Apprising Ministries draws your attention to Is the meaning of Easter being lost? by Kate Shellnutt of the Houston Chronicle where she reminds us of a couple of sad facts. Unfortunately however, Shellnutt is right when she says:

Just as Christmas for many has become less about the miracle of the virgin birth, Easter may be losing its connection to the resurrection. Fewer than half of Americans mentioned Jesus’ death and resurrection when asked about the significance of Easter, according to a survey released last month by Christian researchers the Barna Group. (Online source)

Shellnutt correctly points out that Easter “is meant to be the central celebration of the church”; however, according to “some local Christian leaders” for a growing amount of “con-temporary churchgoers” it’s become “safer” to wrest “Easter from the biblical narrative of the resurrection or seeing it in symbolic terms” in their version of  “Christianity.” Which is a large part of the problem in this day of pouty postmodern me-ism: Despite the need so many feel to be inclusive today, the fact remains, we don’t have Christianities; there is only Christianity.

One of these “local Christian leaders” Shellnutt refers to is “Jeremy Wilkins, assistant professor of systematic theology at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston.” He tells us, “Jesus is very challenging. To encounter him is existentially challenging. It can be scary and uncomfortable,” because says Wilkins, “There is a strong pressure in our culture to reinterpret (the resurrection) or explain it or not to deal with it as the mighty and miraculous thing that it was.” Which is precisely why we must preach what the text of the Bible says and then leave the results to God.

And then in addtion to seminaries such as St. Mary’s, which teach apostate Roman Catholicism, of course we also have the progressive/liberal theologians who want to “rethink” [read: reinterpret] the Christian faith altogether. Shellnutt tells us that “the History Channel,” as usual, “aired The Real Face of Jesus, a documentary about the Shroud of Turin, thought to be Christ’s burial shroud.” PBS will also usually air a program or two concerning Jesus as well; however, the “experts” and scholars on those types of programs are almost always in line e.g. with Living Spiritual Teacher and Progressive Christian Dr. Marcus Borg.

Without a doubt Dr. Borg is a qualified scholar; what he is not, however, is a Christian. Dr. Gary Moore, who’s with the SBC megachurch Second Baptist of Dr. Ed Young, points out in Shellnutt’s piece:

“The skeptical mind is always going to try to find a physical, a psychological, an other-than-spiritual reason for the truth of the resurrection,” said Gary Moore, spokesman for Second Baptist Church. (Online source)

However, Shellnutt is misleading when she goes on to say that “within Christianity, there’s a spectrum of belief on who Jesus was and what the resurrection means.” No, there are people claiming to be Christian, for example Marcus Borg, and yet who deny e.g. the full Deity of Jesus Christ; sadly, they remain unsaved i.e. not Christian (e.g. see—John 8:24). And to no one’s surprise the heretical Emerging Church guru Brian McLaren shows up sowing his division within the visible church (hint: that’s a bad thing) as Shellnutt says:

Among young American evangelicals, a growing contrarian viewpoint holds that Jesus isn’t the only path to salvation and non-Christians can go to heaven. Brian D. McLaren presents a reconsideration of the Gospel in his recently released book A New Kind of Christianity. (Online source)

Because of the finished work on the Cross by Jesus Christ, and His glorious Bodily resurrection from the dead, Easter is when we contemplate the new life we receive through God’s glorious Gospel. Because of Him we receive repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name; by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and though we were dead spiritually we are regenerated i.e. made alive by God the Holy Spirit. That’s the Gospel believed, and preached, by evangelical Christians. McLaren and his young ilk are welcome to their “contrarian viewpoint,” but it is neither evangelical, or Christian.

In fact in Philip Clayton And His Transforming Theology I told you that McLaren’s friend Dr. Philip Clayton has been working to cobble together the finer theological points of the new version of Progressive Christianity—Liberalism 2.0—that McLaren is advancing in his new book. As part of his work Clayton brought together “leading denominational leaders from progressive churches” which he tells us consisted of “the American Baptist Church on the one side to Unitarians on the other side” coming together “to talk about transforming theology; re-linking theology and the church congregations.”

Did you catch that; this new progressive Christian theology is trying to create a “big tent” under which we’ll have people like Marcus Borg, who deny the Deity of Christ Jesus, right alongside non-Christian cults like Unitarian Universalists who, in addition to rejecting the Deity of Christ also deny the triune nature of God i.e. Who He is. Important to keep in mind as we read Shellnutt tell us that the Resurrection is thought as merely a “metaphor” by:

Unitarian Universalists and more liberal congregations [who] emphasize the inspirational side of the Easter story, as a story of new life and the power to rise above hate and injustice. (Online source)

It’s well past time to wake up and smell the apostasy when McLaren and this Emergence Christianity mirror the above in stark contradistinction to the following from Shellnutt’s article:

“Let’s don’t try to water this down. Let’s not try to make it just an idea,” said Moore in response. “Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t stand for something else, like a metaphor. Jesus’ resurrection only represents his body, not his philosophy.” (Online source)

Dr. Moore is absolutely correct; we don’t have resurrected ghosts ala some sort of a Christian Halloween. And the glorious fact is,  we live because He lives.

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Endnotes:  

1. https://www.apprising.org/2010/03/25/philip-clayton-and-his-transforming-theology/, accessed 4/3/10.

See also:

REPORTS ABOUT THE “ATTACK” ON BRIAN MCLAREN

JESUS, RECONSIDERED: BRIAN MCLAREN AND AL MOHLER ON NPR

BRIAN MCLAREN AND HIS NEW EMERGING PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

THE EMERGING CHURCH, PHILIP CLAYTON, AND NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

CALLID KEEFE-PERRY, KEN SILVA, AND THEOLOGY AFTER GOOGLE

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN

RICHARD ROHR AND THE EMERGING CHURCH AS THE THIRD WAY