Thus says the LORD, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.'” (Jeremiah 6:16, NASB) 

The Emergence Of Post-Christendom Post-Liberal Apostles Of Unbelief

At the interfaith website Read the Spirit we’re informed that, “For decades David Crumm has been connecting men and women with great spiritual voices.” One of these is pastor Rob Bell the Elvis of Emergence.

Crumm tells us in a recent “conversation” with Bell the:

News that Rob Bell is about to embark on his third U.S. tour — and this one involves his first-ever “coffee-table book,” plus interactive experiences within the theaters where he’s scheduled to appear — is likely to start selling out tour dates fairly soon…

That’s not all! He’s about to announce another international pastors’ conference — we’ve got details here in today’s story — and that’s also likely to sell out almost immediately. (Online source)

During this conversation Crumm says to Bell, “you occasionally host big conferences for pastors who want to learn from you about new ways of communicating the message of faith.” Bell then explains:

ROB: That’s about right. And, hey, there is another big pastors’ conference coming up.

DAVID: I remember the big one you held a couple of years ago at Mars Hill. You barely mentioned the idea — you spread the word online, as I recall — and you packed Mars Hill with pastors from across the U.S. and around the world…

ROB: Yeah. But it’s not at Mars Hill this time. And it hasn’t been announced yet. You can tell people to watch the Mars Hill Web site and the Rob Bell Web site. It’s going to be July 5 through 7 this year in Grand Rapids.

We’re calling it “Poets, Prophets and Preachers: Recalling the Art of the Sermon.” I’m very excited about it. It’s going to be awesome! I’m going to talk about the failure of language and metaphor. It’s going to be just great.

A friend of mine, Peter Rollins, a philosopher-slash-poet from Belfast will be with me. He wrote this book, “How (Not) to Speak of God.” He’s also started a group called IKON in a pub in Belfast. He’s coming to talk at this conference about what’s called “transformance” art, which I can’t quite explain. But he’s going to be there in person to explain it. He’s going to talk about the anatomy of a parable. He’s one of the freshest voices I’ve heard. (Online source)

Bell has even done the foreword for Rollins’ latest book The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales. Recently Apprising Ministries introduced you to Rob Bell’s “friend” in Peter Rollins And Phyllis Tickle On The Emergence Of A Brand New Religion.

Now in that prior piece we also mentioned that Emergent Church theologian Tony Jones wanted us to be aware of a brand new website by professing Christian and practicing homosexual:

Adele Sakler, whom I’ve known for a few years, has started yet another “hyphenated” group within the emergent network-of-networks. She’s calling it “Queermergent,” and, as you might guess, it’s focused on GLBTQ issues. (Online source)

But what’s all that got to do with Rollins? I’m glad you asked. We’ll let Sakler explain how Peter Rollins, whom Rob Bell calls “one of the freshest voices” that he’s heard in this Emergence rebellion against Sola Scriptura, has impacted her life.

In her Why Queermergent? Sakler shares her testimony and how Bell’s friend “radically shaped” her faith:

Twenty years ago this month I had a ‘born-again’ experience at a charismatic church… I attended Pat Robertson’s graduate school in Virginia Beach, Regent University, to obtain an M.Div so I could be a youth pastor… In 1997 I moved to Los Angeles and began living a double life as a Christian and as a gay woman…

In 2002 I went to Northern Ireland to do a DTS with YWAM. I met the great Peter Rollins and we developed a great friendship. His teachings and writings on postmodernism and Christianity radically shaped how I viewed my faith. I could no longer hang onto certainty with regards to interpreting scripture. (Online source)

And to think there are those who say I go too far in calling what was the Emergent Church—now morphing into a new reformation they call Emergence Christianity, which these fools think is an actual move of the Holy Spirit—a rebellion against the final authority of God’s Word. But no doubt they do have a right to their mystic musings of demonic deception received through their Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism that flowered in apostate Roman Catholicism. 

We’ll have more about Peter Rollins another time but, in closing this for now, here I’ll tell you that Rollins is founder and “co-ordinator of the experimental collective Ikon“. My good friend Cecil Andrews of Take Heed Ministries shares in ‘Reflections’ on ’emerging’ IKON: ‘God in the hands of angry sinners’ his own eyewitness account of attending a seminar where he heard this apostle of unbelief speaking: 

The Belfast Telegraph 9th June alerted me to a seminar being held at the Irish School of Ecumenics in Belfast on 13th June. The speaker was Dr Peter Rollins and his topic was ‘IKON. A Local Theology in Northern Ireland’. Another handout given to me when I attended the seminar also referred to ‘IKON: Forging a faith community with/out God’ and again I will comment further on that description shortly.

Peter Rollins spoke for 40 minutes and early on he identified what was a motivating factor behind IKON’s search for a form of Christian spiritual reality – it was their observation of a failure by professing ‘Christians’ within professing Christendom to demonstrate a life-style clearly different from the ‘non-believing’ world round about them. As a result of this I believe that Peter Rollins has an understandable misconception of what Biblical Christianity is really all about and in consequence he tends to present a caricature of genuine Biblical Christianity.

For most of the 40 minutes or so he churned out at great speed ideas and quotes from a vast range of philosophers and philososphies, theologians and theories. He was very conversant with ‘tales from the Talmud’ and ‘myths from the Midrash’ and he certainly held the attention [if not always the understanding] of the dozen or so of us that were present. It was very clear that Peter Rollins identifies with the ‘Postmodern’ generation – in his book ‘The TRUTH War’ Pastor John MacArthur made this very succinct comment on page 24 – ‘Postmodernism is simply the latest expression of worldly unbelief’. (Online source) 

Below Rollins and Phyllis Tickle scratch itching ears concerning this “Post-Denominational, Post-Protestant, Post-Christendom” thing called “Emergence Christianity” where God can’t be defined:

Part 1

Part 2

See also:

IS ROB BELL EVANGELICAL?

ROB BELL IN A NUTSHELL: THE BIBLE

ROB BELL RESOURCES FROM APPRISING MINISTRIES

PHYLLIS TICKLE AND THE EMERGING CHURCH: IT’S NOT IF SOLA SCRIPTURA ENDS BUT WHEN

THE EMERGENCE OF POSTMODERN APOSTLES OF UNBELIEF

RICHARD ROHR: CONVERSATIONS, CONVERGENCE AND EMERGENCE APOSTASY

THE EMERGENCE GOSPEL OF GOOD DEEDS