THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
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Showing posts with label Emerging Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emerging Church. Show all posts
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
After endorsing the pro-gay Jen Hatmaker earlier this year, Max Lucado’s new-found role of propping up heretics and false teachers seems to have hit overdrive. In January, Lucado joined Hatmaker on her podcast and gave her glowing accolades telling her that she made listening to her “easy and delightful, and yet profound at the same time.”
Lucado, who I described as “fairly orthodox though not without problems,” clearly compromised the gospel with his endorsement of Hatmaker, lending credibility to her as a minister of the gospel when clearly her “gospel” is false.
Now, it’s safe to say that Lucado himself should be avoided at all costs since he does not have the discernment, wisdom, and heart to separate himself from false teachers who are harming the Kingdom of God.
In a recent show, Lucado endorsed Steven Furtick — a false teacher who twists the Scriptures, preaches Word of Faith heresy, and just recently embraced the heresy of modalism which denies the orthodox view of the Trinity — and promoted Furtick as though he is a man of God with godly things to say about Christians getting through the coronavirus.
Steven Furtick is perhaps one of the most obvious examples of a hipster false teacher. Not only is he the protege of modalist heretic T.D. Jakes, Furtick runs his business, oh, I mean "church" like an entertainment center, ticking ears while sound doctrine is slain in the streets fulfilling the word of God which says "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine". But Furtick makes money and he is popular which is probably the main reason why Max Lucado is promoting him. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with a love of the truth.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
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Andy Stanley, son of famous pastor Charles Stanley, is a serial blasphemer and idolater who twists God’s Word — whenever he even discusses it — and uses it to create a false church built around a false gospel and a false Jesus.
Andy Stanly has made a number of dubious claims about the Christian faith and in particular, the Scriptures. Famously stating that Christianity needs to “unhitch” from the Old Testament, he told his audience that the Ten Commandments don’t apply to Christians. He’s flopped on homosexuality — telling the mother of an openly-gay and practicing girl that her daughter was saved. He promotes the idea that even if you don’t believe in Jesus, you can have a better life by following his teachings. And rampages against the Scriptures telling people that they don’t need to feel like they should defend the Scriptures because they aren’t really that important and it isn’t what Christianity rests on.
Stanley has been criticized for his constant attacks on the Word of God and denial that the Scriptures are essential to Christianity, yet he doesn’t stop. Easter Sunday, he doubled down and took it even a step further stating that we “don’t believe in the resurrection because of the Bible.”
Of course we believe in the Resurrection because of the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God and is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1). Apart from the Scriptures — which the Holy Spirit so graciously gave and preserved for us — there can be no salvation because there can be no knowledge of God apart from His Word.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
In 2007, Lighthouse Trails wrote a book review on a book titled Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Today, thirteen years later, we are seeing the “fruit” of the emergent church (that, incidentally, was spawned by leaders like Rick Warren, Bob Buford, and Bill Hybels as is documented in Faith Undone by Roger Oakland). The so-called fruit of this well-planned, well-financed emergent manifesto has ripened within the church exalting corrupt and anti-biblical ideologies such as a social justice-gospel, spiritual formation (i.e., contemplative spirituality), interspirituality, homosexual and transgender lifestyle acceptance, communistic socialism, evolution, convoluted eschatology (which rejects Bible prophecy and Christ’s return), panentheism, and more recently, as seen in the SBC, critical race theory—all of which are anything but a theology of hope. On the contrary, this emergent manifesto has created despair, confusion, and an exit from biblical faith by countless young people.
At the Lighthouse Trails office, we hear from so many anguished parents and grandparents who are trying to figure out why their now-grown children and grandchildren have turned away from the biblical faith of their youth to an unrecognizable belief system. We are convinced that many many of these young people were drawn into an emergent view via Christian colleges, youth groups, mission societies, books, and organizations. Below is a repost of our 2007 article, which describes this manifesto of doubt over faith.
“Emergent Manifesto: Emerging Church Coming Out of the Closet”
Emergent Manifesto of Hope is the new release from Emersion, a publishing partnership between Baker Books and Emergent Village. The book, edited and compiled by emergent leaders Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt, is a collection of essays by various emerging church leaders. Pagitt says the book “provides a rare glimpse inside the emerging church.” This “rare glimpse” actually lays out the agenda of the movement, and in essence Emergent Manifesto is the emerging church’s coming out of the closet tribute.
The back cover of Emergent Manifesto describes it as a “front-row” look at this “influential international movement” and promises readers that they will come away with “a deeper understanding of the hopeful imagination that drives the emerging church.” Readers are also told that they will “appreciate the beauty of a conversation that is continually being formed.” However, the book fails to deliver any “beauty.”
A more accurate title for this book would be Emergent Manifesto of False Hope, and a subtitle (albeit a lengthy one) that would describe it perfectly would go something like this:
The Kingdom of God is already here on earth, includes all people, all faiths, and in fact is in all people and all of creation and can be felt or realized through mysticism which connects everything together as ONE.
This new collective spirituality leads people into a socialistic community where rituals, practices, and social justice become a means of salvation, but not the salvation you think of in a personal sense of being born-again through Jesus Christ. This is a collective salvation 1 that includes whole cultures and communities who follow the way of someone referred to as Jesus.
Tony Jones lays the ground work for the book by referring to the “highest good” (for humanity) and explains that when Emergent began (in 1998) the group was “engaging in some sort of ‘socially established cooperative human activity’”(p. 14). “Cooperative” is a theme that runs through the book. Doug Pagitt says Emergent is a “call to friendship … with the world” and this “friendship” is a “dangerous leap” in which many ways have been created to connect (p. 19). Throughout the book, these ways to connect become quite obvious. While often called other terms in the book, the concepts behind them are interspirituality (all religions coming together), panentheism (God is in all creation), universalism (all are saved), and mysticism (the means by which this connecting takes place).
In this “sense of interconnection,” the book states:
[R]enewed popularity of the “kingdom” language is related to the emerging global narrative of the deep ecology movement – a consciousness and awareness that everything matters and is somehow interdependent (p. 27).
Emergent leader (and New Age sympathizer), Leonard Sweet (in his book Quantum Spirituality) calls this the Theory of Everything. This theory not only says that all creation is connected but that it is all inhabited with Divinity (God).
The Manifesto describes “themes” of “integrative theology” as: Interest in monastic practices, contemplative and bodily spiritual formation disciplines, celebrating earth, humanity, cultures, and the sensuous (p. 28). In a chapter titled “Meeting Jesus at Bars” the Manifesto favorably includes visiting monasteries, practicing yoga, engaging in silent retreats, and chanting with monks (p. 38). One writer in the book has this to say:
I am a Christian today because of a Hindu meditation master. She taught me some things that Christians had not. She taught me to meditate, to sit in silence and openness in the presence of God…. I believe that all people are children of God. (p.45)
While the book does list praying and reading Scripture as one of the practices to engage in, it offers a disclaimer that this is not what is most spiritually nourishing but rather “our relationship with others give us the most insight into who God is and where God is leading us” (p. 38). And this is really the essence of the book. Harmless, some may say. No, anything but. The Emergent Manifesto belittles personal, one-on-one relationship with the Lord and insists it is a collective salvation that really matters. The goal of this cooperative movement is to participate in “the healing of our world” and to “collaborate with our Maker in the fulfillment of God’s reign on Earth” (p. 30).
The Manifesto makes clear that followers of this new, collective religion should not be concerned about saving “people from the jaws of hell,” but should rather be “motivated … to be in relationship with people who in many ways are different” (p. 35). The focus should not be on conversion as much as “cultivation of relationships.” The lofty language used in the Manifesto, reminiscent of legal or medical language, makes the writers seem highly intellectual but the reading difficult to comprehend. However, while the language in the book is often obscure and metaphorical, the ideologies are evident. To describe interspirituality, the book says:
If the Emergent conversation is to have a “next chapter,” it will need to learn from other sketches outside of Western Christendom (p. 68). [Translation: incorporate the belief systems of other religions.]
Or this one:
[T]he environment that Emergent seeks to create – a studio for sketching, a place of freedom and divergence … [Emergent Village] is more committed to equipping any and all for the process of emergence (p. 70).
Manifesto talks significantly about those who refuse to change and bend with this “process of emergence.” Pagitt states:
While immovability may be a fine role for religion, it may not serve the story of God’s action in the world very well … I don’t think it is possible to tell the story of faith from the posture of sameness and stability …. Ours is a story of the expanding life of God generating new creation … of collective faith. (pp. 75-76)
When Pagitt speaks of “expanding life of God” and “new creation,” he means that we cannot contain truth or reality within the confines of the written Word of God but that truth is always changing and being created.
Universalism is a pronounced theme in the book as well. Manifesto calls salvation “a collective experience.” A Manifesto poem illustrates this:
Not only soul, whole body!
Not only whole body, all of the faithful community!
Not only all of the faithful community, all of humanity!
Not only all of humanity, all of God’s creation! (pp. 82-83)
And panentheism (God is in all) is exhibited through statements like the following, which talks about the “holiness of humanity”:
[W]e are agents for change in the world (salvation, redemption, and reconciliation … it is a celebration of the holiness of humanity in which the fullness of God was pleased to dwell … it is our holy fleshiness. (p. 88)
What do the emerging church leaders hope to accomplish? Well, they tell us. They want you … they want the church to join up with them. Listen to this explanation:
The existing church/emerging church matrix can dissolve into missional collaboration and generative friendship. (p. 107)
And hearing that, we must ask, Is that what Josh McDowell is doing by endorsing Dan Kimball’s book, They Like Jesus But Not the Church,2 and is that what David Jeremiah is doing by consistently promoting Erwin McManus? Are Christian leaders helping to bring about this dream of the emerging church by dissolving into it? Unfortunately, the answer to that seems to be yes. But how can we as believers follow them into this dark abyss?
In regard to biblical descriptions of last days apostasy, how does the Manifesto relate? It doesn’t. In speaking of the days that the Book of Revelation describes, the Manifesto states:
[F]olks who hang around the emerging church tend to see goodness and light in God’s future, not darkness and gnashing of teeth … [some] take the view that we’re in a downward spiral, and when things “down here” become bad enough, Jesus will return in glory…. We’re caught in the tractor beam of redemption and re-creation, and there’s no sense fighting it, so we might as well cooperate. (p. 130)
There is another underlying theme that is permeating the pages of this book and many of the other emerging church books in print, including Dan Kimball’s. There is a continual hammering away and chiseling down of the image of Christians (the kind who take the Bible literally and stand by its authority). This effort to villainize Christians is reminiscent of Germany in the 30s when artists would draw distorted pictures of Jews with certain facial features making them look weird, and when rumors and stories would run amuck even suggesting that Jews would rape your daughters, so don’t trust them. This all-out effort to get society to hate and mistrust the Jews worked. It was a campaign, not based on fact, but based on a demonic kingdom that hates anything that has to do with Jesus Christ. In the Manifesto, Brian McLaren boils down the world’s evils to the fault of Western Christians and suggests that these resisting Christians might even become militant against people one day. (Hitler was able to persuade people that the Jews were a threat so they better take them out before the Jews got them.) McLaren states:
What are we in the so-called emerging churches seeking to emerge from? I asked myself. We are seeking to emerge from modern Western Christianity, from colonial Christianity, from Christianity as a “white man’s religion … into a faith of collaborative mission … It is immediately clear that this kind of emergence must lead to a convergence — in the West, across denominations and across current polarizations, a convergence of postconservatives and postliberals into what Hans Frei and Stanley Grenz termed a new “generous orthodoxy.” (p. 150)
[M]any will react and oppose this emergence, seeking to maintain the hegemony of the West … perhaps even seeking a revival of crusading Christendom. (151)
In Ray Yungen’s book, For Many Shall Come in My Name, he discusses this very thing and shows how New Age leaders have been framing a social mindset that will eventually become hostile to Bible-believing Christians. Yungen explains how it will all be justified as doing humanity a favor by getting rid of them, and when he quotes the words of New Ager Neale Donald Walsch as saying that God believes Hitler did the Jews a favor by killing them, it sends chills up the spine. And whether they realize what they are doing or not, Dan Kimball, Brian McLaren and other emergent leaders are framing a similar mindset for people to climb into.
While it is sad to think about persecution that may be coming upon believers, it is even more tragic to realize how many unsaved people will never hear the Gospel because so many Christian leaders have given the emerging church a thumbs up. The publishers and editors at Baker Books should be ashamed of themselves for exalting such anti-Christ teachings or at the very least stop calling themselves a Christian publisher.
For those who are still skeptical about the Emergent Manifesto’s message, pick up a used copy sometime of Alice Bailey’s The Externalization of the Hierarchy, or Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance. And when you read those words by those “change agents,” see if you notice that the message is the same, just dressed in a different outfit called Emergent.
Emergent Manifesto does indeed “provide a rare glimpse,” but not one of hope. Rather it is a look into the near future of a world that is racing toward spiritual destruction through severe deception as the Bible predicts when it says that Satan will someday deceive the whole world (Revelation 12:9).
LTRP Note: The following letter is written in response to a recent LT post regarding the SBC and Critical Race Theory.
Dear Editors:
“Critical Theory” and “Critical Race Theory” (CT/CRT) stratagem originated with the Frankfurt School where some Marxists came up with the more subtle scheme of “Cultural Marxism”—it is a political tactic which is all about gaining power over society (as is Marxism). In other words, CT/CRT is used to deceive people and increase the number of Marxist-minded individuals in order to undermine existing power so that Marxism can take over.
This overthrow will first be achieved “culturally,” and then complete economic, political, and societal control will follow. This is all done under the guise of things like: releasing the Oppressed; “setting the captives free;” social justice; helping the downtrodden; overthrowing “white supremacy” [which is committed by all with white skin according to CRT advocates]”; “smashing the patriarchy;” and a prevailing “us verses them” mentality. Religion and politics are often melded into one.
As a result, Alt-Left politics overtakes an individual’s religion, and that person’s religion becomes Leftist politics. (Note: It is common for a few verses to be used and perverted in order to sway Christ-followers into Marxist ideology (e.g. “seeking the peace of the city”; e.g. Jer 29:7; Lk 4:18; 2 Pet 3:16; 2 Tim 2:15-18).)
CRT/CT also includes being “Woke,” politically speaking.
The main approach in CRT/CT is to cause division, bitterness, envy, and strife by perpetually pitting classes against each other, particularly through false accusations. This is chiefly done by segregating everyone into the Oppressors or the Oppressed—and to then persistently demonize and seek to destroy those falsely judged to be Oppressors.
Your article about SBC adopting CRT was well-written and quite interesting. I hope you continue to talk about this and keep informing us of the vast changes going on in most of today’s denominations. Your comments about Calvinism overtaking SB churches is true, too. I’m a member of a Baptist church here in the South and see their doctrine is basically Calvinistic. They also have a “Trunk or Treat” activity around Halloween, which bothers me greatly.
I rarely go to church now, due to both health issues and biblical disagreement with the leaders.
The problem with articles like yours is, rarely does a Christian even know what “Cultural Marxism” or Critical Race Theory are or even the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.
Please, in the future, take time to define, clearly and easily with simple wording, what all of these things are. It’s imperative for Christians to get out of their worldliness and foggy thinking. Remember most people are “dumbed down” effectively by the gadgets and gods of this world, so in the future, when you write excellent articles dealing with subjects like this, remind yourself who you’re probably talking to, and go from there.
I do agree with your article and was nodding my head in agreement when you said “if SBC does have a racist problem, then they have a salvation problem with too many of it’s members.” AMEN. Keep telling the absolute, un-sugar-coated truth.
N.B.
Hamilton
[Critical Race Theory] doesn’t depend on your personal feeling, sentiment, [or] heart condition—it’s based on the group that you’re born into. . . . It completely eliminates individual responsibility, individual sin and expands it to corporate sin. And based on how you’re born, you are immediately ascribed into an “oppressor” or “oppressed” group. . . . Jesus articulated the primary commandments: love God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself . . . We don’t need these anti-Christ, unbiblical tools to teach us how to love our neighbors as ourselves—the scripture is sufficient for that.—Abraham Hamilton III
LTRP Comment: Lighthouse Trails plans to do further reporting on this issue in 2020.
Below is the documentary on Critical Race Theory that the December 2019 Lighthouse Trails article referred to.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
Steven Furtick is a heretic, undoubtedly. He preaches a false prosperity gospel and bilks his congregation for money. He has made absurd claims about not only the Scriptures but God himself such as claiming that God reflects his image (rather than man reflecting God’s image), that without man, God is just an abstract concept, and denies God’s sovereignty over His own plans.
But until recently, it was at least thought that Furtick had an orthodox view of the Trinity. But, apparently not, as Furtick has spent far too much time around modalistic heretic, T.D. Jakes. Apparently, Furtick now embraces the same heresy that Jakes affirms, rejecting the orthodox view of the Trinity that teaches three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal persons of one substance, and instead replaces three distinct persons with three separate manifestations that do not co-exist simultaneously but instead changes forms at different times.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
For nearly 18 years, Lighthouse Trails has been reporting on the slide that evangelical colleges, universities, and seminaries have been taking into the contemplative/emergent/ecumenical river. It would be great if we could say there’s been a real turn around and things at these colleges are getting better. It would be great if we could say that your college-age child is safe in most Christian colleges today. And it would be great if we could say that these schools have realized the error of their ways and have made dramatic efforts to get back on the biblical course. Unfortunately, we cannot say any of these things because they simply are not true.
We were once again reminded of how far off the track evangelical schools have gone when earlier this month we received an e-blast from Christianity Today announcing a 50%-off tuition special for qualifying students to Seattle Pacific University. That will sound very enticing to parents who are looking for Christian education for their college-age children at affordable rates. But let’s take a glance at what these children will be introduced to if they attend Seattle Pacific University:
At SPU’s Center for Biblical and Theological Education, students will be introduced to various forms of contemplative spirituality, and faculty members are being trained to pass them on. For instance, in a 2019 faculty retreat syllabus, the list of activities at the retreat include lectio divina, praying with icons, sabbath keeping, Ignatian Spirituality, and Prayer of Examen. At the upcoming 2020 Winter Discernment Weekend, prospective students will be introduced to “Guided Prayer” and Lectio Divina. “Spiritual Formation” and contemplative spirituality are integrated throughout the spiritual infrastructure of SPU. Faculty Staff Bulletins are peppered with recommendation and accolades for Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, and numerous other hard-core mystics and panentheists.
For anyone who understands contemplative spirituality, these things we are sharing won’t come as a surprise because contemplative prayer is the gateway ‘drug,” so to speak, to all things emergent, socialist, Marxist, New Age, and anti-morality. And if there is one thing we hope to get across in this article, it is this: A very large number of Christian higher education institutions are now exhibiting signs that they are being influenced and directed by emergent ideologies; and many of these same schools are the ones we warned about years ago as they started down the contemplative path; the inevitable “fruit” of contemplative prayer is a drastic change in spiritual outlook (i.e., no longer resembling biblical Christianity; i.e., now emergent).
Northwest Nazarene University in Idaho continues incorporating emergent believes into the lives of its students. Some of our readers may remember our 2010 story titled “Buddhist/Universalist Sympathizer Woos Nazarene Students at NNU.” Most Nazarene universities had already been seduced by Catholic contemplative mystic Brennan Manning by then, and so bringing in a Buddhist/universalist sympathizer to NNU was just following contemplative protocol, which they have continued to do.
A few examples of NNU’s current status are the following: In the THEO4900 Religion Capstone course, The Living Reminder by Catholic mystic Henri Nouwen is one of two required textbooks. A graduate course titled COUN6594A Mindfulness Approaches uses Mindfulness and Psychotherapy for its textbook. Another graduate course (YCFM6730 Missional Ministry) uses these four textbooks— Celtic Way of Evangelism, Future Faith, Kingdom Come, and Creating a Missional Culture. In Creating a Missional Culture, the author introduces the reader to Jurgen Moltmann, Karl Barth, Marcus Borg, and several others of the same caliber (these three men are heroes of the emergent movement). In these NNU textbooks, you find the path to emergent, “progressive,” socialist, New Age “Christianity”—something that has become the hallmark for Nazarene universities today. If you attend a Nazarene church, and that church is looking for a new pastor, it would be a good idea to find out how much of his seminary/university training rubbed off on him because you can be sure, he’ll be bringing it to your church.
In this relatively short article, we have provided examples of just three schools. But we could give countless more of other schools that began opening their doors to the contemplative element, and now are becoming full-fledged emergent schools.
When we started warning about the contemplative movement entering the church through the evangelical colleges, seminaries, and universities back in the early part of this present millennium, our warnings were brushed off and dismissed by many Christian leaders. Today, some of these same leaders are being vocal about the left-leaning, anti-God, socialistic condition of this country. But they either don’t realize or don’t care that the early contemplative pioneers that they embraced twenty plus years ago brought in that very same mindset into the church through contemplative prayer. And now, as older pastors are retiring or passing away, the new younger pastors, trained in the colleges and seminaries, have become evangelists for this anti-Gospel, anti-biblical worldview.
The Calvinist Factor
For the editors at Lighthouse Trails, and for many of our readers, we are not surprised that this paradigm shift has occurred. We have witnessed the terrible apathy and indifference by Christian leaders and many pastors for nearly 18 years. Not only has there been apathy and indifference, but there has been hostility and anger. Just last week, a pastor in Oregon who had been placed on our Christian leaders and pastors booklet mailing list (at the request of one of our readers) called and told us to remove him from the list. He then proceeded to list off about a dozen adjectives to describe us including pugnacious, slanderous, and hateful.
We were curious about this pastor’s church and checked it out on the Internet. It was a Calvinist-promoting church. One reason we have experienced a new level of anger by some pastors and leaders is because of the book we published in 2018 warning about Calvinism (Calvinism: None Dare Call it Heresy). And this brings us to something that needs to be said in this article with regard to the direction evangelical colleges, universities, and seminaries have headed: Many Christian colleges and universities are now embracing or are in the process of embracing Calvinism and Reformed Theology.
This presents a different set of serious problems, in one respect. But as we have stated in other articles, and wholeheartedly believe based on what we have observed, many young people trained in or drawn into Calvinism end up emergent or leaving the faith altogether (such as in the case of the recent departure from the faith by I Kissed Dating Goodbye author Josh Harris).
Aside from the colleges that have historically been Calvinist and Reformed (e.g., The Master’s Seminary, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Calvin College), new ones are continually getting on board with Calvinism. A perfect example of this is Bob Jones University (historically the antithesis of a Calvinist school), which now has a Calvinist president. And then there is Southern Baptist Convention. We estimate that as many as half of the Southern Baptist colleges and universities are now Calvinist leaning. One caller, who is a longstanding SBC member that has been in leadership positions, told us that almost all the SBC universities are now Calvinist or Calvinist influenced. A 2007 Christian Post article titled “Calvinism on the Rise” stated: “Nearly 30 percent of recent SBC seminary graduates now serving as church pastors indicate they are Calvinists.” This statistic was based on data presented at the 2006 SBC “Building Bridges: Southern Baptists and Calvinism” conference. We believe that percentage is much higher today because of the increase in Calvinism in the schools. And if our theory is right that many young Calvinists will eventually become emergent or defect the faith (sometimes because they cannot handle the dismal beliefs of John Calvin and Calvinism and sometimes because they haven’t found a personal relationship with Christ through Calvinism), then the outcome is going to be disastrous.
CONCLUSION
Either way you look at it, Christian/evangelical colleges, universities, and seminaries are in trouble. And if they are in trouble, then so are our churches because the schools are producing today’s and tomorrow’s pastors and leaders.
Our exhortation to parents and grandparents is to carefully and prayerfully choose the schools your children and grandchildren will attend. The pickings are getting slimmer every day, but your choices can potentially have eternal consequences or eternal blessings. Please don’t take it lightly.
Editor’s Note: If you know of a young person who attends or who plans to attend a Christian college, university, or seminary, please consider asking him or her to read Castles in the Sand or A Time of Departing. If you cannot afford to get one of these books, write to us at editors@lighthousetrails.com, and we will send a free copy for you to give to that college-age person. If you are wondering why we have so much concern about this, read an article we wrote in 2013 titled “Want Your Child to Become an Atheist? – Send Him to LeTourneau University in Texas (or Any Other Contemplative/Emergent School For That Matter).” It’s a true story, and tragically, it is happening too often.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
On December 19th, 2019, Christianity Today, the magazine that considers itself the “flagship” magazine for Christianity released an article written by the just-retired editor-in-chief, Mark Galli, titled, “Trump Should Be Removed from Office.” According to CT, the article set off a firestorm. And by our estimates, millions have now seen the article as scores of media outlets across the country reported on the story.1 However, that article will not be the focus of this Lighthouse Trails report. Rather, we will be discussing something said in a rebuttal article aimed at the critics that came out on December 22nd titled, “The Flag in the Whirlwind: An Update from CT’s President,” written by CT president Timothy Dalrymple.
In his effort to defend and define Christianity Today, Dalrymple’s article states that CT is “theologically conservative” and is “committed to the glory of God.”
Lighthouse Trails hopes to show that in the last 20+ years, since the emerging “progressive” socialist church was birthed, that Christianity Today has not been theologically conservative and has actually helped to propagate an emergent socialist, very non-theologically conservative spirituality that does anything but bring glory to God.
Emergent Church Background
In Roger Oakland’s 2007 book Faith Undone, he chronicled the birth of the emerging church, dating back to the 1950s with Peter Drucker who eventually inspired another business guru, Bob Buford. Around 1998, Buford’s organization, Leadership Network, with encouragement and enthusiasm from Leith Anderson, Rick Warren, and Bill Hybels, pulled together a group of youth pastors from around the country to form what would be called Terra Nova. Some of these young men included Brian McLaren, Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt. Chris Seay, and Tony Jones.
The Terra Nova group eventually broke up with each of these men going their own ways; but today’s postmodern emergent church was birthed, and much theological and spiritual damage has been done because of it. Countless young people, raised in Christian homes and confessing a faith themselves, were introduced to emergent Marxist/socialist-leaning ideologies by professors in Christian colleges, youth pastors who were enamored with the Terra Nova men, hundreds of books by Christian publishers, and Christian magazines. Christianity Today was right there at the forefront giving a major platform and thrust to the commencement of the emergent church. Many of the young people who were taken down the emergent path through these venues either became emergent themselves or walked away from the Christian faith all together.
Lighthouse Trails has documented this tragic occurrence for nearly 18 years. So to hear Christianity Today defend itself and say it is a “theologically conservative” magazine that brings glory to God compels us to show the role it has played in bringing about quite the opposite. And as we described in our 2013 article, “They Hate Christianity But Love (Another) Jesus – How Conservative Christians Are Being Manipulated and Ridiculed, Especially During Election Years,” those who have propagated the emergent church (including Christianity Today) have had political motives that are cloaked in supposed theological and spiritual interests.
Our 2013 article stated:
In 2008, which was an election year, books, videos, broadcasts, and news articles were pouring into mainstream America with a guilt-ridden message that basically manipulated conservative Christians into thinking that either they shouldn’t vote because “Jesus wouldn’t vote,” or they shouldn’t vote on morality issues such as abortion or homosexuality. Suddenly, all over the place, there was talk about “destroying Christianity,” or “liking Jesus but not the church,” or “Jesus for president” (suggesting that maybe we could get Him on the ballot but certainly we shouldn’t vote for anyone already on the ballot). It all sounded very noble to many. . . . It’s hard to believe there was not at least some political agenda in this storm of “we love Jesus but not the church or Christianity” especially witnessed in election years. And we believe this agenda was aimed particularly toward young people from evangelical conservative upbringings who had joined the emerging church movement. In a CBS Broadcast, anchorman Antonio Mora suggests there may have been over twenty million participants in the emerging church movement in the United States alone by 2006.2 Even half that number would be enough to change the results of a presidential election.
Our 2013 article also referred to the role that the “social justice gospel” played, something that changed the minds and spirituality of millions of young people, which inadvertently changed the outcomes of elections.
In 2011, we wrote an article titled “Christianity Today’s New 5 Year Teaching Series, the ‘Global Gospel Project,’ May Have Political and Emerging Objectives.” The article explained that Christianity Today had come up with a plan to help alleviate the confusion that so many young people now had regarding their spiritual beliefs (such as the atonement). In our article, we challenged Christianity Today for helping to create the problem in the first place through their continual and energetic endorsing and promotion of the emergent movement and then turning around and proposing to help solve the problem. In essence, that is what they have done for many years now—help create the problem then seemingly innocent and concerned offer to help solve the problem and act as if they have been on the right side all along. This is what they were doing over two decades ago, and by all appearances, this is what they are doing today.
In conclusion, we have put together a chronological list of a few of the countless articles Christianity Today has posted over the last four decades that have given backbone and stamina to the emergent socialist “church.” CT might argue that they are merely reporting without bias, but that is not the case as their steady history of often one-sided reporting (especially from emergent-leaning editors and writers), accolades, and hearty praise to the emerging, contemplative, social-justice church shows their bias as does their own published materials (magazines, journals, podcasts) and their recommended reading lists, book reviews, and endorsements. This small sampling of CT articles below illustrates how this supposedly “theologically conservative” magazine has made a steady concerted effort to change and redefine traditional evangelical views on issues such as the New Age and mysticism, the biblical relevance of the nation of Israel, the sin of homosexuality, conservative politics, interspiritual ecumenism, and other “conservative” issues. All this to say, Christianity Today is anything but “theologically conservative.” Some will say that interspersed with the bad, Christianity Today has good articles too. But as Harry Ironside said, “Truth mixed with error is equivalent to all error, except that it is more innocent looking and, therefore, more dangerous.”3
As for the Christianity Today article calling for the removal of President Trump, given that so many church goers and proclaiming Christians see the magazine as a trustworthy manifesto and directive for Christianity, you can be sure, it will alter the way many evangelicals vote this coming November, just like it played its part in helping to alter the election in 2008.
An Incomplete Chronological List of CT’s Articles Promoting Emergent, Socialist, Contemplative, Progressive Spirituality
October 2008 (just prior to election)—“After the Aloha Shirts” (promoting Rick Warren’s PEACE Plan and Saddleback’s presidential forum (of which some analysts said helped to get Obama elected by swinging the views of many evangelicals)
Hamilton