Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 10:9-11)

“Everybody’s In Who Loves A ‘Jesus’!”

Ok, being properly “missional” and tres “relevant” to this culture, I shall now speak in the celebrated celluloid language of American entertainment. Now once upon a time, in the 1992 Rob Reiner film A Few Good Men, Colonel Nathan Jessep would shout at LTJG Daniel Kaffee the now famous line: “You can’t handle the truth!” And likewise, if you do happen to be one who “can’t handle the truth,” then you will not want to read any further in this new missive.

As I pointed out in Emergence Christianity Theologian Tony Jones And His Unrepentant Homosexual Christians, a while back Tony Jones told Relevant Magazine that “we haven’t yet found that there’s anything that justifies us breaking fellowship with somebody else who loves and is trying to follow Jesus.” Later, in a phone conversation, he would tell me the very same thing when I asked him about that statement.

 In the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal of the Emerging Church aka the Emergent Church, with its new postmodern form of “big tent” Progressive Christianity sometimes referred to as Emergence Christianity (EC), everybody’s already forgiven and reconciled to their god with a man-shaped hole in its heary ala the mystic musings ala Rob Bell below: 

So this is reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody. Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross, he was reconciling “all things, in heaven and on earth, to God.” All things, everywhere.

This reality then isn’t something we make come true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality or cling to a reality of our own making.[1]

Ok; so here’s something to ponder; the following is from apparently already forgiven/reconciled and practicing Mormon Robert Millet, who in fact a high profile apologist for the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) speaking below about “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His Atonement”: 

I love the students at BYU-Hawaii and it’s just an honor for me to be asked to be here this week and particularly this morning to address you at this devotional. We have spent this year celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of the prophet Joseph Smith… If Joseph Smith had anything, he had the testimony of Jesus. He had the spirit of prophecy. Joseph Smith was steeped in and thoroughly trained in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was the focus and the center of all that he did. And I feel today that perhaps the greatest tribute I might pay on this occasion is to bear testimony myself of the person who was the center of Joseph Smith’s life, namely, the Savior.

I want to bear testimony today of the reality and the beauty and the majesty; the magnificence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His Atonement. And I want to, at the same time, bear testimony of the intimate and personal nature of that atonement, because I think both of those attitudes both of those perspectives are necessary in order for us to appreciate how powerful He is, and how much we need Him. And for us at the same time to appreciate the fact that He’s there, He’s available, He’s open to us…the atonement of Christ is infinite and eternal…the atonement is infinite and eternal because Jesus is infinite and eternal…our Lord and Savior saves and redeems all that He creates. (Online source)

So it seems that as this EC Liberalism 2.0 now takes root within evangelicalism, though once the LDS Church was considered a non-Christian cult, I guess we must now rethink/repaint the above by Robert Millet as some kind of a genuine Christian testimony. Rob Bell did just tell us that reality is “this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody,” and furthermore, it “isn’t something we make come true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true.” Actually Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, one of Bell’s mentors, is already on record that his generous orthodoxy has even expanded to include the non-Christian cult of  (the Mormons) as McLaren tells us:

“The thing that gives me hope is that there’s an attitude among Christians on the ground where so many of us are sick of the kind of debates and fights that cause Christians to vilify one another.” McLaren said even churches such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which many mainstream Christian denominations consider outside the Christian fold, should be welcomed. (Online source)

And because their soterology of this EC is universalism, when the Mormon Millet testifies he believes in “the reality and the beauty and the majesty; the magnificence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His Atonement,” they have to accept he has just told you that he believes Jesus is Lord, and further, that He was raised from the dead. This means Millet is saved; he’s now our Christian brother, right? And it really shouldn’t matter that Millet tells us in his A Different Jesus? The Christ of the Latter-day Saints (ADJ) he also believes that, “Jesus was the firstborn spirit child of God the Father.”[2] This is a definitive denial of the eternal Deity of Christ; but after-all, he “loves and is trying to follow Jesus” too, so according to EC progressive/liberal Tony Jones, they really have no justification in breaking fellowship with the supposedly reconciled Mormon Millet. 

Not good enough for you? Ok, so how about Millet’s friend Dr. Richard Mouw; president of Fuller Theological Cemetery Seminary, who says in the Afterword of Millet’s ADJ:

I think that an open-minded Christian reader of this book will sense that Bob Millet is in fact trusting in the Jesus of the Bible for his salvation. That is certainly my sense.[3]

Hmm, that’s Mouw’s “sense”; an interesting choice of words. In the Apprising Ministries piece Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up?, I adapted an idea from James Walker of the online discernment ministry Watchman Fellowship, and had the “Jesus” of several major cults/religions introduce themselves as if they were to appear on the old TV show To Tell the Truth. Following is the “Jesus”, that Millet “loves” and Mouw just said “an open-minded Christian” would “sense” is “the Jesus of the Bible”, as he introduces himself to you:

I am the Jesus Christ of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). My original Church went through a total apostasy and I took the Priesthood from the earth. In 1820 by one account—as there are nine different accounts—I appeared with Heavenly Father to Joseph Smith who would be the prophet to restore my Church. I told him that everything the historic Christian Church had taught was an abomination in my sight and that all who believe in those doctrines are corrupt. I am the spirit child who was born first to Heavenly Father, whose name is Elohim, and who has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.

Elohim was once a man who lived on the planet Kolob. He died and was resurrected by his father—after earning his way to godhood—as did his father before him and on back. Heavenly Father pro-created all of us through sexual relations with one of his celestial wives and we are all his spirit children. I was born first; next was Lucifer, and then on down the line comes you. When the head of the gods—of which there are countless numbers—called a council of the gods I came up with a better plan of salvation than my brother Lucifer did. So I became the Savior for Heavenly Father’s children on earth. I was conceived for my earthly mission when Heavenly Father came down and had sexual relations with his daughter the Virgin Mary.

I sweat great drops of blood for your sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then on the cross I finished my work; and because of that atonement, all persons on this earth are going to be resurrected. And so now you have a chance to earn your way to becoming a god just like me by working the Gospel Principles taught by the Mormon Church. But be careful because my blood was not sufficient to cover some of your sins my prophet Brigham Young once taught for me. He said, “There’s not a man or woman who violates the covenant made with their God that will not be required to pay that debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out. [And y]our own blood must atone for it.”

For those not familiar with the “Jesus” of the Mormon Church that might have come as a bit of a shock to you. However, considering what Jones, Bell—both with M.Div degrees from Fuller—and Mouw have said above, upon what basis can this Emergence evangelical Christianity then arbitrarily exclude Mormons from their fickle fellowship of supposed Christ-followers? A silly example you say? Um, sort of; but not really. The fact is, I used it to more fully illustrate the absurdity of something Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren, who has a Doctor of Ministry from Fuller, also told Christian Post last year along this very same line.

Sending Out A Call From Reality; “Evangelicalism, We Have A Problem”

But now that evanjellyfish jettisoned Sola Scriptura for its god with a man-shaped hole in his heart, exactly where/how will the new “Love Train” of all-inclusive evangelicalism—which has largely even reversed the Lord’s Reformation—draw any boundaries? For example, when Warren, one of the most influential pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention—the largest *cough* Protestant denomination in the US—was at the spiritual blackhole called the Washington National Cathedral he pontificated “that mainline churches need to reconcile with evangelicals to counter its mounting problem of membership decline.”[4]

Welcome to the postmodern Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language where words mean whatever a person wants them to mean. O, and by the way, “mainline churches” refers to those sicky-sweet centered on the self social clubs (cf. 2 Timothy 3:2) who long ago embraced the “modern theology” of what Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989), a foremost authority on religious cults having their origin in America, called “the cult of liberal theology.” Circa 1985 Martin, himself a Southern Baptist, would also point out that this cult of liberalism only denies all of the Creeds of Christendom: 

Let me tell you something that I have learned; I know the liberals. I know them well; I was one of them. And they are the most dangerous, insidious, and all-pervading cult that’s loose in the United States right at this moment. They make the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Mormons, and all of the Mind Sciences, and the Occult, look like Sunday School teachers. Do you know why? Because these other people are outside the Church; and these devils are in it! And they’re doing it in Jesus’ Name.

They do not believe the Trinity; they do not believe the Deity of Christ; they do not believe the Virgin Birth; they do not believe the vicarious atonement; they do not believe the Bodily resurrection, and they have grave doubts about whether Jesus will ever come back again, and that the Bible is itself the Word of God. Yet I could give you a list of them that infest—and that’s the proper word—infest our theological seminaries; and our church related schools, and our denominations.

And this theological flea infestation is ruining the lifeblood of the Church, which is evangelism. And, you think these are very strong statements; I intend to back them up in—if necessary—excruciating detail. For any person who does not know that today in the United States,  and in denominational structures world-around, we are in an accelerating apostasy does not know—I repeat—does not know what’s going on. (The Cult of Liberalism, CD Rom, available from Walter Martin Religious InfoNet)

Yet you’ll find this exact same spiritually bankrupt theology today being espoused e.g. by Marcus Borg, who calls himself a “non-exclusive” and “progressive Christian.” Ah, but no big deal to PDL Pope Rick Warren; silly ancient Christians and their stupid Creeds inhibiting “church” growth. How dare they; what were they thinking?! You’ll recall that Warren himself is already on record as declaring, “I see absolutely zero reason in separating my fellowship from anybody.”[5] Then CP tells us that “America’s pastor” Warren would also decree:

“The reconciliation is that in a pluralistic world…we (Christians) need to be on the same team because we share the same savior,” Warren contended Sunday, as he spoke with the dean of the Washington National Cathedral, Samuel T. Lloyd III,… During the Cathedral’s weekly Sunday Forum: Critical Issues in the Light of Faith, Lloyd asked Warren how mainlines should tackle the problem.

“100 years ago the phrase ‘social gospel’ first came out,” Warren responded. “Some people took that to mean only if we reform the social government and society and not personal faith in Christ Jesus – that is, if we make the world a better place – we don’t need personal redemption.” That idea led to mainline churches going “one way” and evangelical churches another way, he said. (Online source)

Wha? We “share the same savior”; apparently Warren’s also in agreement with the salvation by osmosis opined by Rob Bell above. Well, leaving aside Warren’s seemingly woeful misunderstanding of what actually separated genuine Christians from this liberal/progressive cult of wolves in sheep’s clothing—hint 2 Corinthians 11:4—I’ll close this, for now, by letting the liberal/progessive “Jesus” introduce himself to you. And I will also tell you that from where I stand, he’s every bit as much a phantom as Millet’s Mormon “savior.”  So, for those who still have some semblance of critical thinking skills left, I would suggest that you really ought to spend some quality time meditating upon just how it is that someone who doesn’t even exist could ever actually save anybody from anything: 

I am the Jesus of today’s liberal/progessive theology of inclusive, politically correct, universalism. I am only a human man. I was not born of a virgin, nor did I actually rise from the dead. Unfortunately as a Jewish rabbi, I attracted such devoted followers that even after my death they wanted to keep my spirit alive, so to speak. And so they went and built this elaborate mythical theology around me, which is largely based on the writings of that rascal Paul. Sadly, they ended up making me into a god.

I taught that the most important thing we can do is to love one another. You see, that’s all that matters because we are the brotherhood of man. No one should ever criticize what another person honestly believes about God. After-all, we are all God’s children. And even though we may take different paths of religion in this life, as all religions please God if they are sincere, in the end we’ll all be with God because everyone is going to be saved. Man is too good to be condemned and God is too good to condemn him. As long as you love one another it really doesn’t matter to God what you believe about him. He’s just delighted if you believe in him.

And so, “don’t worry; be happy.” You need to feel good about yourself. Every religion reserves a place for me as I’m the most popular Jesus because I’m not going to make any demands of you. The only choice believing in me requires that if you are going to follow my teachings you will have to look at the Bible as being the same as all the other religious literature. You don’t really need to be any more concerned with the Bible than you would be with any other religious teachings. Although it does teach some truth about God, the Bible isn’t any more important that any of the other holy books of other cultures. I teach that all of them contain a way to God and that all religions eventually lead back to God; so, I’m not exactly clear on why I had to go to the cross.

Remind me again, when was universalsim part of the historic orthodox Christian faith?

________________________________________________________________________________
Endnotes:

[1] Rob Bell Velvet Elvis – Rethinking the Christian Faith [Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 2005], 146, emphasis mine.

[2] Robert L. Millet, A Different Jesus?: The Christ Of The Latter-day Saints [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005], 20.

[3] Ibid., 183.

[4] http://tiny.cc/sy6l2, accessed 1/20/11.

[5] http://tiny.cc/9m5eh, accessed 1/20/11.

See also:

BRIAN MCLAREN SPEAKS AS A UNIVERSALIST

TOXIC THEOLOGY OF DOUG PAGITT

FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PROFESSOR TONY JONES AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY COHORT

EMERGING CHURCH AND PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

PHILIP CLAYTON WITH “BIG TENT” CHRISTIANITY IN THE EMERGING CHURCH

THE EMERGING CHURCH IS UNAWARE IT’S DEAD