gospel, which is no gospel at all. But Jones in his arrogance apparently just doesn’t see it. While even in the article by EC theologian Scot McKnight, which Jones pointed us to McKnight himself brings out:

To define “evangelical” we need to pay attention to those who have made it their life study to come to terms with this movement, and two scholars have done just that: Mark Noll in the USA and David Bebbington (The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon And Moody (History of Evangelicalism) ) in the UK.

They agree on this: an evangelical is a Christian Protestant for whom the central ideas are the leading authority of Scripture, the necessity of personal conversion, the centrality of the death of Christ on the cross as a substitutionary atonement, and the importance of a life of active following Jesus, seen in such things as Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, and deeds of compassion and justice.

That is the standard definition of evangelical. This definition summarizes those who care about getting this term accurate. (Online source, bold his)

Telling Mythical Stories Long Enough Until You End Up Believing Them Yourself

Ok; so if we now work with this above definition, it will then exclude the “Christian” Marxist so-called Red Letter Christians because they are certainly not Protestant, Scripture is not their authority—their subjective Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism is—and many hedge (at best) on the vicarious penal substitutionary atonement. But there is more to the term evangelical as well.

Earlier in Rob Bell Preaches On Twitter, where Bell shares his reimagined social gospel of “stick it to the Caesar man”—as Christian apologist Chris Rosebrough has rightly deemed it—I showed you what Phil Johnson, who’s a scholar in his own right, has written concerning the origin of evangelical:

Historically, the word evangelical first came into widespread usage along with the Protestant Reformation. William Tyndale used the expression “evangelical truth” as a synonym for the gospel. By the 18th century, the adjective was being used to describe “that school of Protestants which maintains that the essence of ‘the Gospel’ consists in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ, and denies that either good works or the sacraments have any saving efficacy” (Oxford English Dictionary).

Naturally, as Protestants, evangelicals affirmed both the formal and material principles of the Reformation (sola Scriptura and sola fide). They were also committed to the exclusivity of Christ; believing that His atoning work is the only hope of salvation for sinners. That usage of the term evangelical has been crystal clear for at least two and a half centuries.

In other words, in the historic sense of the word, when we speak of the evangelical movement, we’re speaking of those who share 1) a commitment to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture; 2) a belief in the necessity and the efficacy of Christ’s atoning work; and 3) a profound sense of urgency about getting the gospel message to the uttermost parts of the world. The simplicity of the definition is the very thing that gives clarity to the expression. There is not really much that’s vague about the historic meaning of the term evangelical. (Online source)

If guys like Tony Jones would get outside of his circle of teachers telling him what he already wants to hear (see—2 Timothy 4:3-4) then he’d know things like this. But men like Jones are narcissists who are in love with hearing themselves talk. The fact is, and the Moltmann idolatry confirms it, Jones is among those in the EC who’ve simply constructed a synthetic world-view which then blinds them:

For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. (2 Thessalonians 2:7-12)

So do yourself a favor, spend some time meditating in our opening text and the Lord will open your eyes to such as Tony Jones and their fake Christianity; you know, have nothing to do with them…

“I’m Tony Jones, and I am Christianity 21”

See also:

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

THE EMERGING CHURCH SOWING ITS NEO-ORTHODOX CONFUSION ON SCRIPTURE

ROB BELL ABSOLUTELY WRONG ABOUT SCRIPTURE

EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY—A POSTLIBERAL CULT SLITHERS INTO EVANGELICALISM

THE EMERGING CHURCH HIGHJACKING EVANGELICALISM

RECLAIMING THE BIBLE AS THE WORD OF GOD

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINNING FOR MAINSTREAM EVANGELICALISM