It pains me to share this kind of squalid compromise with you here at Apprising Ministries, but anyone who loves Jesus and His Church, and has any amount of discernment can’t help but see the drift within the evangelical community into a New Downgrade. As the murky mist of postmodernism covers more and more of the world, who could possibly deny that many in the church visible have lost the fear of God right before our very eyes. Truly we are witnessing a falling away that’s taking place in our midst as apostasy continues to spread stupefying large sections of Christianity.

Then we add the current fad of corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), with its crown jewel—a transcendental meditation-lite while in an altered state of consciousness referred to as Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP), and as I just said in Meditation In Altered States Of Consciousness As Transformation ForA Global Family, you know that we now have a recipe for spiritual disaster. You’d best wake up to the fact that neo-Gnostics are pushing their TM-lite CCP because they know that there’s a very real, and quite literal, “transformation” which occurs through its prolonged practice.

For years now under the guise of so-called Spiritual Formation this CSM, as perpetrated by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster along with his spiritual twin and Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard, has been used to muddy the waters within mainstream evangelical Young Adult and Youth ministries. But, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, for CSM to flourish it simply must kick out the proper Christian spirituality of sola Scriptura in favor of highly subjective i.e. existential experiences one “feels” are from God.

If you want a perfect picture of the fetid fruit of this love of the self you need only look at the mainline pretending to be Protestant denominations, which have been mortally wounded by the spiritually prurient practice of CSM. Generally, from the beginning of its use circa 1960’s, the progression downhill in the mainline went something like this: CSM immediately lead to ecumenicism, which brings with it acceptance that the Roman Catholic Church is simply another “Christian faith tradition”; next the ordination of women pastors, questioning the doctrine of hell, inclusiveness—particularly of LGBTpeople—and then the ordination of practicing homosexuals.

You should recognize the same trend happening within the mainstream of the visble church right now; as you see, circa 1997 the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church was used as a Trojan Horse to unload the musings of people like the unholy trinity of EC apostates, Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, and his friend Tony Jones—the progressive/liberal “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch, into Young Adult and Youth Groups at your local evangelical churches, many of which already unbiblically ordained women as pastors.

Consider the latest Love Wins mythology of  EC rock star pastor Rob Bell and hell. Remember, a core doctrine of the EC from its evil inception was to introduce CSM into the heart of the church visible; and vile vipers like Tony Jones have been actively advancing the notoriety of such gay affirming “pastors” as Nadia Bolz-Weber and Jay Bakker. I’ve told you, e.g. in Jay Bakker Critiques Ken Silva At Religion Dispatches, that Bakker heads up a rather rapscallion, and largely Biblically illiterate, bunch in the Emergent Church who’ve crowned themselves Outlaw Preachers. He happens to be tip of the spear for the pro-gay agenda of the EC they’re already advancing within mainstream evangelicalism.

Bakker’s brood et al are working feverishly to convince your young evangelicals that the deviant and sinful lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex, i.e homosexuality, is a viable one for the regenerated Christian. I suggest that you take a look at how those with such warped views concerning proper sexuality are, even now, viciously tearing apart and dividing the mainline denominations; and if you don’t think this will happen within the broader mainstream, then here I would admonish you in the Lord to seriously think again: Doug Pagitt And His Solomon’s Porch Affirm Homosexual Sin.

In fact, if you’re truly brave enough, then go ahead and poll the Young Adult and Youth Groups at your own local evangelical church; because if you do, then likely you’ll see first hand just how far the above progression has already advanced within these groups after years of their being used as spiritual guinea pigs trying out “alternative worship practices” [read: the Emerging Church]. Well, not trusting the Lord to add to His Church His way; the lust for numbers, and turning away from the all-sufficiency of Holy Scripture to the Church Growth Movement—and its various forms of bankrupt pragmatism—has come with a cost.

With this proper perspective in mind then, as a former Roman Catholic whom in His mercy and grace the Lord delivered from its spiritual bondage into the glorious liberty of the sons of God—and this through absolutely zero effort or seeking Him on my part—I now bring your attention to this bit of nauseating entente cordiale US Episcopal parish to join Catholic Church:

A Maryland Episcopal parish will be the first in the United States to join the Roman Catholic Church under a new streamlined conversion process created by Pope Benedict XVI, leaders of both church groups said Monday. St. Luke’s Episcopal parish in Bladensburg will come under the care of Washington Catholic Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who is forming a U.S. ordinariate — effectively a national diocese — for Episcopalians converting under the pope’s plan.

Washington Episcopal Bishop John Chane, a leading liberal in his denomination, said Monday that he approved St. Luke’s decision and will allow the congregation to continue worshipping in their church under a lease with an option to buy the building. Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 issued an unprecedented invitation for Anglicans to become Catholic while retaining some Anglican liturgical heritage.

Anglicans worldwide have been on the brink of schism over how to interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships, ordaining women and other issues. Critics accused the pope of poaching converts, but the Vatican said Benedict was only responding to requests from Anglicans. (Online source)

Patronizing Pope Benedict aside, note carefully what the reasons were that would lead this apostatizing Episcopal community—it’s now officially ceased to be an actual church—to now join with the Church of Rome preaching its false gospel of Roman Catholicism: How to interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships, ordaining women and other issues. Mainstream evangelicalism, meet thy future; I’m sorry to tell you, but there are many prominent names within the Emerging Church who have already infiltrated evangelical institutions, which is why you’re seeing their corrupt Bibliology already affecting the younger sectors of evangelicalism.

You see many of these being infected are not old enough, or informed enough, to realize that they are being fed the same theological poison once dispensed to dying mainline denominations by modern theology aka liberalism; the fact is, an upgraded Emerging Church 2.0 has now reshaped it into its “big tent” postmodern Progressive Christianity, which is also referred to be these rebels against the authority of God’s Word as Emergence Christianity. It’s actually a newer form of progressive/liberal theology where all mankind supposedly has a “spark of the divine” within them; and since everybody’s already saved, the mission of the church becomes social reform.

So, because the social gospel is really all that’s left for those deluded by liberalism and/or Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism, the return home to Rome—which Dr. John MacArthur rightly referred to as Satan’s best front for the Kingdom of God—is merely their inevitable next step.

See also:

THE HOLY AND CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

HAS THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH REALLY CHANGED?

THE DECEIVERS OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM