Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
(Proverbs 9:8-10)

Words Do Have Definite Meaning… Well, Kind-a…

Unfortunately the answer to that question will be tied up in the “Yea, hath God said” (see–Genesis 3:2) nebulous relativism of so-called “postmodernism” where words magically morph into whatever one wants them to mean. When Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989) wrote the chapter “Scaling the Language Barrier” for his classic book The Kingdom of the Cults he would have had no way of knowing that now we will also have to apply its proven principles to those who consider themselves “evangelical” Christians!

In the book Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives Dan Kimball informs us via a subheading: I Am Still a Conservative Evangelical, but Not “One of Those Conservative Evangelicals (85). One can just hear a little bit of a hiss as Kimball makes sure to say I’m not “one of those conservative evangelicals.” Now just who might Dan be referring to…O…could it possibly someone like myself who insists that we do have access to God’s Truth? You know, one of those Kimball calls:

Overly opinionated Christian leaders who talk as if they have access to God’s truth and know all the answers, and believe everyone else is wrong but them. Judgmental finger-pointing Christians focusing on the negatives in the world. (ibid) 

However, just because conservative Christians do believe the Bible contains the Truth of God–thereby giving us access to it-and just because we also believe as ambassadors for Jesus, e.g. we are to set forth the truth plainly (see–2 Corinthians 4:2), it does not logically follow that we will then claim to “know all answers.” But unfortunately this argument used by Kimball above happens to be an all too common Emergent straw man.

Here’s a bit more information for you concerning Emerging Church spokesman Dan Kimball. A main reason why he is actually quite dangerous to the historic orthodox Christ faith that we know is the Truth is that he is such a well-liked Emergent teacher who is assumed to be orthodox . But the truth is that Kimball is especially harmful to this faith which was once for all delivered to the saints because he is also heavily involved with–and intimately connected to–leaders within this postliberal cult of the Emergent Church. 

As of this writing Kimball “currently serve[s] as an Adjunct Faculty Mentor at George Fox [Evangelical] Seminary where I am also pursuing a Doctor of Ministry degree.” (Online source) You need to know that GFES is an extension of George Fox University, which was founded by the Quakers and named after their mystic founder George Fox. So not surprisingly it “is committed to spiritual formation” (Online source), which in this case is aka Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism.  It’s also important to note that both Emergent Guru Brian McLaren and Quantum panentheist Leonard Sweet are on staff as Adjunct and Visiting Professors.

Gnostic Mysticism Makes It Shadowy Return

Yes, Dan Kimball is more readily accepted in evangelical circles than some of the others in the Emerging Church but Kimball himself is an advocate of Contemplative Spirituality Mysticism, though he did tell me that he doesn’t know what Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) is. I still find this is rather odd however because in Kimball’s own book Emerging Worship under “Helpful Books” he recommends as a good resource Soul Shaper: Exploring Spirituality And Contemplative Practices In Youth Ministry (SS) by Tony Jones the national coordinator of Emergent Village. 

The fact is that Jones’ SS is just chock full of contemplative practices from apostate Roman Catholicism. And one of those alleged spiritual disciplines just happens to be the CCP I mentioned earlier. I cover this further in Emergent Church: Soul Shaper Tony Jones but below you can read it for yourself:

In Soul Shaper Tony Jones advocates some sixteen “ancient-future” spiritual tools such as The Jesus Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence and Solitude, Stations of the Cross, Centering Prayer, and the Labyrinth. Here Jones begins defining his postmodern approach to youth ministry by combining aspects of what he sees as common spirituality in Evangelicalism, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions along with eastern religious practices gleaned from Buddhism and Hinduism. These soul shaping “disciplines” will later become even more developed in his next book The Sacred Way.

And should you wonder why this insideous Emergent rebellion against the Bible is subtly slithering into more and more mainstream evangelical communities here is what the Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren said about Dan Kimball’s book The Emerging Church:

This book is a wonderful, detailed example of what a purpose-driven church can look like in a post-modern world. My friend, Dan Kimball, writes passionately from his heart, with a deep desire to reach emerging generations and culture. While my book, The Purpose-Driven Church, explained what the church is called to do, Dan’s book explains how to do it with the cultural-creatives who think and feel in post-modern terms. You need to pay attention to him because times are changing.

Rick Warren
Saddleback Church, author of Purpose-Driven Church and Purpose-Driven Life
(Online source)

In Rick Warren Promoting the Emergent Takeover of the SBC you’ll see that Rick Warren gives Kimball a forum where he personally recommends Lectio Divina. But pastor Jon Cardwell, contributor at Christian Research Network, explains in his excellent article Lectio Divina, Central to Ecumenicism that Lectio Divina is a:

method of prayer makes no bones about repeating text, directly violating the Lord’s will as Jesus condemns this sort of tom foolery as pagan: “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Matthew 6:7). That our Lord tells us that vain repetition is particularly pagan should be good enough for us to shun this method.

Love Must Tell The Truth

I am thankful that Dan Kimball has been kind enough to have been in personal dialogue with me off and on over this past year and it’s helped while I have also been personally researching Kimball’s theology from his books. And as I told Tony Jones in our phone conversation a while back just because I come hard at what I perceive as heretical doctrine doesn’t mean at all that I hate those I see ensnared by it. No doubt we could have a vigorous debate one day soon and not make it a personal issue, but I am not about to let false teaching come emerging into my Lord’s Church without a stiff and vigorous fight (see–Jude 3, Greek).

My main findings concerning Dan’s erroneous ideas regarding the genuine faith of Jesus Christ are contained in Dan Kimball and Doctrine but the bottom line is that Dan Kimball does not hold to the doctrines of grace and instead is actually very actively working to help reverse the Protestant Reformation. Our love for the purity of the glorious Gospel of our Lord should constrain us to defend it in prayerful hope to make others aware of information they may not have seen concerning these Emergent men with their Hollow theology.

That so many pastors and leaders don’t see it just shows how deep these Emergent vipers have penetrated into the Body of Christ. The fact is that this contemplative Emergent snake will swallow the American Christian Church whole if we don’t immediately separate from it and pull out of anything which has been given over to this new Cult of Liberal Theology.