…knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:20-21, ESV)

Putting The Bible On Trial Awaiting Execution

Apprising Ministries has been warning you e.g. in posts such as Will Rob Bell Jump Now? that men like heretical quasi-universalist Emergence Christianity pastor Doug Pagitt, along with his partner in spiritual crime—his equally heretical “theologian in residence” Tony Jones, are absolutely not simply stating the biblical Christian faith in a way understandable to today’s postmodern generation.

No; what Pagitt, his friend Rob Bell, and others in the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church that morphed into the Emergence Christianity (EC) de-formation of Christianity—i.e. Liberalism 2.0—are doing is emptying evangelical Christian terminology of its original meaning. It’s then reinterpreted along the lines of so-called  “Progressive Christianity” and carefully repacked into each shell of evangelical wording.

Case in point is when Jones tweets yesterday:

New Blog Post: Liberals Are Non-Biblical and Ahistorical? Not So Fast… http://ow.ly/16j5iK (Online source)

The link take us to his short post Liberals Are Non-Biblical and Ahistorical? Not So Fast…, which you see by the title is already set up as a straw man by Tony Jones, because no one is saying that liberals do not take the Bible “seriously”—their word—or that they care nothing for history. Sadly this past year, in my view, it really seems Jones’ work has deteriorated quite a bit; and for someone who’s supposed to be a cutting edge theologian, I often find his reasoning process becoming increasingly shallow.

No doubt Jones has had his distractions; and indeed, currently there is Emergent Pain And Discord In The Emerging Church. That aside for now, Jones’ piece is essentially him using “Mark Jordan, professor of divinity at Harvard Divinity School,” whom he tells us “writes at Religion Dispatches,” to try and advance the current EC agenda pushing that the unrepentant practice of sexual relations with members of the same sex i.e. homosexuality is a viable lifestyle for the Christian.

It’s also important to note here that this is also a position which Tony Jones, and his good friend Jay Bakker, also hold personally. However, what we see as Jones shares his view through the words of Mark Jordan, is highly subjective existentialism and begging the question. Jones tells us that Mark Jordan has written a piece concerning how he “has answered journalists’ questions when they call him for a quote about sexuality issues in the church.”

Jones then points out:

He [Jordan] often found the journalists to be dumbfounded because, even though the journalists might be progressive themselves, they had, to a man, bought the conservative line that the conservative version was the authoritative version of the biblical narrative.  He would say,

“I support ordaining openly lesbian and gay candidates because that’s where I’m led when I study scripture and pray.” (Online source)

Jordan tells us he’s “led when I study scripture and pray” to “support openly lesbian and gay” people; ok, so now I’ll turn around and inform Tony Jones that I’m led when I study Scripture and pray to vehemently oppose such as these who would dare defy what God has most clearly said in the Bible. Jones should know that subjective arguments prove nothing. Jordan and Jones also speak of “the conservative line that the conservative version was the authoritative version of the biblical narrative.”

No, this “authoritative version” would be what Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989) would so often refer to as the historic orthodox Christian faith. And why is this version wrong; well, because liberal/progressives like Tony Jones say it’s wrong; that’s why. But this is simply the same kind of tired old circular reasoning that’s been used by unbelieving “Christian” posers like Living Spiritual Teacher and “Progessive Christian” scholar Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong for years now.

I’m hardly a fan of white-washed tombs like Spong, but I respect his at least being honest intellectly when John Shelby Spong Admits Homosexuality Is Condemned In Scripture:

Spong: But let me say that I do not disagree that homosexuality is condemned in Scripture. I do not agree with that.

Ankerberg: Yes, you’ve said that before.

Spong: I think that is obvious. It’s in Leviticus; it’s in the Sodom and Gomorrah story; it’s in the Pauline  corpus at least, and probably some other places…

Ankerberg: All right, we’re…

Spong: The issue in my mind is not that. The issue is whether or not the people who lived at the time of the Bible and who wrote about homosexuality understood the scientific meaning of homosexuality. (Spong/Martin Debate on Sexual Ethics, transcript 9, 10, emphasis mine)

As I said before in Don’t Be Fooled By Those Who Only Say They Love Scripture as this Emerging/ent/ence Church rebellion against Sola Scriptura gains strength within mainstream evangelicalism, and it will only continue, you are going to have learn to listen closely to what people say concerning their position on the Bible. For such as these, their own reasoning rules their view of God’s Word. At best we’re dealing with a hyper version of the neo-orthodox approach to the Bible.

This is a major reason why corrupt Counter Reformation Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism gleaned from apostate Roman Catholicism, and repackaged by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, was a core doctrine of the Emerging Church. What this CSM masquerading as a spurious Spiritual Formation serves to do is short out the hard drive of critical thinking skills and leaves one feeling free to sit in judgement of the Scriptures. In other words, each individual seeks for what they think God is saying to them personally.

But the proper hermeneutic is correctly pointed out by Lutheran scholar Gerhard Forde in his The Normative Character of Scripture for Matters Faith and Life: Human Sexuality in Light Romans 1:16-32 when he writes “scripture exegetes us rather then vice versa”; the whole point being, we are not “to take up the role of defense attorney for the hearer against the text” of the Bible. And yet, this is precisely what men like Tony Jones are doing, in what appears to me to be the height of arrogance.

Imagine, as mere corrupt and sinful human beings they presume to judge the infinite Word of God with finite reasoning; instead of humbly letting the Scripture judge us.

See also:

TONY JONES AND COURTNEY PERRY ET AL

TONY JONES: STOP PERFORMING (LEGAL) MARRIAGES!

SACRED WAY OF TONY JONES AND THE EMERGING CHURCH 

ANDREW MARIN AND TONY JONES

HOMOPRESSIVE AS JAY BAKKER

JESUS DEFINES MARRIAGE FOR RED LETTER CHRISTIANS

THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY IS DIFFERENT