Apprising Ministries has been discussing something called A Covenant for Civility, e.g. in Diana Butler Bass On Chris Rosebrough, Ingrid Schlueter, And Ken Silva In Sin, where you’ll find the link to the Crosstalk radio program Bass—one of the original signers—and her friend pastor BrianMerritt took exception. The document can be traced back through Southern Baptist ecumenicist Chuck Colson and progressive Red Letter Christian Jim Wallis who tells us:

a group of Christian leaders have been praying, talking, and discerning how the churches might lead by example to help create a more civil and moral tone in our national politics. We have confessed that, too often, Christians have merely reflected the political divisions in the body politic instead of trying to heal them in the body of Christ.

People of faith from all our religious traditions could help create much-needed safe, civil, and even sacred spaces for better public discourse at this critical moment in our nation’s history. What has come from our prayerful discernment is “A Covenant for Civility: Come Let Us Reason Together.” (Online source)

What needs to be understood here is signers such as Wallis, progressive Christian historian Diana Butler Bass, and Emerging Church guru Brian McLaren, all adhere to the “big tent” version of Progressive Christianity [read: universalism] still being cobbled together by McLaren’s friends like uber-liberal Harvey Cox along with his friend panentheist progressive/liberal theologian Dr. Philip Clayton. I’ve told you before that this is what McLaren has now begun laying out systematically in his new book A New Kind of Christianity through the answers to the “10 questions that are transforming the faith.”

As I explained in the aforementioned post re. Bass is saying people like myself, who refuse to accept this postmodern upgrade to Liberalism 2.0 as Christian theology, are in sin. I told you that this new form of liberal/progressive pseudo-Christianity retains the same basic idea of universalism, with a Father/Motherhood of God and the Brother/Sisterhood of Man forming a Global Family, but also incorporates e.g. things like panentheism, emergence theory, neo-Gnostic mysticism, and integral theory. This is why we simply cannot unite with people like this who are raping the Christian faith.

I also documented for you that such as these have now created a such a “missional” shift in the Christian faith so broad that even a pantheistic mystic like Deepak Chopra can sign onto this supposedly resurrected new global Christianity. And as such, it’s now safe to say they’ve clearly departed from anything even remotely resembling the historic, orthodox, Christian faith. Against this backdrop I’ll tell you that over at his My Word Like Fire blog my friend John Lanagan is reporting Assemblies of God General Superintendent requests name be removed from “Covenant for Civility”.

Lanagan explains:

In late March, the Covenant for Civility was made public with great fanfare. Spearheaded by progressive Jim Wallis, the document featured the signatures of 114 leading members of the religious community.

According to CNN, those who signed are “from a broad swath of Christian Traditions, including the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, a major Pentecostal organization.”

The covenant calls for an end to bitter debate and rancor, and urges kindness and respect when dealing with one another. However, the covenant now has a prominent defector, with others certain to follow. Dr. George O. Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, has asked that his signature be removed from the agreement.

In his email to me, Superintendent Wood has stated, “I have put in a request to NAE (National Association of Evangelicals) for my name to be withdrawn as a signatory… (Online source, bold his)

You can read the rest of John Lanagan’s short post right here.

See also:

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

THE PROGRESSIVE RESURRECTION OF ROB BELL

 THE EMERGING CHURCH AND THE NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY ON OTHER RELIGIONS 

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND THE NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY ON CHRIST

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN