Apprising Ministries brings to your attention the following hard-hitting and prophetic words, circa 1986, from “the father of modern cult apologetics” Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989). No matter what you may think of some things he taught, it is simply beyond question that, in his day, Dr. Martin was a foremost defender of what he so often called “the historic, orthodox Christian faith.”

Theological poison is, right now, seeping into the veins of the mainstream evangelical camp the upgraded sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church with its postmodern Progressive Christian theology—a Liberalism 2.0—that they often refer to as “big tent” Emergence Christianity.

So if you want to know the Truth about its infiltration of orthodox seminaries and Bible colleges, who err in assuming many of their professors are the same, then read on. And if not; well then, you might have just qualified yourself to become a leader within evangelicalism:

There’s no such thing as a little bit pregnant. Got the message? No such thing as a little bit pregnant—you are, or you’re not. Well, there’s no such thing as a mild form of cancer; it’s cancer. You don’t get rid of it, you don’t deal with it, it gets you. And we have to deal with these things today; if we don’t, they’ll end up getting what’s left of the Church…

The form of godliness, but without the power; without the sound doctrine of Scripture. And what do we have today as the reigning school of [biblical] interpretation in Protestantism in our theological seminaries world-wide? I’ll tell you what it is: Bultmannian exegesis; named after Rudolph Bultmann, “the demythologizing of the Bible.”

And what did Dr. Bultmann teach, for forty-some years? He taught that you couldn’t rely upon any single thing—virtually—in the entire New Testament record; about Jesus Christ. It all had to be “demythologized,” and then the pieces put back together again. What does Paul say; “they will gather to themselves teachers who will tickle their ears, and the Truth of God will be turned into mythology.”

It’s here. The reigning school of American theologians has progressed from bad to worse. We only have to deal with Harry Emerson Fosdick in the 1920s; but then, it accelerated to Edwin Lewis, Nels F.S. Ferre, Reinhold Niebuhr, and on from Niebuhr to Paul Tillich, and crowned in Rudolph Bultmann. Not one single one of those men believed the historic doctrines of the Christian faith; but they were all the leading theologians of America.

[Episcopal] Bishop [John] A.T. Robinson cannot be unfrocked by the Anglican Church despite the fact that he is a living devil when it comes to Christian theology—denying everything and turning the faith of people into darkness. Do you know why they can’t unfrock A.T. Robertson; because [Episcopal leadership] is heretical as he is. Therefore they can’t touch him…

You can see these people in the cults and the occult if you have any degree of discernment at all because they are outside the church. But how do you see the Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian professor of theology? How do you get him in a place where you can find out his theology is? The moment you question him he reverts to orthodox terminology. And then if you press him for the definition of the terminology, he claims you’re being suspicious, bigoted, and unloving.

So the average layman is defenseless, they’ve got to take what comes from behind the pulpit, and recommended by his church authorities, because the moment he opens his mouth, he’s accused of being divisive in the church, unloving and disturbing the fellowship of the faith. When it is the devil behind the pulpit, not the victim in the pew that’s responsible for it…

British theology was corrupted by German theology; by Friedrich Schleiermacher, Albrecht Ritschl, David Strauss. Finally [it moved] to the United States in Walter Rauschenbusch; and from there to Harry Emerson Fosdick, Nels Ferre, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Rudolph Bultmann—and the school that’s emerging from them today. Where do you think we got the “God is dead theology” from? From historic Christianity; from Christian seminaries?

You did not. You got it from a good, solid Baptist theological seminary known as Colgate-Rochester in New York, which was absolutely orthodox and which sold out to liberalism. And when it did, they embraced the theology of Paul Tillich and ended up with—God is dead. It was called at the time, “the gospel of Christian atheism.” Did you ever heard such linguistic nonsense in your life? The gospel of Christian atheism, T.J. Alhizer, Emory Universtity. (The Cult of Liberalism, Walter Martin Religious InfoNet, CD Rom)

See also:

BIG TENT CIRCUS OF POSTMODERN LIBERALISM

BIG TENT PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY AS LIBERALISM 2.0

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN  

BRIAN MCLAREN AND HIS NEW EMERGING PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

THE EMERGING CHURCH, PHILIP CLAYTON, AND NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND THE NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY ON OTHER RELIGIONS 

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND THE NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY ON CHRIST