The Emergent Church Exposed, Part 2

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a three-part series. We suggest that you read Part 1 before you read Part 2. You can find it in our Archives: http://www.conservativetruth.org/archive.php?authorid=247)

WHAT DOES THE EMERGENT CHURCH BELIEVE?
 
This is not really a simple question to answer. The EC does not have firm beliefs in terms of doctrine. Every effort of the EC is to question the validity of Bible-based Christianity without taking any specific positions. The EC merely casts an implication that maybe Christianity has been off base but allows that implication to float on that plastic island in the sea, never tying it down in a manner that can be addressed. This is no accident and it is not even recognized by the EC. But the deceiver, whose lie the EC is pedaling, is very much aware that letting the questions appear to be intellectual and humble impacts the minds of Christians, particularly ungrounded Christians. Those Christians whose leaders failed to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry,” leaving them unequipped to deal properly and discernably with deception.
 
It is imperative that Christians understand that the Bible is the only documentation of Christianity in any way. Without the Bible, Christianity would not exist. Not Catholic, not Baptist, not Pentecostal, not even the prosperity gospel, and certainly not the EC. The Law and the Prophets of what we call Old Testament would exist, having been carried over from those millennia before Christ. But what we call the New Testament contains the messianic fulfillment of all of the Messiah related words in that Old Testament and if the Bible is set aside as something other than being the Word of God, there exists neither basis nor evidence of the existence of Christianity. Many books have been written “about” the Bible, but there is no work other than the Bible that establishes Christian religion. And it is this Bible that the EC presents as worthy of question. Again, the EC will not say anything specific and thus be held to accountability.

However, it is the view of the EC that Moses likely did not write the Pentateuch. Instead, they say, the Pentateuch was a compendium of writers from the various cultures of that time. That the flood of Noah was likely not real but again, a compendium of various cultures painting a landscape of the workings of man. If we determine that these ancient books are not authored by God, everything in them can be taken with a grain of salt, as can the balance of the books contained in what we call the Old Testament, because there is, then, no basis to recognize the validity of the Prophets or the Kings that make up the balance of the “Old Testament.”

Israel was wandering in the wilderness during the time that Moses “wasn’t” writing those books. So how then does Israel come into the picture in any way? And if we deny or sidestep the God authorship of the Old Testament, there is no validity to Hebrews 10 and Romans 2, both of which tell us that the Law (delivered to Israel) is written upon the hearts of those who are believers. And if we legitimize the idea that the Old Testament is merely a compilation of wise guys, excuse me, wise men of every culture, there is no biblical basis upon which to determine that Israel was (is) God’s earthly people, leaving us free to create our own individual interpretation of all things pertaining to the relationship between God and Israel. Even as to whether or not Israel has ever had any particular relationship to God, other than the one created in writing by Israel itself. It follows then that the old man on the hill is equally valid or invalid in terms of things that pertain to eternal life because his works pertain to his personal perspective.  

The result is that there exists no particular basis for anyone or anything in terms of a spiritual dimension and certainly no basis for any eternal value in Israel’s existence. Gone then, is anything to write upon the hearts of Christians, leaving mankind without a means of salvation through faith, thus invalidating any particular need to be a Christian. This kind of deceptive approach fits the EC mold quite well, leaving us at a point of decision. Will we choose to believe the Bible as the inerrant truth or will we choose to set it aside, merely lumping the Bible in with the works of those considered to be “among the great spiritual philosophers” as being the real key to whatever eternity is. Again, keep in mind that the EC is careful not to specifically deny Biblical authorship but rather cast deceit into that island of plastic where it can float around for each to choose his own.  
 
In closing this segment and by way of example as to EC assuming the place of wisdom under the guise of false humility, I would like to pose a question as to the story of Adam and Eve being put forth by the EC as a metaphor. It may serve us well to remember that Noah knew a man that knew Adam.  Noah was four generations removed from Methuselah and knew Methuselah for about 140 years, if memory serves me, while Methuselah knew Adam for even a longer amount of time. And it is more likely than not that since they all dwelt in the Mesopotamia Valley, that they knew each other to a varying degree. It is likely, then, that Noah heard of creation directly from those who knew Adam. The reader can take that for what it is worth but I question what it is about the EC leaders that I should take their word for the Garden?
 
THE EMERGING CHUCH’S CONNECTION TO CATHOLICISM
 
As you read this section, please keep in mind that I was born and raised strict Irish Catholic, schools and all. I do not remember my infant baptism but I do remember my first confession, my first holy communion, my confirmation, being an altar boy, being a choir boy. I remember meatless Fridays, Advent, Lent. I remember that Mary was assumed into the Godhead, that communion becomes literally the body and blood of Christ through transubstantiation and that the pope is literally Christ upon Earth while functioning as pope. I could recite a myriad of other incidentals that would further the bona fides of my exposure to Catholicism but I think you get the point.
 
Growing up in a somewhat less than the high rent part of town, I began using drugs at fourteen. I continued using drugs through the remainder of my teens, on into the Army and through my first year or so of marriage after returning from Vietnam. During the last five years of drugs, I had gone from the low-income neighborhood type drugs to the psychedelic and speed drugs of the hippies. And during that time I sought after eastern religion. Plenty of hippies talked eastern religion stuff…it was kind of accepted “hip.” My commitment was a bit more specific although, I confess I would not be considered the “old man on the mountain.” Those years of legitimizing a false god continued but at the same time, I knew that “Catholicism was the only true religion and that when I started going back to church, it would, of course, be the Catholic Church."

In early February 1971, for no particular reason other than our old fashioned “be polite and respect your elders” mentality, my wife and I prayed the sinner's prayer with an old lady. Six months later we decided to try “that church thing” and life as we knew it was never again. It was years later that I realized I had not given a single thought to that Catholicism that I had always considered to be the only true religion and was where I would be going when I started going to church again. And during all of these years later, any idea of being involved in Catholicism did not even begin to occupy a place in my thinking.
 
The point being that both Catholicism and Eastern Mysticism are the first-hand experience in my life. And so is Bible-based Christianity first-hand in my life. My comments regarding all three of these aspects of religion are primarily based upon my own experience rather than what someone told me. I consider that eastern mystics are going to have a problem when their eternity comes. Eastern religions consider Jesus to be a wise man…the same as Confucius, Buddha and all of the other wise men. But they reject Jesus as God and Savior. There is no particular reason to consider that the eastern mystic can deny the Deity of Christ and not be held accountable merely because he seeks nirvana. Everyone that embraces eastern mysticism as the path to the eternal is blinded by choice. My choice was not whether I was blind but whether or not I would willingly continue to be blind. The mystic can present his own case but I am thankful I am not one of them.
 
I have no position condemning Catholics to hell merely because they are Catholic. Every individual will stand alone before the throne of God, regardless of what church has been embraced. I have several Christian friends that have returned to the Catholic Church after many years in the “protestant” churches. I confess that this is mind-boggling to me. I absolutely don’t get it. I cannot conceive anything taking me back to the Catholic Church but at the same time, these people are still, as much as I know, believers in Biblical Christianity. But the Catholic Churches teaches that you are saved by being Catholic. That salvation is through Catholicism. This is a lie. The eastern mystic may reject Jesus as Lord but the Catholic Church claims to believe in Jesus as Lord while lying that salvation, even though it may be through Jesus Christ, can be gained only through the Catholic Church. And since salvation is dependent upon being Catholic, the who, what, how, where, when and why of Jesus can be up for grabs to the Catholic in terms of impact upon salvation, truth, and eternal life.
 
EC leaders do not happen overnight. In fact, it is interesting to read the words of EC people as they describe their years of questioning of their “Christian” religion and how that questioning led them to their new place of enlightenment. When dealing with current EC leadership, we cannot avoid dealing with Catholicism because the primary entryway to the deception of the EC begins with the embracing of what are referred to as the Catholic Mystics, Desert Fathers, and Catholic Saints. At the same time, the EC will not be so bold as to make any straight forward statements of Catholicism as being truth. The methodology of the EC is to shrink away from specificity regarding all things related to God. The EC approach is addressed in questions and ambiguities that paint an image of how we cannot possibly know anything in a concrete manner and therefore have no basis upon which to hold out Salvation through Jesus Christ as any singular means of attaining eternal life. The EC approach to accountability is to take no position to which it can be held accountable. Mental meanderings of philosophy rooted in deception disguised as spiritual perception are put forth as wisdom. But again, the Bible establishes that the wisdom of man is foolishness to God. Those mental meanderings should not sound wise to the believer but rather should come across to us as the empty words of foolishness that they are.
 
It is important to recognize that these catholic mystics practicing solitude in the wilderness were not just guys that wanted to go out and find God. These individuals had to be approved by the hierarchy of the church. It was the church that decided who had the stuff of spirituality so necessary of those worthy of being canonized as saints in the Catholic Church. It was not God who raised up leadership, it was the church that made the call. And just as the entire existence of the Catholic Church has, from its inception, been a politically-oriented organization, so too were the inner workings of the Catholic Church itself. The road to canonization did not require specific spiritually but it did require sociopolitical connection within the hierarchy of the church.
 
Growing up in Catholic schools required plenty of reading of the words of the Catholic saints. Not the Bible. The Catholic Saints. Catholics are not spiritual enough to study the Bible. That is the work of the hierarchy. The place of the Catholic is to accept the interpretation of the Bible given by the church and accept that only the clergy can interpret scripture. But we studied the words of the saints because they were, well, the saints. I can say from personal experience, then, becoming born again changed entirely what I thought of the writings of Catholic saints. Anyone can write something that contains some good, but accepting the writings of the saints means accepting those writings as infallible. That being the case, all of the writings must be accepted as infallible. If we determine to be children of the Living God, we accept that only God is infallible and that it is agreement with God that is our source of eternal life. If we embrace a gospel that allows for the words of Holy Scripture to float without an anchor in that “sea of plastic”, we present what 2 Peter calls a “cunningly devised fable.” He then tells us that “no scripture is of private interpretation.”

We can read in Second Timothy, chapter three, a startling straight forward perspective regarding the reality of a never-ending attempt to pervert the truth of God’s Word, stating that no scripture is of private interpretation. If the interpretation of one scripture necessitates the explaining away of other scripture, that interpretation is private and is in itself a violation of scripture. Paul tells the Galatians that if someone comes preaching a different gospel than Paul preached, let him be accursed. This is a very strong statement and is one that doesn’t fit very well with the EC idea that we are all far too needy to accept this judgment call from Paul because it doesn’t allow for the kind of love that leaves room for private interpretation. This resultant conflict is not with my person, it is a conflict with scripture. And it necessitates a choice of whether to “search the scriptures to see whether they be of God” or to agree with a gospel that is different from that which Paul preached. I cannot make that decision for anyone. Neither can those who embrace the EC make that decision. It is a decision that must be made by each individual.