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 spiritual cesspool from which the new liberalism of the seeker-friendly/sinner-sensitive methodology of letting culture define the message of the church would spring.

I also told you in Philip Yancey And The Gay Christian Network and Affirming Christian Network, Philip Yancey, And Gay Christian Network that Philip Yancey, Editor at Large for Christianity Today, was“featured keynote speaker” last year at the The Mountaintop Experience by something called The Gay Christian Network:

(Online source)

More on Philip Yancey in a moment, but first, I remind you again that AM is doing what we can to alert spiritually obtuse pretending to be Protestant evangelicals to the grave dangers and deceptions of embracing the Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) perpetrated by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, along with his friend and spiritual twin SBC minister Dallas Willard, as so-called Spiritual Formation (SF). Why do I bring this up; simple, because CSM is nothing more than refried Roman Catholic mysticism with its pietism and asceticism romanticized for those who are ignorant of Church history.

With this in mind I will also tell you again, plainly, that this spurious CSM found its way into mainstream evangelicalism through its foolish embrace of the sinfully ecumenical Emergent Church aka Emerging Church, a neo-liberal cult now operating within it. The EC’s postmodern form of “big tent” Emergence Christianity is the putrid spiritual fruit of critical thinking skills-numbing CSM. As I shared before concerning Yancey, at her More Books and Things blog Carla brings us another case in point as to how far this counter-Reformation spirituality has already spread into mainstream evangelicalism.

When Yancey was asked, “Which writers most influenced your thinking about prayer,” Carla tells us he replied:

No Protestants come to mind, to be honest, so, much I have learned about prayer is from the Catholics. One book I discovered was by Mark Phibido, called, Arm Chair Mystic. Of course, if you want to go deeper, there’s Thomas Merton… (Online source)

The point here is, in Philip Yancey, again we have an alleged evangelical Protestant—and he’s hardly alone—going to apostate Roman Catholic mystics to learn about prayer. Silly Reformers, now why didn’t they think of that? Answer: They were living with the fetid fruit produced by this centered of the self spirituality and the Lord Himself moved these men to bring His Church back to His Word. In other words, this CSM is a major reason why the Protestant Reformation came about in the first place; and if you think Jesus is leading you while you practice this Counter Reformation CSM, then you seriously need to have your spiritual head examined.

Yancey is fast becoming a vivid illustration of how learning from apostate Roman Catholicism will quickly pull you away from sola Scriptura to a squishy personally feelings-oriented, i.e. sola experientia. It seems to be forgotten that the Roman Catholic Church has anathematized the actual Gospel itself. Now let’s consider the following from Dr. Gary Gilley’s review of one of Yancey’s books:

Yancey has a fundamental flaw that runs throughout all of his writings — he doesn’t always draw his thoughts and principles from Scripture. His sources are more likely to be great saints from the past (occasionally from the present), his own reasoning, and experience. He surely quotes C.S. Lewis as often as the Apostle Paul or Jesus. And while Lewis and others may offer helpful insights, their words are not authoritative. This serious flaw of not basing his concepts squarely upon the Scriptures eventually leads Yancey astray. Yancey does not know the difference between:

• Tolerance and arrogance, between grace and license (a study of I Cor 5 would be helpful to him).
• Between boldness and harshness. By Yancey’s definitions John the Baptist and Elijah would be men of “ungrace”, but God did not seem to think so.
• Ministering to sinners and condoning sinful lifestyles. Certainly Jesus loved and spent time with prostitutes, but he did so to call them to repentance, not to accept their way of living. Yancey’s method of dealing with a homosexual, who is also a church leader, may seem like grace to him, it may seem like what Jesus might do, but it is clearly out of sync with the teachings and examples of Scripture. (Online source)

Well, other than that the influence of Roman Catholic mystics haven’t really affected Yancey’s false view of God. Note that Dr. Gilley brings out the heart of the matter: “Yancey’s method of dealing with a homosexual, who is also a church leader, may seem like grace to him, it may seem like what Jesus might do, but it is clearly out of sync with the teachings and examples of Scripture.” This is also typical of those who practice and/or are influenced by CSM: Highly subjective feelings, and what someone feels the Lord seems to be saying, take precedence over the final authority of the text of the Bible, where we can know for sure what God has said.

It’s not like we don’t have the Roman Catholic Church itself, and then its ugly stepchild in the foolish mainline denominations who embraced these so-called disciplines of CSM around the same time as the charimatic renewal circa the 1960′s. Just take a look at what the evil, and very divisive, homosexual lobby is doing to the mortally wounded mainline denominations right now. It is quite literally ripping them apart. In closing this, for now, I’ll point you to the below from PhilipYancey.com: the official site. Under Homosexuality in the Q&A section we read:

(Online source)

As I showed you a while back e.g. in Doug Pagitt And The Emerging Church Gay Agenda, the EC is already making acceptance of this sin of sexual immorality for the Christian a prime hot-button issue within the church visible. I’ve also brought to your attention that tip-of-the-spear for this area of attack upon proper biblical Christianity is gay-affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker of Revolution:NYC; who’s already joined the EC elete in last year’s apostasia-palooza Big Tent Christianity: Being and Becoming the Church.

With this egregious example from uber-popular author Philip Yancey, you should be able to see that this agenda is gaining even more strength, and has already penetrated more deeply into mainstream evangelicalism—metastasizing as a spiritual cancer carried by by corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism. Here I’m warning again, people really need to understand that there’s a very dark and threatening same-sex storm—now rapidly approaching hurricane force—looming just off the coast of possibly your own local church.

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Endnotes:

[1] http://tinyurl.com/2do9obh, accessed 3/27/12.

See also:

THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY IS DIFFERENT

APPRISING MINISTRIES: SHOCKING NEW EVIDENCE JESUS CONDEMNED THE PRACTICE OF HOMOSEXUALITY

SETTING “GAY BISHOP” GENE ROBINSON STRAIGHT