Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.” (Jeremiah 10:1-5)

For The Christian To Participate Together With Other Religions Is The Sin Of Idolatry

Apprising Ministries has been blessed of Jesus to be used as one of His leading online apologetics and discernment works for coverage of the warped and toxic teachings of EC leaders like the Emerging Church rock star pastor Rob Bell. Sadly, mainstream evangelicalism became spiritually spineless and embraced the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church,  now upgraded to 2.0 with its newer, more clearly delineated, postmodern Progressive Christian theology, which these rebels against the final authority of the Word of God will often refer to under their circus “big tent” as Emergence Christianity.

The first line of attack upon the heart of the church visible by these rebels against the final authority of the Word of God was to batter down sola Scriptura, the key pillar of proper Christian spirituality. No longer do we turn to the Bible to see what God would have His Christians do; instead, your younger sectors of evangelicalism have no been conditioned as Pavlov’s dogs to salivate to the sound of the self (cf. 2 Timothy 3:2). With this in mind then, you may recall in The Emerging Church And The First Interreligious University I told you that the Claremont School of Theology (CST), where Dr. Philip Clayton of the Transforming Theology team holds court, plans to advance interreligious education.

The United Methodist Church’s CST’s main claim to fame is its plans to become an “interreligious university” to “reach across boundaries” of various religious” traditions, which clearly flies in the face of our opening text. However, this doesn’t concern EC rebels in the least as evidenced by this tweet from Steve Knight:

(Online source)

In the Emerging Church To TransFORM Outlaw Preachers I told you that “Kingdom Journalist” Steve Knight is the founder of a social network called TransFORM where those in the EC—including all the major players in the Emerging Church like heretical Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, and his equally heretical friend progressive/liberal “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch Tony Jones—keep each other up on their latest sordid spiritual shenanigans.

Knight’s link takes us to a portal at Patheos called Faith Forward: Voices from the Mainline, Progressive and Emerging Church and a post by Deborah Arca entitled Christian Couple Funds World’s First Interreligious University. If you don’t know, Arca is Deborah Arca Mooney who is “Managing Editor, Mainline Protestant Portal” at the interspiritual Patheos website.[1] Seems Knight and Arca are all excited because:

An extraordinary moment for purporters of inter-religious education and dialogue occurred yesterday at the the Claremont School of Theology, a seminary of the United Methodist Church.  A Methodist couple and long-time trustees of the school gave $50 million to establish Claremont Lincoln University, the nation’s first interreligious university, which will share a campus with Claremont School of Theology starting this fall. (Online source)

As you’ll see, Claremont Lincoln University was indeed launched by CST:

(Online source)

In closing this out, for now, let me tell you that this lunacy in the Lord’s Name is completely in line with the Emerging Church mythology of finding God “in the Other,” as in other religions. As I told you in Emerging Church Leader Samir Selmanovic Worships With Witches, all of this talk about “the other” is Liberalism 2.0-speak for their belief that God is at work within all other religions. That’s because through mystic revelation these neo-Gnostics now believe they need to discover what God is supposedly doing in these other religions and join them in the work.

In fact, Selmanovic told us his views in an earlier book, which was edited by the dubious duo of Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt, when he mused the following mythology:

Can it be that the teachings of the gospel are embedded and can be found in reality itself rather than being exclusively isolated in sacred texts and our interpretations of those texts? If the answer is yes, can it be that they are embedded in other stories, other peoples’ histories, and even other religions?…

God’s table is welcoming all who seek, and if any religion is to win, may it be the one that produces people who are the most loving, the most humble, the most Christlike. Whatever the meaning of “salvation” and “judgment,” we Christians are going to be saved by grace, like everyone else, and judged by our works, like everyone else…

For most critics of such open Christianity, the problem with inclusiveness is that it allows for truth to be found in other religions. To emerging Christians, that problem is sweet… Moreover, if non-Christians can know our God, then we want to benefit from their contribution to our faith.[2]

This is not Christianity; it’s at best universalism, and at worst, it’s actually pagan universalism. It’s absolutely asinine to think that the one true and living God of the Bible would want His people encouraging and—even more ludicrous—instructing practitioners of pagan religions in their idolatry. But this is what happens when one jettisons Scripture in order to follow the whims and delusions produced by prolonged practice of corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism and its crown jewel Contemplative/Centering Prayer, which is itself a form of meditation in an altered state of consciousness.

If you are wise you will turn away from such as these (cf. 2 Timothy 3:5).

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Endnotes:

[1] http://tiny.cc/ehgur, accessed 5/17/11.

[2]  Samir Selmanovic, “The Sweet Problem of Inclusiveness – Finding Our God in the Other,” in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones editors [Grand Rapids: Baker,
2007], 192, 195, 196, emphasis mine.

See also:

PHILIP CLAYTON WITH “BIG TENT” CHRISTIANITY IN THE EMERGING CHURCH

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

 

 

THE EMERGING CHURCH, POSTMODERNISM, & IRRATIONAL PHILOSOPHY