Need bullet points on What is wrong with the Emergent Church?

**Mark1970** · February-20th-2010, 06:21 PM

Hello All,

I would like to provide this link (message string) to some friends of mine who do not see what is wrong with the emergent and missional approach within the church.

I would like to provide them with information that is clear and to the point.

I have posted many articles from lighthousetrailsresearch, apprising ministries, extreme theology, but sometimes it can be difficult to have people read long articles and such-

Would you post sound wisdom and advice that could help others want to do more research on this subject matter?

Thanks,

Mark

**Kathy_57** · February-20th-2010, 10:20 PM

You may find this helpful:

Emergent Charts

**paul&katie** · February-20th-2010, 10:45 PM

The Emergent Church -- Theological

The Emergent Church -- Theological "Sons of Jeroboam"

By Bob DeWaay

In January of this year I debated Emergent Church leader Doug Pagitt. During my twenty minute opening statement, I used Scripture to establish the fact that God Himself through His Word determines the boundaries of how we come to God and walk with Him. I used simple logic: either there are boundaries on how we come to God or there are not. Since no boundaries would open the door to universalism, there are boundaries. Since there are boundaries, either God determines the boundaries or man does. Since man is the fallen sinner who needs to come to God, he can hardly be trusted to determine valid boundaries. So logically God must determine the boundaries of how man comes to God.

Pagitt rejected my logic as "binary reductionism" but would not reveal what boundaries, if any, he considered valid. He clearly was very uncomfortable with the idea of restrictions and boundaries. This is not a unique situation.

There was a king in Israel who decided that he could set up his own way of coming to God. The king was Jeroboam. Jeroboam received a prophecy that God was going to tear 10 tribes away from Solomon and give them to him (1Kings 11:31) because of the idolatry of Solomon (1Kings 11:33). Solomon then decided to put Jeroboam to death, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt until Solomon died (1Kings 11:40). At Solomon's death the prophecy came true and Jeroboam became king over the 10 northern tribes.

However, once God had made Jeroboam king, Jeroboam became concerned. He reasoned: "If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah" (1Kings 12:27). So, being a pragmatist, he set up two convenient houses of worship: Dan in the northern part of the realm and Bethel in the southern part. Then he made priests out of non-Levites and instituted his own feast day, hoping to keep the people from going to Jerusalem as required by Torah.

To further make the new way of worshipping God amenable to the people, he placed a golden calf in each place of worship: "So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, 'It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt'" (1King 12:28). He believed himself to have the right to determine the images and practices of his version of Yahweh worship.

Jeroboam thought he could come to God anyway that he saw fit. Prophets of God spoke to him (1Kings 11:31; 13:1; 14:7-10) and he was healed by God (1Kings 13:6), but in the end he was judged as an evil doer (1Kings 14:10-14). Jeroboam saw no need to follow the prescriptions of Torah concerning how Israel was to worship God. How wrong he was!

Modern "sons of Jeroboam" are making the same mistake. Consider the following story from the book Church Re-imagined by Doug Pagitt.

"Our last pose of the evening is called 'savasana' or corpse pose. The student lies on her back letting the legs fall open as they will, the arms hang limp like empty coat sleeves. The face, the forehead, the space between the eyebrows all relax, and the person melts heavily into the floor. Eyes are closed, breathing is rhythmic. I turn the lights off, and only the glow of candles and sometimes fireplace illuminates the room. This state of being is holy. It is at this time that we become closer to God, aware of our bodies, of the divine. . . . Slowly people get up, talk, commit to a daily practice of yoga in hopes of getting this feeling again and again. We are hesitant to leave this moment of shared reverence, this experience of worship." (Church Re-imagined: 87, 89)

I asked Doug about this during our debate and made it clear that I believed practicing yoga like this was crossing a God-given boundary. He said that this portion of his book was written by someone else, but he would stand by it.

The thing that stood out to me during this debate was how very little we had in common. In fact when we no longer agree that inerrant, authoritative Scripture determines the boundaries of our faith and practice, we actually end up with nothing in common. The Emergent Church is going the way of Jeroboam and providing practices for Christians that have more in common with the pagan culture than they have with the Bible. Leaving man to determine his own boundaries is to have no boundaries. The simple answer is to repent and come to God on His terms.

**paul&katie** · February-20th-2010, 10:46 PM

The Liberal Roots of the Emergent Church

The Liberal Roots of the Emergent Church
By Eric Barger

Over a century ago spiritual liberalism swept through the once-sound mainline denominations, wreaking theological havoc on anyone in its path. Once solid and fundamentally based seminaries became infested with the liberal teachings of the so-called "German Enlightenment" and before long heretical intellectualism, which doubted the authority of the Bible, quickly spread to the leaders of the denominations, into the pulpits and finally to those in the pews.

Today, one doesn't have to look far to see the spiritual disrepair that liberalism has left the denominations in. Because of the longstanding apostasy of the spiritual liberals, untold millions have already entered eternity without Jesus Christ - having previously believed that those entrusted with teaching them the Christian faith were doing so faithfully and authentically.

Using much the same modus operandi, Satan is now out to destroy the Evangelicals of our times. It worked well 100-150 years ago in the mainline denominations and it's working again now. So, with the predicted falling away of the end-times in full swing (2 Thess. 2:3), every truth-seeking Christian needs to be aware of the "new" liberalism - The Emergent Church.

What is the Emergent Church?

"This short piece is not meant to fully educate on Emergent error. Nor will I go into the secondary issues of Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven" philosophy or the "Seeker Sensitive" ideas of Bill Hybels and Willow Creek. There are many fine resources from trustworthy apologetics ministries and others that are shedding light on these troubling teachings as well as on Emergent thought. The DVD our ministry produced called The Errors of the Emergent Church is one such tool. (Click here) However, for the sake of those who may have never heard the term "Emergent," let me offer a quick definition.

The Emergent Church Movement takes its name from the idea that the culture has changed, and a new church should emerge in response. It apparently grew out of discussion groups inside the Young Leadership Network in the 1990's. To Emergents, Christianity should be:

Experience over Reason
Spirituality over Doctrine and Absolutes
Images over Words
Feelings over Truth
Earthly Justice over Salvation
Social Action over Eternity
Put bluntly, the Emergent Church Movement is a complete redefinition of Christianity. It is unquestionably the new Liberalism. However, don't wait for Emergent teachers to use the term "Emergent." Learn how to spot it for yourself.

How to Spot the Emergent Church in Your Church

Here is a short list of authors, teachers and areas of concern that may indicate that the leadership of your church is being influenced to varying extents by Emergent Church philosophy.
Are books or videos by teachers such as Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt or Tony Jones being recommended or used in classes, home groups or church services? These men began by simply questioning the authority of the Bible and the orthodox nature of Christian doctrine and have now redefined what they call Christianity into a completely cultic, yet loosely defined and identified, religion.

It is a genuine oxymoron that the wildly unorthodox ideas taught by these men could be as readily accepted as they are in supposedly "Evangelical" churches, seminaries and even entire denominations.

Have biblical doctrines such as salvation by grace, repentance and the reality of a literal Hell been marginalized or abandoned? Is there a constant insistence that the Church must abandon history and orthodox teaching and change our methods in order to be relevant to the postmodern world?

It is a completely flawed concept to believe that postmoderns are somehow different than all generations before them and that if we are to reach them then we must change. Sin in the hearts of men is still the problem and the Cross is still the antidote! God has entrusted us with the ONLY message that can cure the sickness of sin. Who are we to change the message? We must lovingly and accurately deliver the whole Gospel regardless of how it may be accepted and remember that it is the Holy Spirit's task to draw men to Jesus - not ours. To edit the Gospel - regardless of how well-intentioned - is to thwart the Holy Spirit's work and merely assures the eternal damnation of those we seek to reach. (Romans 1:16)

Is Contemplative Prayer/Spirituality being introduced and practiced? Is there talk of "Spiritual Formation," centering prayer and something called "lectio divina" which, in a nutshell, is leading Evangelicals directly into the mystical and sometimes occult-based practices of the Roman Church? Have you heard the term "labyrinth"? (An usually intricate maze to meditate in, with basis in Greek, Egyptian and Cretan Mythology and used in Tantric Buddhism.) Mystics contend that utilizing a labyrinth will supposedly bring a relaxed mental attitude and end the search for life's meaning! In reality, this road leads to New Age mysticism and even the occult, as does the popular Emergent practice of Yoga.

A few popular contemplative adherents are Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, Leonard Sweet, Thomas Keating, Richard Foster and Frank Viola.

Have buzzword phrases like "Missional Christianity," "Incarnational Christianity," "Conversational Christianity" and "Relational Christianity" been attached to the identity of your church?

Have the teachings of Open Source, Open Theism or Process Theology been embraced? (Open Theism teaches that God knows the past and lives in the present but has no idea of what the future holds. Obviously, this destroys every prophetic passage in the Bible - including the blessed hope of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.)

Is there a new, uncanny identification with saving planet Earth? Has environmentalism become common pulpit rhetoric? (Emergent author, Brian McLaren contends that it is Earth - and not unregenerate humans - that Christ came to save.)

Perhaps the most important question to ask is about the authority of the Scriptures. In your church, is the Bible held in utmost regard by those in leadership? Is the inerrancy of the Bible preached faithfully? Is there a complete and unapologetic dependence on God's Word by those in leadership? The growth of liberalism and Emergent ideas is directly proportionate to the value placed on the Scriptures by individuals and church leaders. Without an unwavering accountability to the Word of God, every individual Christian, as well as every local church and national denomination, will soon find themselves in jeopardy.

**tmartin_prof** · February-21st-2010, 06:35 AM

Originally Posted by paul&katie

The Emergent Church -- Theological

re. Open Theism. This is not what Open Theists believe. They very much believe that God has a clue about the future. They just believe that the future is made up of possibilities (and some fixed unalterable things like the second coming) and that like a Master chess player, He is aware of very possible future with every possible scenerio. So just the opposite to not having a clue. The theology of Open Theism doesn't question God's omniscience, it just questions what is the nature of the future - is it fixed or made up of possibilities.

I agree that Emergent Church has some theologies that are definitely worth having great caution over. However there is not connection between Emergent theology and Open theism. For-instance just because a Emergent Church follower likes coffee, doesn't mean that all coffee lovers like Emergent theology . Hence, no connection between Emergent Theology and Open Theism. Just some adherents of the former have taken up the latter.