Thus says the LORD:”Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ I set watchmen over you, saying, ’Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not pay attention.’” (Jeremiah 6:16-17)

There’s No Such Thing As Being Just A Little Bit Pregnant

Apprising Ministries has been maintaining that Mainstream Evangelicalism Is Now On The Rapid Slide To Apostasy because of its ongoing embrace of the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church with its postmodern Progressive Christian theology, which these rebels against the final authority of the Word of God will often refer to under their silly circus “big tent” as Emergence Christianity.

I’ve told you before that this EC was actually a Trojan Horse containing a full-on semi-pelagian (at best) rebellion against sola Scriptura designed to unload its highly subjective Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) ala Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin Dallas Willard. You can follow some of the corrupting results of this spurious CSM in Contemplative Spirituality Growing Within Mainstream Evangelicalism.

One sad effect is EC heroes e.g. Rob Bell opening the door to the mainstream of the visible church for unbelievers like Living Spiritual Teacher and Progessive Christian scholar Marcus Borg. What’s important to note here is that this so-called “Progressive Christianity” Is Neither Progressive Or Christian. No, it’s really just old liberal aka modern theology in some hipper clothes; and this EC cult is itself simply a re-interpreted version of liberal theology, a postmodern theology as an upgraded Liberalism 2.0.

This is critical to understand as we approach the subject of a pet EC issue, affirming that a lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex, i.e homosexuality, is also a viable one for the Christian. In other words, they’re saying that those in so-called monagamous, and supposedly life-long, relationships with their same-sex partner are not in sin. Now you understand their almost maniacal push for same-sex marriage.

And no doubt these wolves in sheep’s clothing will surely try and get you to focus upon how nice and thick their wool coats appear; but if you can’t recognize the difference between fleece and fur, then you’re in grave danger of losing your spiritual life to these fools. Snakes who are arrogant enough with their Humpty Dumpty language to defy the Word of God by emptying it of it’s actual meaning and then replacing it with their ear-tickling mythology (cf. 2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Being an SBC pastor, for now, I remember the battles fought in the convention to oust what the late cult-expert Dr. Walter Martin, an SBC minister himself, called the Cult of Liberal Theology. Have we so quickly forgotten that this modern theology sought to make the Christian faith relevant to its own culture? Here’s your wake-up call: The postmodern EC is attempting to do the exact same thing right now and homosexuality is one of its tentacles.

Now maybe you’ll have a better perspective upon vipers like “queer inclusive” ELCA pastrix Nadia Bolz-Weber and the ELCA And Homosexuality. Simply put, the point is this: The mainline denominations sold out to liberalism; they embraced ecumenicism, CSM, bowed to the feminist movement ordaining women—and out went the doctrine of Hell (Rob Bell) because, “I’d never send one of my children to a place like that.” Then all that was left was the ordination of homosexual clergy, which is even now viciously ripping them apart.

If you possibly think that above progression was truly a move of God, then you seriously need to have your spiritual head examined. This brings us to these self-appointed Outlaw Preachers currently Turning God’s Grace Into An Idol. This growing, largely Biblically illiterate, group of “preachers” has now sprouted up around head Outlaw, gay affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker. Interestingly enough, Bakker’s partner in spiritual crime is Khad Young.

In an earlier post Outlaw Preachers, Beer, And The Bible there’s a link to an Ann Arbor.com report where we’re told:

Khad (pronounced Chad) Young, founder of the church of sorts, calls himself an outlaw preacher. Young is the son of a Lutheran pastor, and he attended Lutheran schools his entire life. When he started college at Concordia University, he didn’t find himself “plugged in” to the activities on campus.

Inspired by Jay Bakker, son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Young set out to start a church he and his friends felt comfortable in… (Online source)

Well, here’s another example concerning how blurred doctrinal lines are becoming; Andrew Marin is the President and Founder of The Marin Foundation, author of the book Love Is An Orientation, and even through mixed signals like having both Living Spiritual Teacher and Emerging Church guru Brian McLaren—along with his good friend progressive/liberal theologian Tony Jones—listed among blogs he actually reads, Marin still has the reputation of taking a conservative evangelical view concerning homosexuality.

Yet the other day the apostate Jay Bakker would tweet:

(Online source)

Before one is tempted to play the guilt-by-association card consider the following from Marin’s blog Living in the Tension with Jay Bakker:

Our next Living in the Tension gathering…will feature Jay Bakker…[who] will be sharing about his personal journey with his parents and faith and about his recent book Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self, & Society… Jay came to an understanding of grace that revolutionized the way he saw God and others and proceeded to become an outspoken advocate for the LGBT community… We’re excited to have Jay visit… (Online source)

Jay Bakker is tip of the spear for the Emerging Church advance of the evil pro-gay agenda within mainstream evangelicalism; and yet, the ostensibly conservative Andrew Marin is “excited” to lend his credibility to Bakker and thereby promote his horribly misguided teaching about homosexuality and grace? Al Mohler discussed Bakker’s mythology the other day in The Church and the ‘Clobber Scriptures’ — The Bible on Homosexuality.

The Same Wrong Methods Will Only Produce The Same Wrong Results

Here’s Bakker’s take:

(Online source)

Obviously, this is not at all a repentant attitude; so I wonder, why would Andrew Marin wish to advance Bakker’s fractured fairy tales and outright mockery of God’s Word? Mohler is absolutely right when he says:

In Fall to Grace, Bakker sets out his vision of Christianity…[and] what he offers is a revisionist reworking of Christianity and the Gospel that is actually just a rehash of Protestant Liberalism in the early twentieth century… In a lengthy and insightful profile of Jay Bakker, Alex Morris of New York magazine argues that Bakker has reduced Christianity to a message of forgiveness and little else. “The rest of Protestant Christianity, however, he’s basically prepared to ditch — a stance that pushes him beyond the far liberal wing of the Evangelical Christian community and into what is known as the ‘Emergent’ ministry,” Morris notes. (Online source)

Frankly, the same should also be said of the Emerging Church rock star pastor Rob Bell with his own Love Wins Mythology; Mohler then continues:

Jay Bakker holds to an evolutionary theology. In Fall to Grace, he argues that there is an evolutionary theology within the Bible and that the character of God changes from the Old Testament to the New… In the book, Bakker explains how he came to affirm homosexuality and even to perform at least one same-sex marriage. (Online source)

Bakker’s also told us that, apparently via a liver shiver of some sort, God supposedly told him personally that same sex sexual relations are not sinful, which I previously showed you in Jay Bakker Critiques Ken Silva At Religion Dispatches:

“The more I follow grace, the more I’m drawn to him [God], the more I’m willing to stand up for people being persecuted,” said Bakker. “It sounds so churchy, but I felt like God spoke to my heart and said ‘[homosexuality] is not a sin.’ ” (Online source, emphasis mine)

And finally Al Mohler brings out the heart of the matter as it concerns these emerging rebel wild goosers like Jay Bakker and Rob Bell:

Without a knowledge of our sinfulness, we do not know of our need for a Savior. In this sense, we all need to be “clobbered” by the Bible so that we will know of our need for Christ… The Bible’s condemnation of same-sex behaviors is comprehensive and clear.

It is interwoven with the Bible’s message concerning God’s plan for humanity, marriage, and society — and the Gospel. Human flourishing is found only by living in obedience to God’s revealed plan. Our rebellion against the Creator is never so insidious as when we declare that our own plan is superior to his.

When the Bible, in part or in whole, is dismissed as “clobber Scriptures,” it is not only the Bible that is subverted, but also the Gospel. The Church must recognize that fact clearly — and fast. (Online source)

In wrapping this up, for now, there’s good reason why you’ll see not a few of these outlaw posers hanging around the apostate ELCA. Although what follows from Rev. John A. Frahm III in his piece Gospel Reductionism Redux is from the Lutheran perspective it also speaks to all those who edit the Gospel to turn God’s grace into an idol. And we see they’re gaining ground e.g. in Heartland Clergy Adopt Pro-Gay Position and Affirming Christian Network, Philip Yancey, And Gay Christian Network.

The point being, all over again we’re now seeing what Frahm writes about below; only this time it’s slithering around within mainstream evangelicalism itself:

The confessional/conservative element of the Missouri Synod won the battle against liberalism, right?   Sort of.  Perhaps the proponents of the historical-critical (or higher critical) method of biblical interpretation (or criticism) are largely gone (at least from our seminaries). But some of the harmful theological currents from the 1960s and 1970s remain…

One of the most injurious theologies to arise in the LCMS during that chaotic era was called “Law-Gospel reductionism,” as named by Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, and was later shortened to “Gospel reductionism.”   Gospel reductionists declared that the Gospel rather than Scripture was the standard for doctrine and practice in the Church.   Scott R. Murray comments:

In the 1960s some theologians began to invoke Law-Gospel as the ruling or the only hermeneutical presupposition in Lutheran theology.  They adopted this hermeneutic as a replacement for the old inspiration [of Scripture] doctrine, which they had decisively abandoned in this period  [Scott R. Murray. Law, Life, and the Living God: The Third Use of the Law in Modern American Lutheranism. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002; p.103].

Part of the slippery nature of this controversy was that on the surface it sounded Lutheran — “Law and Gospel.” It also seemed to have a strong mission emphasis.  That’s good Lutheran terminology.   But that’s how it often happens when an error comes into the Church – use the standard terminology in a twisted sense [like Rome and the LWF did in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification].   This is called equivocation… (Online source, bold his)

What would happen is those disgruntled with the Missouri Synod would end up being absorbed by the ELCA and these spiritually poisonous snakes have now injected their venom into that dying body. Don’t think I’m not sympathetic; for EC vipers are right now killing the spiritually obtuse within the SBC, despite all their bluster to the contrary, and it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be coming for your local church.

Because Frahm is dead-on-target when he says:

Concern for sound doctrine is not merely a matter of being “conservative” or “liberal” (as if doctrine is on a sliding scale) or about the purity of a political ideology.  It is about truth versus falsehood, orthodoxy vs. heterodoxy, what creates and nurtures faith versus what destroys false and grounds it in a false object.

It is about nutritional food for the soul vs. no nutrition or even poison.  Jesus warned about the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees?  How little leaven (yeast) can radically change a lump of dough?  A rifle fired a small degree off target over a long distance can dramatically miss the target with enough time and distance.  Even the Great Commission instructs us to teach “all things” Jesus has commanded – no quickie catechesis. (Online source)

I certainly encourage you to read John Frahm’s article; but please understand, this is not merely a Lutheran issue. Once again I exhort you to carefully note below as circa 1985 the aforementioned Walter Martin laid out liberalism’s progression; because this is precisely the methodology used by this Emergent neo-liberal cult. They learned well from the deceitful spirits among their evil forebears and are right now busy spreading the same teachings of demons:

It begins with a corrupt bibliology, a corrupt view of the nature and the inspiration of Scripture. They have a corrupt theology because once you are picking and choosing from the Bible what you want, your theology has to suffer from it, because your human reason is corrupt… every major theological seminary that has turned from orthodox Christianity began with disbelief of Biblical doctrine. There wasn’t a single exception.

This corrupt Bibliology then lead them to the next step. Their theology began to be touched by it, their view of the Cross, the Virgin Birth were both immediately questioned; then came the miracles of Christ… And finally they had emptied the Gospel of all its content; they were simply using the outward shell so that they go on collecting money from the people and the churches; because they knew that if the people in the pew knew that they were apostate, they’d throw them out. So the strategy was hang on to the trust funds; hang on to the money we’ve got; hang on the properties we control, and we will gradually educate the laymen into this new approach to theology.

And then finally we will take control of everything. The gradual process of feeding you theological poison until you become immunized enough so that you don’t know what’s happening to you. And when you wake up to what’s happening to you, it’s too late they’ve got everything. That is not a baseless charge, I stand prepared to prove that the Cult of Liberal Theology in the United States has deliberately and consistently followed this methodology to entrap, control and dominate the denominations and the churches of the United States and our educational institutions.
(The Cult of Liberalism, available from Walter Martin Religious InfoNet)

The question then becomes: Why can’t evangelical leaders recognize The New Downgrade And Its Apostles Of Unbelief?

See also:

JAY BAKKER REFLECTS THE SAD CONDITION OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH

OUTLAW PREACHERS KHAD YOUNG AND JAY BAKKER DON’T LOVE ENOUGH

ROB BELL AND POSTMODERN NEO-LIBERALISM

BIG TENT CHRISTIANITY IS A POSTMODERN PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM

THE EMERGING CHURCH ON A WILD GOOSE CHASE

DOUG PAGITT AND THE EMERGING CHURCH GAY AGENDA

BUT DO EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY AND BRIAN MCLAREN REALLY LOVE GAY PEOPLE?