[Jesus] answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. “Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:13-14)

As Spiritual Blindness Grows Evangelicalism Converging With More And More Apostates

It would appear so. From my coverage here at Apprising Ministries of the Emerging Church aka the Emergent Church, and its postmodern liberalism they refer to as Emergence Christianity, a few years ago I could see I’d need to add the category Homosexuality/”Christian”. For those who believe Scripture, this is an oxymoron.

As far back as 2009 I warned you, e.g. in ELCA and Homosexuality, that mainstream evangelicalism itself is getting another peek at its own impending future as we watch how the highly divisive issue of homosexuality is right now ripping apart the mainline denominations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

In On Contemplative Spirituality and Charismania recently I also outlined for you the pattern of how the mainstream got that way; and ordaining women in violation of God’s Word is a major factor. Take for example, A first Easter for newly ordained Allendale minister concerning Calvary Lutheran Church (CLC) in Allendale, NJ.

That report brings us the story of pastrix Jenny McLellan aka “Pastor Jenny.” We’re not surprised to find CLC is a member of the ELCA, ((http://www.lutherans.com/churches/church_info.php?church_id=6644, accessed 4/21/14.)) which is as apostate as denominations come, or that they chose pastrix McLellan:

Only 26, McLellan became the spiritual leader of Calvary Lutheran Church in Allendale last year. On Sunday, she stood before a tall window framing a brilliant spring sky, in a church brightened by lilies and the pastel clothing worn by some of the 120 people in the pews.

“This place is filled with vibrant life,” she said. Many in the congregation say that McLellan herself is one reason for that sense of renewal. (source)

No. there’s no revival from God at this apostate church; and pastrix McLellan shouldn’t be leading a local church as senior teaching elder (pastor) because, for one thing, you’ll search the Bible in vain for the qualifications for a female elder. Yet McLellan, a la ELCA pastrix Nadia Bolz-Weber, would even claim to follow Martin Luther.

However, if these rebels against God’s Word really were followers of Luther then they’d know that Martin Luther says no…to Women Pastors. It’s well past time to state plainly that absolutely nothing lasting for the actual Kingdom of God is ever going to come from such compromise in order to curry favor with the world.

Which now brings me right around to Deception: Christian Publisher Sells Soul for Mammon the other day from Matt Barber where we learn:

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group is planning to release, through its liberal sister imprint Convergent Books, a manuscript paradoxically titled God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships

The book’s author, Matthew Vines, is a homosexual activist and Bible revisionist known for manipulating Christian terminology to advance the counter-Christian homosexualist agenda. (source)

The About section for WaterMark Multnomah (WM) informs us they are to be considered an evangelical Christian publisher. The following brief overview from its website leaves us no doubt as to MW’s claims along those lines; therefore, they should be judged as such:

The WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, the evangelical division of Penguin Random House, is committed to creating products that both intensify and satisfy the elemental thirst for a deeper relationship with God. By communicating encouraging and life-enriching truths, WaterBrook Multnomah provides resources that can be trusted to be spiritually sound and readers will find to be captivating and enlightening.

In providing these products as a Christian publisher, we hope that readers of all ages will gain a deeper understanding of God and live a life pleasing to Him…WaterBrook Multnomah was launched in September 1996 as an autonomous evangelical Christian publishing division of Random House as WaterBrook Press. Since the release of our first books in February 1998, our publishing program has grown dramatically.

With the purchase of Harold Shaw Publishers in 2000 and acquisition of Multnomah Publishers in August 2006, our list of authors includes such best-selling and well-respected writers as David Platt, Liz Curtis Higgs, Randy Alcorn, Kay Arthur, David Gregory, Joanna Weaver, Shannon Ethridge, Steven Furtick, Shaunti Feldhahn, Andy Stanley, Francine Rivers, Cindy Woodsmall, Joshua Harris, and Bruce Wilkinson.

As a Christian publisher, our product list is abundant with compelling books filled with life-changing messages and talented authors. We offer books for Christian living and spiritual growth, Bible studies, tips on parenting, inspiring works of fiction for adults and youth, engaging books for children, series just for men, titles on marriage, love, finances, and prophecy. As you take the time to browse our Web site we are confident that you will find an engaging read…

As a division of Penguin Random House–the largest publisher in the world–WaterBrook Multnomah’s task is to build a major presence in the Christian Booksellers Association, competing with the top Christian publishers in our market today. (source)

In Can a divided publishing house stand? over at World Lynde Langdon then adds:

You can be gay and Christian: That’s the message of a book due out next week from a publishing group known until now for its evangelical worldview. But the book will emerge from a new imprint designed to allow the publishing house to avoid alienating its evangelical market. (source)

Too late; from where I stand, Bible-believing Christians already should see this as being double-minded of the part of WM. Langdon continues:

Convergent Books, a publishing imprint under the same corporate umbrella and leadership as the evangelical WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, is scheduled to release God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines next Tuesday. Vines, a 24-year-old former Harvard student, attempts to refute biblical passages that declare homosexuality a sin.

WaterBrook Multnomah, known for its best-selling Christian titles such as John Piper’s Desiring God and books by evangelical authors David Jeremiah and Kay Arthur, began as the printing arm of Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Ore. But mainstream secular publisher Penguin Random House now owns the imprint and groups it under the same corporate umbrella, Crown Publishing Group, as Convergent. (source)

Langdon then shows us the most obvious connection in all of this; one:

Stephen W. Cobb, who heads up both WaterBrook Multnomah and Convergent out of the publishing group’s Colorado Springs, Colo., offices, told me Tuesday that Convergent’s audience is “actively exploring and practicing faith and framing that faith in Christian terms, but they’re very open in their approach to issues that face the church today, and they really defy conventional labels.”

The most visible link between WaterBrook Multnomah and Convergent is Cobb himself, who said he makes the final decision to publish each imprint’s books, including God and the Gay Christian. (source)

The bottom line here really concerns the issue of God and the deviant, sinful, lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex, i.e, homosexuality. It hearkens back to about a month ago when we saw World Vision (WV) to hire “Gay Christians in Same-Sex Marriages”. A day later WV would reverse it’s position.

As Langdon points out, Stephen Cobb appears to have “attempted to put an imaginary cushion between evangelical Christians,” which would include “some of WaterBrook Multnomah’s authors” as well as “others who would give credence to Vines’ justification of homosexuality.” It also seems that:

Though Cobb insisted he has no agenda to change the way the church views homosexuality, his attitude recasts a showdown between truth and heresy as a mere debate between equally plausible positions.

World Vision U.S. president Richard Stearns made a similar argument when he announced a change in his company’s hiring policy to include employees in same-sex marriages. (source)

And yes, WV did change right back to it’s original policy; at least for now. However, the fact remains that currently there is an agenda growing within mainstream evangelicalism to change the way the heart of professing Christendom views the sexual immorality of homosexuality. Finally, Langdon now asks the key question:

Will Vines’ book be the first of many from Convergent to challenge orthodox biblical beliefs? I asked Cobb where he would draw the line in publishing books that oppose evangelical beliefs.

“Matthew believes in the inerrancy and the divinity and the correctness of Scripture,” he responded. “He believes it is God’s inspired Word. I have seen things, proposals have crossed my desk that the author does not have that core belief. … I want to believe that every book that publishes on my watch, whichever imprint it publishes in, is biblically based and developed credibly.” (source)

The problem for Cobb is, for Vines to argue Holy Scripture does not condemn homosexual relations as sin shows us already that his book isn’t biblically based in any kind of credible way. God only allows for sexual relations within the marriage covenant He ordained of a (male) husband and a (female) wife (cf. Matthew 19:4-6).

In closing this out, I say again that none of this should surprise us. You see, as spiritual blindness spreads, we will watch more ostensibly evangelical organizations cave in on this issue because that’s the way the wind of society is blowing. Sadly, too many Christians are more concerned about what man says than what God says.

You watch, “soon” a major mainstream evangelical figure will come out and announce that they are homosexual; and this will detonate this debate within the walls of what is thought to be conservative Christianity. Then evangelical leaders will see just how far the Emerging Church has moved its younger sectors from sola Scriptura.

Here then is what the Lord says to all those like the gay affirming CLC with its pastrix Jenny McLellan, and apparently even Stephen W. Cobb of WM, who would dare compromise His Word in order to be people-pleasers:

And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.” (Isaiah 30:8-14)

Further reading

• BRIEF WORD ON THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY
• THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY IS DIFFERENT
• THE CHRISTIAN KNOWS WHAT JESUS SAYS ON THE ISSUE OF HOMOSEXUALITY