As part of our online apologetics and discernment ministry Apprising Ministries been documenting the New Downgrade within evangelicalism, the root of which roughly begins with the charismatic revival as it spreads through the Jesus People/Movement circa early 1970′s out into various denominations and into what became the Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Mission.[1]

This is the cesspool from which the new liberalism of the Church Growth Movement and its seeker-friendly/sinner-sensitive missional methodology of letting culture define the church would spring. A major arm of this diseased tree (cf. Matthew 7:15-18) is the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church—with its “big tent” Progressive Christianity aka Emergence Christianity.

Among its earler leaders in forging this psuedo-Christian religion was a spiritually libertine trio that I often refer to as the unholy EC trinity of apostates; and this would be Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, and his friend Tony Jones, who’s the progressive/liberal “theologian in residence” at Pagitt’s social gathering called Solomon’s Porch.

One of the things these Emergent neo-Gnostic snakes are busy attempting to do on their Wild Goose Chase is to convince us that their idolatrous mystic mush god with a man-shaped hole in his/her/its heart is the God of the Bible by taking us mentally off-roading into the muddy terrain of murky postmodern Humpty Dumpty language. You need to be wary of such as these because while they do use Christian terminology, it’s all been redefined. 

In fact, double-speak is really not a new tactic at all. It was used previously by their evil forebears in the original cult of liberalism. They started swallowing up church related schools and denominational leadership positions within the now mortally wounded mainline denominations; as they did liberal theologians gutted Christian terminology of its original meanings and carefully repacked it with what was known at the time as modern theology.

Next they retrained pastors to be able to teach it and then sent them out among the unsuspecting sheep to gradually feed their spiritual poison to them; inoculating them slowly so that by the time the people in the pews might wake up, it would be too late. Well guess what; this is the same methodology used by spiritually corrupt leaders within the Emerging Church, many of whom secured publishing deals within evangelicalism through Leadership Network.

What apparently many don’t yet realize is, not only did evanjellyfish lack the spiritual spine to stand up against this neo-liberal onslaught, circa 2000 it actually opened the doors to its own churches and literally brought wolves right into the sheep pens of their Young Adult ministries and Youth Groups. Now some eleven years later the younger sectors of much of evangelicalism are mortally wounded spiritually and have all but abandoned the proper spirituality of sola Scriptura.

One area you’re “soon” going to see this played out is in the arena of a growing acceptance within evangelicalism 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 first began warning you about this a year ago in articles like Doug Pagitt, The Emerging Church, And Affirming Homosexuality and Doug Pagitt And The Emerging Church Gay Agenda. 

Having been in the ministry fields of apologetics, evangelizing non-Christian cults, and Comparative Religion for some 24 years now I have already seen the argumentation currently being put forth by Emergents like Pagitt and his JoPa pal Tony Jones. However, these younger evangelicals haven’t seen them, and so, they don’t know that they’re essentially just the same old tired and long ago debunked arguments originally used by liberal theologians.

Make no mistake, this postmodern form of progressive Christianity is a Liberalism 2.0 and isn’t quite the same as old liberalism; it contains a neo-Gnostic metaphysical component that was not really present among the old guard. That said, because it begins with essentially the same corrupt Bibliology, Liberalism 2.0 lands in many of the same places as old liberalism; most particularly, as you see with the Love Wins mythology of EC rock star pastor Rob Bell, a universalism.

The thing to keep in mind is these emerging progessive neo-liberals appeal to the same arguments as their predecessors using essentially the same redefined terminology while attempting to deconstruct the historic orthodox Christian faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (cf. Jude 3). With this fresh on our minds I’ll begin to close this out, for now, by bringing you to a short post yesterday from Emergent postmodern progressive theologian Tony Jones, which he called Biblical Marriage.

Jones tells us, “Bruce Bawer at The Dish recounts the multifarious forms of  ‘marriage’ cataloged in the Bible.” He then quotes some of the passages Bawer cites in the post Jones links for us, each of which contain polygamy, and then closes by saying, “Though I haven’t read it yet, I assume this is the same trajectory in the Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire.” More on that in a moment. First, I’ve tracked the warped and toxic teachings of Tony Jones for years now.

So I’ll tell you that it’s very likely he’s hoping the book really does try and slam the marriage covenant of our Creator, which seems evident with pieces like Tony Jones: Stop Performing (Legal) Marriages. In any event, bringing the subject of polygamy into the discussion supporting same-sex marriage was a classic strategy used by liberals who eventually poisoned dying mainline denominations. Their problem is that God never ordained polygamy; He put up with it, but never sanctioned it.

And further, it doesn’t really help the pro-gay marriage position at all because nowhere in Scripture do we ever have a same-sex marriage; the polygamous marriages all involve man to woman. I’ll leave you this time by pointing out that Red Letter Christian Tony Jones no doubt has his own reasons for separating so-called “legal and sacramental marriage,” but likely it’s going to put him in conflict with other “gay affirming” ECers down the broad road.

That aside, there’s a very real reason why the Emerging/ent/ence de-formation of Christianity is so interested in the issue of same-sex marriage. For you see, once it is recognized as a legal marriage (and it’s only a matter of time) then their argument will be homosexual relations within “marriage” cannot be considered sin; to such as these, it’s considered their escape clause from the sin of sexual immorality. I just gave you another example concerning how blurred doctrinal lines are becoming over this issue.

In Jay Bakker, Homosexuality, And Gospel Reductionism I reminded you that gay affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker, who is a close friend of Tony Jones, has recently forged a friendship with Andrew Marin. If you don’t know, Marin is the President and Founder of The Marin Foundation, author of the book Love Is An Orientation. I also told you that Marin still has the reputation of taking a conservative evangelical view concerning homosexuality, despite his sending quite obviously mixed signals.

For example, like having both EC guru Brian McLaren—along with his good friend Tony Jones—listed among blogs he actually reads. You may recall that Jay Bakker, who heads up a rather repugnant bunch of self-appointed Outlaw Preachers, is tip of the spear for the Emerging Church advance of the evil pro-gay agenda within mainstream evangelicalism. Yet the ostensibly conservative Andrew Marin has told us that he’s “excited”[2] to lend his credibility to someone like Jay Bakker.

One wonders, why Marin would wish to promote Bakker, who shouldn’t be teaching a Sunday School class—let alone be considered a pastor, and his horribly misguided teachings about homosexuality and grace. The reason is,  once each state within the United States makes same-sex marriage legal, then all of these younger “evangelicals” will be completely in agreement: As I said a moment ago, sexual relations between members of the same sex within a “marriage” cannot be considered a sin by the Christian community.

While I don’t agree with all of his conclusions concerning the issue of homosexuality and the Body of Christ, Dr. Al Mohler is dead-on-target here:

There is no escaping the fact that we are living in the midst of a moral revolution. And yet, it is not the world around us that is being tested, so much as the believing church. We are about to find out just how much we believe the Gospel we so eagerly preach.
(Online source)

I tell you again, there’s a very dark and threatening same-sex storm looming just barely off the coast of your own local evangelical church; and it’s, right now, beginning to approach hurricane force.

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End Notes:

[1] http://tinyurl.com/2do9obh, accessed 7/13/11.

[2] http://tiny.cc/24sh4, accessed 7/13/11.

See also:

TONY JONES AND COURTNEY PERRY ET AL

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINNING FOR MAINSTREAM EVANGELICALISM

NOT SO GAY WRITING ON WALL OF APOSTATIZING EVANGELICALISM

JESUS DEFINES MARRIAGE FOR RED LETTER CHRISTIANS

HOMOPRESSION IS AT LEAST AS BAD AS HOMOPHOBIA

HOMOPRESSIVE AS JAY BAKKER