Emergent Church Leaders Promote Evolutionary Spirituality

[billiefan2000]

Emergent Church Leaders Promote Evolutionary Spirituality
Posted by Ingrid Schlueter in Emergent Church, New Spirituality on December 23rd, 2010 | no responses
Emergent Church leaders Sally Morgenthaler, Spencer Burke, Doug Pagitt and Brian McLaren are joining “Evolutionary Evangelist” Michael Dowd in the promotion of evolutionary spirituality, long taught by leading New Age gurus like Barbara Marx Hubbard. Dowd sent out this press release yesterday about the new project.

DECEMBER 22, 2010 – This Christmas season, bestselling author and evolutionary evangelist Rev. Michael Dowd is having an online revival of sorts, and pitching what may be the biggest tent yet for fellow Christians who embrace evolution and honor science: EvolutionaryChristianity.com.

As a sequel to his breakthrough book Thank God for Evolution (Viking/Plume), Rev. Dowd is hosting and producing a living library of free podcasts and live panels with preeminent Christians on the leading edge of science and religion, where mythic beliefs and measurable reality collide.

» View schedule and bios
» View live panel schedule
» View speakers grouped by affiliation

“The New Atheists and scriptural literalists are not the only games in town,” says Dowd. “In contrast to Richard Dawkins’ God-less universe, tens of millions of us in the middle celebrate both Jesus and Darwin. For us, religious faith is strengthened by what God is revealing through science.”

Dowd will speak one-on-one with 38 religious and scientific luminaries representing Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Progressives, and both Integral and Emerging Church leaders about “how science can deepen faith, not threaten it.”

The historic dialogues, titled, The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity: Conversations at the Leading Edge of Faith, explore the emergence of a new form of religious experience that reveres what God is revealing through science and embraces all of creation. Dowd will talk with some of the most respected names in science and religion — Nobel laureates and Templeton Prize-winners among them.

His guests also include Brian McLaren, named by Time magazine as one of America’s 25 most influential evangelicals; Catholic theologian John Haught and Brown University biologist Ken Miller, both key witnesses for the plaintiff at the 2005 Dover ‘intelligent design’ trial; Wired magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly; Ian Lawton, pastor of the Michigan church that recently made national news for removing its cross; Sister Joan Chittister, co-chair of the U.N. Global Peace Initiative of Women; and Sister Gail Worcelo, co-founder of Green Mountain Monastery with Thomas Berry; Bishop John Shelby Spong, whose books on evolving faith have sold more than a million copies; Matthew Fox, defrocked by now Pope Benedict XVI for embracing Creation Spirituality; Paul Smith, a veteran pastor who was kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention for blessing gay unions; and 30 other evolutionary Christians.

» View all speakers grouped by affiliation

In the spirit of the season, Dowd and his guests are giving away free access to all the interviews. The daily dialogues were launched December 4 on EvolutionaryChristianity.com, and will continue through January 14. Already more than ten thousand Christians from around the world, including hundreds of clergy, have found the site, with many joining the conversation.

“For far too long the public debate has been a battle of extremes,” says Rev. Dowd. “After nearly a decade on the road sharing the good news of evolution, I felt called to convene a coalition of Christian leaders who embrace scientific evidence as divine communication. By focusing on values and perspectives that we all share, rather than on our differences, we are discovering extraordinary common ground. There’s more than one way to be an evolutionary Christian, but what we all share are deep-time eyes and a global heart.”

From January 15 through February 1, Dowd will host six live online seminars with an internet audience of tens of thousands who can ask questions of the panelists. In February, transcripts of all the dialogues and panel discussions will be made available to the public, along with study guides for churches, seminaries, and school boards.

» View live panel schedule

A recent Gallup poll reveals that four in ten Americans still believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so,” or what Dowd dubs “denial about the reality of deep time and our real history.”

Dowd believes that now is the time to help fellow Christians relate to their faith within the context of a universe that he exclaims is “far more glorious and inspiring than anyone living thousands of years ago could have possibly imagined—even prophets!”

Rev. Dowd has come a long way since handing out anti-evolution tracts in his early 20s. Today, he and his wife Connie Barlow, a science writer, are itinerant evolutionary evangelists proclaiming a gospel billions of years old.

The unorthodox missionaries have spoken to more than eleven hundred audiences, from Baptists to Buddhists, about how science and religion can enjoy a happy marriage. The Dodge Sprinter they call home travels North America with a clear message on both sides, the Jesus and Darwin fishes kissing, a graphic Dowd says gets them “a lot of smiles and a few gestures.”

Dowd’s first book, EarthSpirit: A handbook for nurturing an ecological Christianity, was one of the first attempts to look appreciatively at biblical Christianity in light of what scientists have discovered about the universe.

His most recent, Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World, was endorsed by six Nobel Prize-winning scientists and by religious leaders across the spectrum.

About the Participants

» View schedule and bios
» View live panel schedule
» View speakers grouped by affiliation



Meanwhile, Barbara Marx Hubbard and her New Spirituality friends are promoting their upcoming Shift Retreat where they are also going to be addressing evolutionary spirituality.


This is where all the teaching on evolution was eventually headed–not into atheism, but to this global spirituality with man at the center and on the throne.


As Hubbard declares in her demonic retelling of the book of Revelation, those who will not participate will face judgment day.


Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren, Spencer Burke, Sally Morgenthaler and anyone who legitimizes them by participating with them in their conferences, books, and online seminars are helping to promote the doctrines of demons.

Those who refuse to come out from among these men and women and stay clean from their lies are participants in with them.


Emergent Church Leaders Promote Evolutionary Spirituality - The Crosstalk Blog

[billiefan2000]

among the apostates listed


Brian McLaren
John Shelby Spong

Matthew Fox (not the actor, but the member of the Dominican Order


Michael Dowd
Spencer Burke
Doug Pagitt


Evolutionary Christianity || Speaker Bios


my question to certain willow creek association Omaha area church leaders who support Brian McLaren:


why do you still support Brian McLaren when IT IS EVIDENT based on the facts and evidence that has been growing on him for a long time he has similar beliefs as John Shelby Spong and Matthew Fox

(i.e. Brian McLaren is into far-left social activism and is a admitted universalist and is promoting mysticism)




btw: Dowd spoke at Unity Church of Omaha Nebraska this year.

(one of the most bizarre churches in Omaha and is a church I have reported on before on the RF site here)



waiting for a answer from Omaha Nebraska leaders who are part of the willow creek association movement

http://www.willowcreek.com/wca_info/...te=NE&Country=

cause it is coming out to be common knowledge that willow creek association churches seem to have beliefs that seem no different



than what local pastors Eric Elnes (a UCC pastor)

and Barry Vennard (the Unity Church of Omaha pastor)


and the emergent church promote and peddle down people's throats.





p.s. it's time for the phony conservatives and phony evangelicals at the omaha area willow creek association churches to admit they are liberals or similar theology-wise to the emergent church

I have said that is time for the phony conservatives and phony evangelicals in the churches to say who they really are.

cause I am not buying this charade by some in Omaha anymore that some are pulling.

[billiefan2000]

on a related matter, found this online:


Reverend Michael Dowd returns to Omaha Nebraska at Countryside Church of Omaha for Evolution We e k e n d to present his topic “

Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and R e l i g i o n Will Transform Your Life and Our World.”

Dowd will "preach" at Countryside Church (a UCC church in omaha runned by false teacher Eric Elnes on

Sunday, February 13 (just 2 days after he returns to my town to spew his lies at new-age Barry Vennard 's church)



I :cry for the children who go to Countryside Church of Omaha and Unity Church of Omaha.

theyre parents should know better


and we need to for the children being brainwashed and led into darkness by folks like Barry Vennard and Eric Elnes





one other side note:

The Clergy Letter Project



lists the churches doing Evolution sunday 2011


(including 4 nebraska churches that have for sure based on what I know about them long abadoned the bible for Darwinism and new-age stuff)


Augustana Lutheran Church
Omaha, NE
The Rev. Susan Butler, Pastor

Countryside Community Church
Omaha, NE
The Rev. Eric Elnes, Senior Pastor

Unity Church of Omaha
Omaha, NE
Barry L. Vennard, Minister

St. Martha's Episcopal Church
Papillion, NE
Deacon Nancy W. Huston



p.s. (for those in omaha reading this and sorry to go on a personal rant)

Nancy W. Huston is a Omaha Public School Board member who is up for re-election in 2012.

I hope she is thrown off the board, and replaced with someone decent cause the OPS board dont need anymore far left activists like Huston on there.


we btw got 2 new board members and 4 returning board members next week. and 6 other board members up for re-election in 2012.

(dont get me started on the 2 who lost the school board election in november.

i was celebrating when they both lost and got replaced.

[billiefan2000]

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Dec 29, 2010 in AM Missives, Brian McLaren, Current Issues, Doug Pagitt, Emergence Christianity, Emergent Church, Features, Youth Ministry

Apprising Ministries continues doing what we can to alert spiritually obtuse pretending to be Protestant evangelicals to the grave dangers and deceptions of embracing the Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM)

perpetrated by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster,

along with his friend and spiritual twin SBC minister Dallas Willard, as so-called Spiritual Formation (SF).



But CSM is nothing more than refried Roman Catholic mysticism with its pietism and asceticism romanticized for those who are ignorant of Church history. With this in mind I will also tell you plainly that CSM found its way into mainstream evangelicalism

through its foolish embrace of the sinfully ecumenical Emergent Church aka Emerging Church, a neo-liberal cult now operating within it.


The EC’s postmodern form of “big tent” Emergence Christianity is the putrid spiritual fruit of critical thinking skills-numbing CSM.

Here you’ll see another example of the fetid fruit of this counter-Reformation spirituality that’s now spread deeply into squishy evanjellyfish through the evolution of this Liberalism 2.0.


In posts like Michael Dowd & Spencer Burke—Integrity And Evolutionary Christianity (Part 2), Michael Dowd And Science Fiction Christianity,

and Mental Off-Roading Radio With Doug Pagitt And Michael Dowd I’ve introduced you to Rev. Michael Dowd, whom I first brought to your attention in Jesus Died For Our Reptilian Brain.




Dowd is an ordained Christian minister and author of Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World; in addition, on his Evolutionary Christianity.TheOoze.com website Dowd tells us more about himself:


(Online source)

In How and Why I’m a Pentecostal Evangelical Dowd also says:

I refer to myself (and the media often refers to me) as an ‘evangelical minister’ or a ‘Pentecostal preacher’, even though I speak far more often in moderate and liberal churches (and in secular settings) than I do in evangelical and Pentecostal venues.

Not surprisingly, both religious liberals and conservatives genuinely ask, “In what sense do you consider yourself a Pentecostal evangelical?” HERE is my response (Online source)

You’ll soon find out that with men like Dowd we’re mentally off-roading as we head deep into the postmodern Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language where they bend and shape words into whatever Play-Doh shapes they wish to.


For a while now I have been warning you that there is a tsunami of apostasy—pushed along by 1 Peter 4:17 judgments—headed toward the church visible.

Not a few of these judgments have come through evanjellyfish’s foolish embrace of the Emergent Church, headed by the unholy EC trinity of apostates,

Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, and his friend Tony Jones, the progressive “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch.



The price is only beginning to be paid from years of mainstream evangelical churches using the warped and toxic teachings of these rebels

against the final authority of God’s Word in their own Young Adult and Youth ministries thereby infecting them with this new postmodern form of Progressive Christianity.



I’ve also told you that this neo-liberal cult is also incorporating emergence theory of evolutionary science because many in the EC believe that, right now, mankind is evolving upward into a higher state of consciousness; and in their delusions (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12) these neo-Gnostics feel their CSM—and particularly the transcendental meditation for the Christian they call Contemplative/Centering Prayer—plays a huge role in this alleged evolution.

You’ll see them refer to this as “transformation,” which quite literally means one will see reality in a new way.


Earlier in Doug Pagitt Agrees With Evolutionary Evangelist Michael Dowd I explained to you why this CSM was so important to the EC’s evil agenda to penetrate the mainstream as its forebears in the original Cult of Liberal Theology once did the mainline. You see, mysticism is perfectly suited to the philosophy of postmoderism that now dominates much of this caprious culture in which we find ourselves;

you see, as with neo-orthodoxy ala Karl Barth, postmodernism is “anti-logical” and “embraces Paradox”[1] while its deconstructionists viciously attack rational thought with what’s commonly known as irrational philosophy:

Irrational philosophies accordingly stress the will at the expense of reason, as exemplified in the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre or Karl Jaspers. (Online source)



Now you have the background you need to understand why Ingrid Schlueter would write Emergent Church Leaders Promote Evolutionary Spirituality.


Today Schlueter brings out:


Emergent Church leaders Sally Morgenthaler, Spencer Burke, Doug Pagitt and Brian McLaren are joining “Evolutionary Evangelist” Michael Dowd in the promotion of evolutionary spirituality, long taught by leading New Age gurus like Barbara Marx Hubbard. (Online source)

She then tells us, “Dowd sent out this press release yesterday about the new project”; and goes on to quote from it while informing us:


This Christmas season, bestselling author and evolutionary evangelist Rev. Michael Dowd is having an online revival of sorts, and pitching what may be the biggest tent yet for fellow Christians who embrace evolution and honor science: EvolutionaryChristianity.com.



As a sequel to his breakthrough book Thank God for Evolution (Viking/Plume), Rev. Dowd is hosting and producing a living library of free podcasts and live panels with preeminent Christians on the leading edge of science and religion, where mythic beliefs and measurable reality collide… (Online source)




We’re not surprised that among these supposed ”preeminent Christians on the leading edge” we just happen to find Spencer Burke, Sally Morgenthaler,

along with two-thirds of the aforementioned EC unholy trinity of apostates with EC guru Brian McLaren,

as well as universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt.


In closing this, for now, from his message Evolutionize Your Life, here’s a sample of the science fiction evolutionary psuedo-Christianity of Michael Dowd (seen below):



We don’t merely have to wait to die to experience heaven; we can experience it in this life by being aligned with reality…saying “yes” to life as it really shows up.


Faith in God and trusting the universe, celebrating what is,… if we don’t know (at least the basic flow, the basic broad sweeps of this evolutionary story that we’re a part of) we’re not going to know that the stars are our ancestors…



Human beings are literally the universe after some 14 billion years of unbroken evolution now becoming conscious of itself. We are literally nature uncovering it’s own nature…we all have come to ways of relating to reality…


When we remember that God is a sacred, meaningful personification (not a person) all of the sudden not only does that make sense of all the world’s religious traditions and their differences, but it also allows us to see that there’s no conflict between science and religion.

You should be able to see that with the above we’ve left anything even remotely Christian; and the question then becomes:

What is it going to take to awaken people to the evil spewed by these Emerging Church leaders?



Ingrid Schlueter is dead on target when she writes:



Meanwhile, Barbara Marx Hubbard and her New Spirituality friends are promoting their upcoming Shift Retreat where they are also going to be addressing evolutionary spirituality.


This is where all the teaching on evolution was eventually headed–not into atheism, but to this global spirituality with man at the center and on the throne.

As Hubbard declares in her demonic retelling of the book of Revelation, those who will not participate will face judgment day.




Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren, Spencer Burke, Sally Morgenthaler and anyone who legitimizes them by participating with them in their conferences, books, and online seminars are helping to promote the doctrines of demons.


Those who refuse to come out from among these men and women and stay clean from their lies are participants in with them.




http://apprising.org/2010/12/29/the-...-christianity/

[nancy's boy]

St. Martha's Episcopal Church
Papillion, NE
Deacon Nancy W. Huston



p.s. (for those in omaha reading this and sorry to go on a personal rant)

Nancy W. Huston is a Omaha Public School Board member who is up for re-election in 2012.

I hope she is thrown off the board, and replaced with someone decent cause the OPS board dont need anymore far left activists like Huston
William.....please refrain from spreading your hate when it is based on your lack of knowledge or just plan ignorance. Ms. Huston is way out of your league, also as you can see from my user name, she is my mother. I hate to give your onesided ramblings 1 ounce of attention, but you have crossed a line that even your presious jesus couldn't back you on. brainwashing...really! what are your feable attempts to sway peoples perceptions of others an attempt at if not brainwashing? I do not know this guest speaker that you WARN OF...but I do know Nancy, and you sir, (I use the term loosley), do not! If she had the JEDI skills that you WARN your "followers" of, I would be a registered democrate and would attend your christian faith gatherings on a regular basis. You, (in my opinion) are the type that make people walk away from orginized religion. I suggest you take a a liitle time to research the targets of your hate speak before you attack or rant about things you have no knowledge of. and I also dare you to take nancy on 1 on 1....79 years old 5' nothing and she would eat you up spit you out and leave you crying in the corner on time-out like somebody should have a long time ago. Also Ms. Huston is not running for reelection in 2012 to the ops board, I have it on insider info she has grander ideas. have a golden day young wiliam, and may the force b w/you..

[billiefan2000]

William.....please refrain from spreading your hate when it is based on your lack of knowledge or just plan ignorance.

brainwashing...really! what are your feable attempts to sway peoples perceptions of others an attempt at if not brainwashing? I do not know this guest speaker that you WARN OF...but I do know Nancy, and you sir, (I use the term loosley), do not!


If she had the JEDI skills that you WARN your "followers" of, I would be a registered democrate and would attend your christian faith gatherings on a regular basis.

You, (in my opinion) are the type that make people walk away from orginized religion.

I suggest you take a a liitle time to research the targets of your hate speak before you attack or rant about things you have no knowledge of. and I also dare you to take nancy on 1 on 1....79 years old 5' nothing and she would eat you up spit you out and leave you crying in the corner on time-out like somebody should have a long time ago. Also Ms. Huston is not running for reelection in 2012 to the ops board, I have it on insider info she has grander ideas. have a golden day young wiliam, and may the force b w/you..

excuse me, but if someone is 20 or 120 and they are knowingly promoting false teachings and leading people astray, I have a right as a Berean (see 1 Timothy 4:1 and 2 Timothy 4:3-4 and 1 John 4:1 to speak out


I dont get into physical fights with false teachers or their enablers. That wouldnt be christ-like of me. I prefer to speak out on the facts.



btw: all of the board members up next year I hope to see get kicked out. Jensen is the one I dislike the most. I have no personal beef with Huston or the others up next year.

the OPS board has become a joke and other than Justin, none of the board members seem to have a backbone. it is a do what the School Board President Jensen says or else mentality.




why else do you think the OPS board and OPS is riddled right now with controversy and incomptence.


Cause if you speak out on something that isnt right, you get chewed out and yelled at for being "divisive"



samd goes in bad churches promoting false teachers.



I have to give Nancy credit, she isnt involved with Evolution Sunday 2012 mentioned at

http://theclergyletterproject.org/re...nd_2012.htm#NE


I dont have any personal beef with Nancy, but when she promoted it in 2010 and 2011, I felt I needed to comment.


so, I owe her a apology. perhaps she realized this was bad idea to be involved and distanced herself from the ES yearly event.



my problem out of any of those who have in the past or in 2012 will be promoting Evolutionary Spirituality is with Barry Vennard, who is the weirdest pastor in Omaha


articles on Unity Church of Omaha and it's "pastor" Barry Vennard


Romans 12.2 twisted by Omaha pastor Barry vennard to push new-age agend

Barry L. Vennard of the Universalism pushing Unity Church of Omaha 's Mothers Day message

what is Barry Vennard and Ernesto Medina saying in the OWH?

Barry Vennard of Unity Church of Omaha creates a Jesus that dosent sound like the one in the bible

John 14:6 denier and Universalist peddler Barry Vennard of Omaha 's Feb. 6 2011 "sermon"

new-age Pastor Barry Vennard of Omaha on his view of Christmas and my comment

Omaha's Unity church minister attacks Genesis 1:22?






btw: I dont like to criticize christian leaders or fellow christians, but when I see someone pushing false teachings, I feel a need to speak out.

I dont like seeing people get hurt or deceived. I believe in honesty and being truthful. That is why I do what I do online cause I dont want to see people get hurt.

I btw do plenty of other things besides speak out on false teachers. If you knew me, you would see, I am a very nice
person with a good heart.


I may come off as "mean" by some,

but I am mis-understood by those who dont see that the churches have some lack of discernment issues to deal with.


I btw hang out with friends and give to charity a lot.


I am someone who would rather listen to secular omaha stations 96.1 or 104.5 and 99.9 than the CCM music stations cause CCM music IMO is mostly lame and somewhat boring.

I btw like Messianic music and old hymns. aka any music with a message and substance over style and real passion in the song (aka someone put their effort into making a good song)



The Christian Community tolerates a lot of false teachings sadly.

The Prosperity Gospel nonsense that many TV preachers is one lie many christians sadly tolerate and refuse to speak on cause they are afraid of the pressure groups who hate christians using Discernment.




I btw hope u read more of my posts here on the site. http://www.raptureforums.com/forum/a...-local-church/


u will see there is a HUGE need for Discerment needed in Omaha Nebraska area 's christian community and in the churches across the country after reading what is said and mentioned at

http://www.raptureforums.com/forum/a...-local-church/