[They] and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
(2 Timothy 4:4)

But You’re Really Worshipping Yourself

Along the lines of the Apprising Ministries post The Emergence Of A New God, here we’ll hear a bit more about the mystic mush god with a man-shaped hole in its heart, now being preached by the sinfully ecumenical Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church (EC) as the centerpiece of its newer, more clearly delineated, postmodern Progressive Christian theology; a Liberalism 2.0 that these rebels against God’s Word often refer to as “big tent” Emergence Christianity.

I tell you that it’s actually a fulfillment of 2 Timothy 3:2 — For people will be lovers of self; i.e. mankind is falling in love with, and worshipping, itself. You may remember in Brian McLaren Imagining A Different God I showed you that Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren—two-thirds of the unholy EC trinity with heretical universalist pastor Doug Pagitt and his friend Tony Jones, the progressive “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch—has officially announced he would simply like a different god than the one true and living God of the Bible.

It’s not that surprising as for years now they’ve been moving away from anything resembling the Christian faith as it is. For example, a while back Presbymergent EC advocate Adam Walker Cleaveland tells us their Jesus Was Wrong; then there’s Samir Selmanovic, whose website tells us that he’s “been integral to the birth of the emerging church movement, serving as a member of the Coordinating Group of Emergent Village and representing emergents at the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches.”[1] In his myth God Is Father Of All Religion Selmanovic shares more on the EC god, who’s essentially a bigger version of man.

So let me offer a possible explanation for the current deplorable state of the visible Christian church. It seems this pallid postevangelical mystic mush god of Open Theism, e.g. as elucidated by heretical Greg Boyd, has to wait while his cherished humans, in whose likeness he/she/it is formed, make their little choices before he/she/it can act because he/she/it  just doesn’t know what these delightful creatures are going to do next. Well, apparently this EC mystic mush god has finally awakened from his/her/its stupor of “unconditional” love and accepting everyone “just as they are” to suddenly realize that his/her/its creation has changed so drastically that he/she/it had better pay closer attention.

For you see, at the same time this all was happening, murky postmodernism invaded culture creating a shift to subjectivism; so now his/her/its always changing word is so hopelessly out of touch with this world today that he/she/it needed to raise up the Emerging Church in order to rehash the existential, i.e. centered on the self, neo-orthodox view of Holy Scripture taught by men like Karl Barth and then to repaint the old social gospel of liberal theology’s Walter Rauschenbusch. In other words, we’re clearly not talking about the God of the Bible; and the more emergent these false prophets of this EC become the more they go emerging into another religion of neo-Gnosticism bearing less and less resemblance at all to the actual Christian faith.

I’ve talked about this previously, e.g in Mysticism Melds Muslim Mystics To Tony Campolo And Emergence Christianity; you see, what these proponents of EC are busy doing is setting up your youth up to accept their blending of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism with the scientific speculation of Emergence Theory (ET). In the book A is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church, Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren, and Jerry Haselmayer explain to us, “E is for Emergence”; and as they further explore this theory you’ll understand why this EC is so community-oriented. Briefly they tell us ET is “an approach to science that is sensitive to the ways a whole can become more than the sum of its parts…”[2]

One of the main reasons why these Apostles of Unbelief are so high on ET is because therein the EC finds a vehicle into which they can also incorporate the theory of evolution along with the Christian faith, as evidenced e.g. by Michael Dowd & Spencer Burke—Integrity And Evolutionary Christianity (Part 2) or Doug Pagitt Points Us To Michael Dowd or Michael Dowd And Science Fiction Christianity. The sad fact is, in their delusion emergence theory is:

A postmodern way out of the science versus Scripture, creation versus evolution (“evil-ution”) wars. Emergence theory incorporates into an intellectual and spiritual framework ancient and recent arguments of intelligent design (focusing on diversity and complexity) with certain aspects of evolution (natural selection and the fossil record).

In this view, part of the goodness of Creation is an inherent potential to generate new possibilities so that more and more goodness can emerge. Emergence is a faith-friendly view of the world that dethrones reductionist [i.e. analytical] thinkers…[3]

Here it’s critical for you to understand that the neo-liberal cult within the Emerging Church is right now following the same methodology once used by adherents of liberalism aka modern theology to take over the dead and dying mainline denominations. Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989), a renowned defender of what he so often referred to as “the historic orthodox Christian faith” and former liberal, tells us liberalism:

had emptied the Gospel of all its content; [and] they were simply using the outward shell so that they go on collecting money from the people and the churches; because they knew that if the people in the pew knew that they were apostate, they’d throw them out. So the strategy was hang on to the trust funds; hang on to the money we’ve got; hang on the properties we control, and we will gradually educate the laymen into this new approach to theology.[4]

I’m telling you that this EC cult of the new liberalism learned well from their evil forebears and have followed the exact same track to infiltrate the largely spiritually obtuse evangelical camp, which they’ve been indoctrinating for years now through its own publishing houses, church-related schools, seminaries, denominations, etc. Remember, spiritually dense evangelical churches desperate to fill church buildings, began using the warped and toxic teachings of leaders within the Emerging Church such as the Emerging Church rock star pastor Rob Bell in their Young Adult and Youth ministries around 2004. An example of the awful effects of years of EC postmodern propaganda within the mainstream of evangelicalism can be seen in Christianity Today On The Search For The Historical Adam.

 Ted Olsen, CT’s managing editor for news and online journalism, tells us in his Adam, Where Are You? that:

Scientists in genomic demography and other fields—as well as their Christian popularizers in groups like the BioLogos Foundation…[are saying] Adam, the man you’ve called your father all these years, isn’t who you think he is,… (Online source)

And so, old arguments from the original liberalism will now be offered inside evangelical institutions as the younger sectors bow before the mystic mush god with the man-shaped hole in his/her/its heart. Please understand that what follows is absolutely not to be considered an endorsement of Hank Henegraaff. However, his illustration below is quite accurate concerning the mythology of the Word Faith Movement ala pastrix Paula White; and as you can see here the mystic mush god of spiritually empty Emergence Christianity isn’t so unlike that of the WF, which is why he/she/its gaining more acceptance within mainstream evangelicalism. It’s also important that you understand e.g. that warped WF purveyor Oneness Pentecostal heretic T.D. Jakes is already considered mainstream.

You might remember that I just showed you in Word Faith Heretics Like Creflo Dollar Draw Nearer To Evangelical Acceptance, even “Protestant” Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren is assisting with the coming together of  The Ecumenical Church Of Deceit. In this description of the god of Word Faith, see if you don’t also recognize the mystic mush god:

Once upon a time, long long ago, on a faraway planet, there lived a good God. This God was very much like you and me—a Being who stands about 6’2″ to 6’3″, weighs a couple of hundred pounds, and has a handspan of about 9 inches…in His mind’s eye, God saw the crowning jewel of His creation. As the details coalesced in His mind, God suddenly found Himself focused on an exact duplicate of Himself.

So God spoke, and suddenly out of the pristine soil of planet Earth there arose another god–a god spelled with a small “g,” but a god nonetheless. As the image of this little god took form, God saw that He had outdone Himself. For there, before His eyes, stood another god…by His Word of faith God had created a creature that was not even subordinate to Himself.

But was God ever glad, for now He had a colleague whose nature was identical to His own–a god who could think like Him, be like Him, and do almost (but not quite) everything that He could do. God called His carbon copy “Adam,” and gave him complete dominion and authority over the entire creation. This creature had so much power that his Creator could not do anything in the earth realm without first obtaining his permission… (Online source)

In closing this, for now, let me point you to And the winner is… by Peter Rollins, once a rising star within the EC and friend of the Elvis of Emergence, Rob Bell. Therein Rollins informs us:

it is time to unveil the winning parable. It was difficult choosing 2nd and 3rd place as there where around half a dozen others that particularly stuck out to me as possible candidates. However, when I received this parable I knew straight away I had the winner in my hands. This parable is not only beautifully crafted, but has a narrative that really made me stop in my tracks and think… (Online source)

And in typical clever (not) Emerging Church fashion what made Rollins stop and think is a parable written in much the same style as his own writings; entering the postmodern Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language where words mean whatever a person wants them to mean, it simply reverses the original. In this case the unoriginal author of the parable takes the poem Footprints In The Sand and merely twists it backward; so instead of being a pretty accurate depiction of the one true and living God of the Bible, instead this “Footprints” actually reveals more on, the insipid mystic mush god of Emergence Christianity:

There was once a man who had lived a long and difficult life… The curtain was pulled back, and he stumbled through the light to meet God.

‘My Master and my Friend,’ the old man hailed God as he prostrated himself before God’s feet. Hearing no reply, the man looked up and saw God shuffling awkwardly in his chair, not quite managing to fight back a blush across his cheeks…

‘Tell me, Lord,’ he said, knowing already the lines that would come, ‘tell me what the footprints mean.’… And slowly God replied, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when you carried me.’…

the battles he had fought and the doubts he had put asunder, ‘this was the measure of your faith: when difficulties came, you gathered up this tired and arthritic God, and carried your beliefs to safety.’

A small wind blew through the old photographs and worn papers, and the two men sat in silence for a moment. ‘I have prepared a room for you,’ God said after a while, ‘though I quite understand if you don’t want me to stay.’ (Online source)

I say the wise will have nothing to do with the deceitful spirits of the neo-liberal cult operating within the Emerging Church spewing their teachings of demons about some ignominious mush god, which is in reality, but a mirror of themselves. The tragic truth is, pastor Anton Bosch is dead-on-target as he elucidates for us the Gospel of Self slithering right into the heart of the visible church:

Modern Christianity teaches that God revolves around the Christian and that we are the center of His Universe. This is even worse than believing that the universe revolves around the Earth.

This is the result of the false gospel – the gospel of self. By contrast, the true Gospel – the Gospel of Jesus Christ – teaches that He is the preeminent One, and that our lives should revolve around Him.

These are not variants of the same gospel but they are total opposites – one emanating from and terminating in God, the other in self. The one leads to life, the other to death. (Online source)

_______________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

[1] http://www.samirselmanovic.com/about/, 6/5/11.

[2] Leonard Sweet, Brian D. McLaren, Jerry Haselmayer, A is for Abductive [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003], 107.

[3] Ibid., 108, 109.

[4] Walter Martin, The Cult of Liberalism, CD Rom, available from Walter Martin Religious InfoNet.

See also:

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY

IS OSAMA BIN LADEN HELLBOUND BRIAN MCLAREN?

BRIAN MCLAREN SPEAKS AS A UNIVERSALIST

TOXIC THEOLOGY OF DOUG PAGITT

DOUG PAGITT AND HIS SOLOMON’S PORCH AFFIRM HOMOSEXUAL SIN

ROB BELL AND POSTMODERN NEO-LIBERALISM

BIG TENT CHRISTIANITY IS A POSTMODERN PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM