The Emergent Church festival aka the Wild Goose Chase! (and Omaha Nebraska "pastor" Eric Elnes

[billiefan2000]

OUTREACH REPORT 6-23-2011: THE WILD GOOSE CHASE!
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jun 24, 2011 in Current Issues, Emergence Christianity, Emergent Church, Features, Youth Ministry

By Special Apprising Ministries Correspondent Dustin Segers
Pastor, Shepherd’s Fellowship of Greensboro



Introduction: Thanks for your prayers for me as I went to take the gospel to the Emergent church unbelievers at the Wild Goose Festival in Shakori Hills, NC.

The speakers line-up included the “Who’s Who’s” list of apostasy with people such as Brian McLaren, Jay Bakker, Shaine Claiborne, Doug Pagitt, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Franky Schaeffer, etc.





A Conversation With Rev. Eric Elnes, Ph.D


I arrived @ 1:30 p.m. and the other two brothers I was going to meet up with were already there. I had planned to do only one-on-one evangelism since it was private property.

I knew that if we tried to do open-air preaching we would be quickly asked to leave. Once I arrived, I located the other brothers and find some people to talk to about the gospel and one of the brothers was already engaging in open-air preaching.


The attention the preaching was getting afforded me the opportunity to receive a free “If Love Wins What Now?” DVD by one Dr. Eric Elnes who walked our direction due to the preaching.

I later learned that Dr. Elnes teaches at Darkwood Brew, which is a Emergent Church/Coffee-House/web TV program.


This man was a “Christian universalist”.



(billiefan2000 side note: Elnes is pastor of Countryside Community Church of Omaha Nebraska which is a UCC church and is known for Universalism and New-age teachings and leftist social gospel agenda)


A Christian universalist believes that people can only be saved through Jesus alone, but that ultimately all people will be saved through Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice whether they have repented and believed on the gospel or not.

It appears that Dr. Elnes also held to the typical Emergent church view of God’s love: that God’s love is essentially the same for the lost person as well as the professing Christian;

no appreciable distinction is made between God’s common grace that He shows to all people (Matt. 5:44-45) and the saving grace that He shows only to believers (Rom. 5:8).



Our conversation about “Christian universalism” started after I read him the following quote from Brian McLaren,


Whatever remains of God’s good image inside OBL will be distinguished from the rest and dealt with appropriately, again in the perfect light of God’s justice and love. Whatever from his story can be healed will be healed.


Whatever cannot will be dealt with in some other appropriate way. Somehow, grace will have the final word. Somehow (as they say), love will win – not at the expense of justice, but through and with and in justice. Beyond that, I have no desire to speculate … only to live my life in harmony with God’s justice and love.



When I pointed out that McLaren attempted to argue that Osama Bin Laden may have been forgiven of his sins and welcomed into heaven without repentance and faith in Christ,

Dr. Elnes’ response was “That’s wonderful isn’t it!”

I said, “Not if Osama didn’t repent and put his faith in Jesus alone for salvation.”

He responded, “So, you’re saying that people who have never heard of Jesus go to Hell”

and I responded, “Yep, and many people who have heard of Jesus go to Hell.”


He then proceeded to ask me if people in India who have never heard of Jesus go to Hell and both I and another brother noted that they are damned because they are sinners who have sinned against God by perverting the knowledge God has placed within them and following various forms of idolatry instead (cf. Romans 1:18-25; 2:14-15).

We then proceeded to have a pretty decent discussion regarding judgment, predestination, election, the gospel, etc., for about 20 minutes until event officials showed up.

Obviously, we thoroughly disagreed with each other in just about every area mentioned above, but it seemed to be a somewhat profitable conversation since there wasn’t much interruption.

Dr. Elnes was somewhat annoyed by the doctrinal content of my responses, but he was a gentleman and I certainly appreciated his willingness to discuss these things in a civil manner.



Being Escorted off the Property




And so we were off to a good conversation when two event officials came and told us that we had to pay $159 booth fee to stay or we had to go. I didn’t want God’s money going to support a heresy fest, so we left.

The officials were kind, treated us with respect, and we had a brief opportunity to talk to them about the peace that only comes through repentance and faith in Christ, and they kindly but firmly encouraged us to leave ASAP.



IN CONCLUSION, thanks so much for your prayers.

Please continue to pray for our missionary work to Greensboro, the Triad, and to the uttermost parts of North Carolina, for the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few!

The original appears with a comment section for you to weigh in right here.


OUTREACH REPORT 6-23-2011: THE WILD GOOSE CHASE! : Apprising Ministries

[billiefan2000]

related posts on Eric Elnes and Country Side Community Church of Omaha Nebraska

(a UCC church in Omaha that I have been warning people about

and til recently have been for years largely. ignored by many fellow ODMers about Elnes and others in the Omaha area

to Ken Silva and others now warning people about Elnes and his "church" in Omaha Nebraska






Omaha area John 14:6 denying clergy plan Event that focuses on promoting gay agenda


Omaha UCC pastor says many christians dont believe in John 14:6


Eric Elnes: Creating emerging worship in a distinctly Episcopal way

Creation Sunday, Not Evolution Sunday, Churches respond to Liberal Churches yearly Darwin worship


Omaha UCC pastor Eric Elnes article for the UCC called Toward a profound emergence


Ann Kidd Taylor & Sue Monk Kidd to speak at Omaha UCC church (& Contemplative promoters in my town




this Omaha Nebraska "church" btw where Elnes has been pastor at

has also had folks such as Richard Cizik and Jim Wallis and John Shelby Spong

and Phyllis Tickle and Ann Kidd Taylor & Sue Monk Kidd among other emergent or emergent like folks

speak at their church over last few years



================================================== =
2 Timothy 4:3-4

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

1 Timothy 4:1-2

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

[billiefan2000]

Left-leaning Christians to rally around ‘Wild Goose’
Posted on June 24, 2011 by Coram Deo

From USA TODAY:

By Mark Metcalfe, Getty Images


“Michelle Shocked will play at the Wild Goose Festival in Durham, N.C., next week, a venue for 20-somethings who love God but aren’t thrilled with institutional Christianity.

That must mean it’s time for an old-fashioned camp meeting.

Starting Thursday, the bygone staple of the tent revival will be reincarnated on a bucolic farm as The Wild Goose Festival. Nearly 10 years in the making, the festival is an attempt to reimagine Christianity for the 21st century under a bigger, wider more inclusive tent.



The four-day festival is expected to draw thousands of young campers and some of the leading lights of the so-called Emergent Christianity movement.



With musicians such as David Wilcox and Michelle Shocked

and speakers such as Brian McLaren, Jay Bakker, and Shane Claiborne


festival leaders hope to establish the premier venue for 20-somethings who love God but aren’t thrilled with institutional Christianity, particularly the religious right.”



Ken Silva well summarizes this heresy-palooza event thusly:

“The wise Christian will have nothing to do with these neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience,” wrote Southern Baptist blogger Ken Silva of New Hampshire-based Apprising Ministries.

Read Ken’s article here.




Left-leaning Christians to rally around ‘Wild Goose’ | Defending. Contending.

[billiefan2000]

THE EMERGING CHURCH ON ITS WILD GOOSE CHASE
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jun 24, 2011 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Emergence Christianity, Emergent Church, Features

Unfortunately the spiritually obtuse seem to think the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church is dead.

However, what Apprising Ministries has been documenting for you is that we’ve now witnessed an upgrade to the Emerging Church 2.0, which claims its “big tent” postmodern Progressive Christianity aka Emergence Christianity is the historic Gospel of Jesus Christ bringing His kingdom to the earth now.

This becomes possible in their minds when we consider that the flawed philosophy of postmodernism is known for paradoxes and its irrational philosophy.

So essentially we end up in a whacked Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language, which is why corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) is so appealing to these postmodern liberals in the Emerging Church. Since I covered these subjects in more depth elsewhere, e.g. in Mysticism And Postmodernism, The Emerging Church, And Evangelicalism, here I’ll just remind you that mysticism is perfectly suited to the philosophy of postmoderism that now dominates much of this caprious culture in which we find ourselves.

It’s important that you come to understand as well that all of this is also quite similar to the Gnosticism we see being battled by the Apostles themselves in the New Testament; the common thread is their supposed superior secret knowledge gleaned from the practice of CSM, which is why I’ve labeled as neo-Gnostics people like Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster along with his spiritual twin and Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard—as well as those who follow these deceivers like Living Spiritual Teacher andEC guru Brian McLaren and his disciple EC rock star pastor Rob Bell.

As I pointed out before, you must realize such as these delude themselves into thinking they are the “initiated” and “enlightened” ones who’re just a little bit better than the average Christian because of their practicing so-called spiritual disciplines of spurious CSM under the guise of Spiritual Formation. The most important of which would be the practice of Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP), which is a transcendental meditation-lite while in an altered state of consciousness; and this is what they have in common with the other religions these compromisers are so busy courting right now.

Now you have the proper backdrop against which to see what’s going on with the latest EC apostasia-palooza called the Wild Goose Festival (WGF), which I covered in The Emerging Church On A Wild Goose Chase. As I said previously, WGF features a veritable who’s who of heretics who’ve now gone embarking upon some Wild Goose Chase after after another Jesus than the one we’ve always proclaimed, and to receive a different spirit from the one we received, and to accept a different gospel from the one we’ve always accepted (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:4).

Along with this, their mystic mush god with a man-shaped hole in his/her/it’s heart has issued a new command: “You shall shut off your mind and love mankind, whom you worship, with all of your heart and all of your true self and all of your strength in your nonduality.” It’s time to face the fact that such as these neo-Gnostics, if they were even Christians at all, have left anything even remotely Christian; which brings me nicely to With a smearing of mud, ‘Wild Goose’ takes flight today by Patrick O’Neill for the National Catholic Reporter.

The mud reference appears as a nice play on words by O’Neill who tells us WGF “came to life” yesterday with “buckets of water and tubs of mud” and then can allude to mud-slinging as he quotes me:

That openness led to a comment from Southern Baptist blogger Ken Silva of New Hampshire-based Apprising Ministries: “The wise Christian will have nothing to do with these neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience.”

Silva’s comment was carried in a Religion News Service story about the festival. (Online source)

God be praised, like I told you in Apprising Ministries Hits Mark On The Wild Goose Festival, that comment comes from a post by Yonat Shimron called Left-leaning Christians to rally around ‘Wild Goose’ that ran over at the interspiritual website Beliefnet as well as USA Today Religion and Huffington Post; so my comment got plenty of blogosphere milage. O’Neill tells us this wild goose chase began with something that sounds more like the New Spirituality than Christianity:

In a melding of spirituality, music, story-telling and fellowship, Wild Goose began with a request that those gathered sprinkle water on each other as a form of baptismal renewal, and smear mud on each other as a reminder that all come from dust and to dust they shall return — and as a reminder that “we are all connected to the earth, and we are connected to one another,” said Wild Goose founder Gareth Higgins. (Online source)

That Tony Jones, the heretical progressive “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch officiated by his equally heretical comrade Doug Pagitt, calls Higgins one of his “dearest friends”[1] does tell us a lot about him, as does the fact that he’s also a writer of the uber-liberal Huffington Post.[2] O’Neill then fills us in on some of the attendees of WGF, which included “gay Christians of all stripes and seasoned members of the Christian Left.” Here we begin our mental off-roading into the muddy terrain of Humpty Dumpty language where words don’t retain their actual meanings.

Gay Christians under this circus big tent of pseudo-Christianity means professing Christian who are actively involved with the deviant and sinful lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex, i.e homosexuality. As a matter of fact WGF is a haven for this type of homopression; you may recall from Outreach Report 6-23-2011: The Wild Goose Chase that AM board member pastor Dustin Segers talked about a discussion he had with Rev. Eric Elnes, Ph.D, which afforded Segers:

the opportunity to receive a free “If Love Wins What Now?” DVD by one Dr. Eric Elnes who walked our direction due to the preaching. I later learned that Dr. Elnes teaches at Darkwood Brew, which is a Emergent Church/Coffee-House/web TV program. This man was a “Christian universalist.” (Online source)

Many of the wild goosers are also universalists; and in addition to that heresy Elnes happens to head up a decidedly divisive bunch calling themselves the Heartland Clergy for Inclusion. As I told you the other day in Heartland Clergy For Inclusion Causing Division this Eric Elnes is behind a a piece of lunacy in the Lord’s Name called The Heartland Proclamation where we’re informed that “[t]he Holy Spirit compels” them to write:

The verdict is in. Homosexuality is not a sickness, not a choice, and not a sin… [and we] embrace the full inclusion of our LGBT brothers and sisters in all areas of church life, including leadership;… (Online source)

What utter nonsense; God absolutely did not compel those words, it’s just the love of self and a wild goose chase after another spirit. O’Neill tells us that WGF:

includes a bruising schedule that begins with yoga at 7:30 a.m. and doesn’t let up until a “Nightly Brew Talk Show” that lasts until 12:30 a.m. Friday’s schedule will include “Late Night Sacred Space” that starts at 11:30 p.m. Saturday closes with “Contemporary Compline” beginning at 11 p.m. (Online source)

Again, yoga and so-called sacred space have zero to do with the historic orthodox Christian faith, which is precisely why I made the comment quoted by O’Neill. He then gives us some of the leftist lineup including “Sojourners founder Jim Wallis; [and] Native American Christian Richard Twiss,” who is a proponent of the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation. And finally, O’Neill inadvertantly brings us to the heart of the matter when he tells us that:

In his opening remarks, Higgins, 36, said he wanted Wild Goose to be a place to hear peoples’ stories, to build relationships and mend the world. He urged people to “draw upon the source of inexhaustible love — to just reach out and grab it…[and] to learn how to be more human together.”

While not taking stands on the usual contentious issues among Christians, such as abortion and the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church, Higgins has said Wild Goose is inclusive — all are welcome — regardless of beliefs or anything else for that matter.
(Online source)

Inexhaustible love of the self, learning to be more human, no doctrinal stands, and anything goes beliefs; this sums up the emerging long road to nowhere with their neo-Bohemian worship of the created quite well, but the Lord says it even better:

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
(Romans 1:22-27)



THE EMERGING CHURCH ON ITS WILD GOOSE CHASE : Apprising Ministries

[billiefan2000]

THE WILD GOOSE OF THE EMERGING CHURCH IS NOT THE HOLY SPIRIT
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jun 25, 2011 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Emergence Christianity, Emergent Church, Features, Youth Ministry

“Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?” (Amos 3:3)

Fashioning God Into The Image Of Man

As part of our online apologetics and discernment labors Apprising Ministries has been documenting the New Downgrade within evangelicalism and I’ve been talking about The Build-A-God Shop, a venue where you can come in and share the characteristics of the god of your choosing.

Right now deep within its bowels there are those who are furiously constructing a version of the mush god of mysticism with a man-shaped hole in his/her/its heart. This is particularly typified by the Emerging Church aka the Emergent Church, a sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult with its new postmodern form of “big tent” Progressive Christianity—a Liberalism 2.0—sometimes referred to by these rebels against the final authority of God’s Word as Emergence Christianity.

However, you need to know that such as these are neo-Gnostic fools who, through their practice of existential corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), have now convinced themselves that they are the truly enlightened ones who are receiving special revelation from God as they use a form of meditation in an altered state of consciousness commonly known as Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP). It truly is transcendental meditation-lite sprayed with Christian terminology; and it definitely opens the door for deception.

You can get a good picture of the devastating delusion of CCP by comparing the First Sermon By Rob Bell AT MHBC to what the Emerging Church rock star pastor Rob Bell sounds like now with his Love Wins mythology. This infatuation with mysticism within the Emergent Church is beginning to produce some really rather bizarre ideas such as those I’ve mentioned previously in The Emerging Church And Transgender Agenda In Elementary Schools and Doug Pagitt Points Us To Evolutionary Evangelist Michael Dowd.

Of course all of this foolishness then serves to negate the proper Christian spirituality of sola Scriptura and ends up getting it exactly backward; where the Christian is to measure all experience by Scripture (cf. 2 Thessalonians 5:21), the EC wild goosers interpret the Bible against the what they think they have heard from God in their CSM and supposedly seen in the lifestyle of Jesus. Cue the 90′s song What If God Was One Of Us; I’ve told you that EC mystic mush god is essentially a bigger version of man; and in fact, he/she/it is really but a mirror of themselves.

With all of this in mind I point you to Left-Leaning ‘Wild Goose’ Festival Draws Ire of Evangelicals by Christian Post contributor Anugrah Kumar. It’s another report on the current EC apostasia-palooza, the Wild Goose Festival (WGF), which I first discussed in The Emerging Church On A Wild Goose Chase. As the Lord would will, being that He’s caused Apprising Ministries to become a leading critic of the Emerging Church, Yonat Shimron pulled a quote from my article in her piece Left-leaning Christians to rally around ‘Wild Goose’ that ran over at the interspiritual website Beliefnet as well as USA Today Religion and Huffington Post.

This comment of mine has certainly gotten plenty of blogosphere mileage also showing up yesterday in With a smearing of mud, ‘Wild Goose’ takes flight by Patrick O’Neill at the National Catholic Reporter. Now today the following from me surfaces yet again in Kumar’s commentary at Christian Post who first shares that “Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy,” had said WGF is rooted in “gnostic beliefs that Christianity has repeatedly rejected.” Then Kumar writes:

Ken Silva, a Southern Baptist blogger from New Hampshire-based Apprising Ministries, agrees with Tooley. “The wise Christian will have nothing to do with these neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience,” he said on his blog. (Online source)

Yes, I do agree with Tooley; CSM/CCP is an existential and highly subjective approach to spirituality that has more in common with the New Spirituality of Deepak Chopra than it does the historic orthodox Christian faith. You think I overstate; then make the time to actually look at the evidence I present e.g. in Seducing Spirits SoundingThe Same. You should know that Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren began laying out the new postmodern progessive/liberalism now preached by the Emerging Church 2.0 in his recent book A New Kind of Christianity (ANKoC). Unfortunately, while there was a minor stir for a moment, people missed the implications of what McLaren did.

In ANKoC McLaren speaks highly of progressive/liberal theologian Harvey Cox, of Harvard Divinity fame; he’s also very instrumental right now in assisting progressive/process Christian theologian Philip Clayton down in the basement of the The Build-A-God Shop helping to construct this Emerging mystic mush god. Cox has written a book called The Future Of Faith, from which McLaren drew much for his ANKoC; as a matter of fact, on the back cover of this book by Cox we see McLaren himself literally gushing:

This important book has not only helped me understand the past, present, future of this amazing phenomenon called Christianity . . . it has also motivated me to keep working to help make actual the possible future Cox envisions
—Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian

Now the wise person is going to ask: Just what does this “possible future Cox envisions,” which Brian McLaren is so “motivated” to “help make actual,” look like? Well Lord willing, should funding allow, I’ll be showing you more and more aspects concerning this new form of postmodern liberalism in days to come; here we’re concerned with this mystic mush god they’re busy building. I’ve already shown you in Stranger And Stranger Global Bedfellows Emerging that the endorsements for Harvey Cox’ vision are rather revealing as to where we’re heading—into a neo-Gnostic Global religion:

The Future of Faith is insightful, provocative, and inspiring—I found myself uttering a hearty evangelical ‘Amen’ at many points!
—Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport

The Future of Faith is a tour de force. As passionate and challenging as his classic, The Secular City, Cox’s new book invites the faithful, the skeptical, and the fearful intp a spirit-filled version of Christianity that can renew a hurting world.
—Diana Butler Bass, author of A People’s History of Christianity

Cox brings the eye of an historian and the heart of a theologian to explain where we’ve come from and where we’re going. The Future of Faith is an essential guide to that future.
—Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners and author of The Great Awakening

Harvey Cox has been a voice of both reason and faith in our cynical times. Now, he offers a fresh vision for the resurrection of a new global Christianity that will restore our faith both in ourselves and in the divine.
—Deepak Chopra, author of Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment [1]

While I put this all into its proper perspective for you, let me remind you of something I brought out before; when a pantheist proponent of New Spirituality—once known as the New Age Movement—like Deepak Chopra can sign on to your “big tent” supposed “resurrection of a new global Christianity,” then it’s safe to say that you’ve officially departed from anything even remotely resembling the faith proclaimed through the years by the Christian church. And I’m guessing it ought to be cause for concern that Mouw, supposedly a Calvinist, can join hands in fellowship with such as these who repudiate the Lord’s Church Reformers and preach a different Gospel.

Perhaps you may not be aware of a couple of exploits involving Richard Mouw’s Fuller Theological Cesspool and the dastardly duo of the EC, universalist EC pastor Doug Pagitt of Solomon’s Porch along with his progressive/liberal “theologian in residence” Tony Jones—the other two-thirds of the unholy EC trinity with Brian McLaren. Permit me to enlighten you to Fuller Seminary Is Promoting Emerging Church Heretic Doug Pagitt and Fuller Theological Seminary Professor Tony Jones And Christian Spirituality Cohort, which also will feature guru McLaren and fellow heretic Phyllis Tickle, the Empress of Emergence Christianity, on hand to teach their counter Reformation CSM.

But such is sad state of the mainstream of the church visible with our leaders so scared of their own spiritual shadows they say nothing; not to mention being hopelessly paralyzed by postmodern Humpty Dumpty language where words are folded and shaped like origami until they have no fixed meaning. Here we have a major, ostensibly evangelical, seminary giving its classes over to people who actually deny the faith. What has developed into the Emerging Church 2.0—complete now with its own version of pseudo-Christian progressive theology—was never merely a casual conversation; it was always designed by Satan as a serious spiritual attack aimed at capturing the younger sectors of evangelicalism, which has now largely been accomplished.

Postmodern Liberalism Is Now Using The Same Strategy To Conquer As Original Liberalism

Evangelical leaders can continue their dead-on impressions of Rip Van Winkle but the point remains; because of a relentless barrage of EC propaganda from its own church-related schools, institutions, and publishing arms aimed specifically at those who would represent the future of the Christian community, younger sectors of the mainstream are now quite confused as to what the Christian faith even is. I told you long ago this Emergent menace was like spiritual “know-it-all” thirteen-year-olds determined to have their own way as they go out look for any heresy even marginally considered Christian to then drag back into God’s visible house so we’ll be forced to hash heresy again that had already been dismissed.

The Lord be praised that there are some people beginning to notice; my friend Don Koenig writes today in his post The Great Apostasy of the Evangelicals:

I think the most shocking thing going on in our nation is not that Marxists are actively running and ruining America. After all, people that reject God in any nation are going to look for a human substitute for God.

The most shocking thing in America is that heretics are now taking over the Christian Evangelical movement in America and few Evangelicals notice or care. (Online source)

Now you stand upon the terrain necessary to view this very important Wild Goose gathering of the Emerging clans, who’re now emboldened enough to more literally lay out in the open their perverted quasi-Christian neo-Gnosticism. Returning to the aforementioned Christian Post piece, Kumar is correct that:

The Wild Goose, a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit, is a “festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts” to discover where justice and spirituality intersect, according to organizers, mostly from the Emerging Church Movement, who inaugurated the event on Shakori Hills in North Carolina’s Piedmont region Thursday. (Online source)

However, it goes a little deeper than the Wild Goose as merely the metaphor for the Holy Spirit in Celtic Christian mythology; for you see, an Geadh-Glas, the Wild Goose, embodies “that the Holy Spirit is the representative of God’s femininity.”[2] And further:

The first, great Celtic son was Morien, also known as Pelagius. Pelagius was a spokesman for Celtic theology. Pelagius has been labeled as a heretic by traditional theologians because they favor a Latin version of Christianity. (Online source)

No, Pelagius was labeled a heretic because he denied the cardinal doctrine of original sin thereby negating sola gratia:

Pelagius, whose family name was Morgan, taught that people had the ability to fulfill the commands of God by exercising the freedom of human will apart from the grace of God. In other words, a person’s free will is totally capable of choosing God and/or to do good or bad without the aid of Divine intervention.

Pelagianism teaches that man’s nature is basically good. Thus it denies original sin, the doctrine that we have inherited a sinful nature from Adam. (Online source)

Since most of the Emergent wild goose chasers are also pelagian heretics Celtic mythology is a perfect fit for these centered on the self (c. 2 Timothy 3:2) neo-Gnostics. As I said in The Emerging Church On Its Wild Goose Chase, for those swept into this neo-liberal cult, it is an inexhaustible love of mankind, a learning to be more human, no doctrinal stands, and anything goes beliefs on their long road to nowhere with their neo-Bohemian worship of the created. Kumar continues:

The Wild Goose Festival is an attempt to reimagine Christianity for the 21st century under a bigger, wider, more inclusive tent “to establish the premier venue for 20-somethings who love God but aren’t thrilled with institutional Christianity, particularly the religious right,” Washington, D.C.-based Religion News Service said. (Online source)

Actually, WGF is another social networking source to hook up those who are redefining what cult expert and wisely respected evangelical Christian apologist, Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989), would so often refer to as “the historic orthodox Christian faith.” Please understand that I do not agree with everything Martin taught; that said, I use him here because he was so widely regarded as a top tier Christian scholar and spokesman who was not afraid to touch hot-button issues of his day. Quite obviously the church visible lacks anyone like this right now as the leaven of the Emerging Church spreads unchecked while its leaders quietly whimper, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Kumar then tells us about the staff of WGF:

members of the organizing committee, which includes: Mike King, CEO of the Youthfront ministry and executive editor of Immerse: A Journal of Faith, Life and Youth Ministry; Ian Cron, a speaker, retreat leader, Episcopal priest and author; and Joy Wallis, first women to be ordained as a priest in England. (Online source)

Gives us more reason to denounce this wild goose chase after another Jesus than the one we’ve always proclaimed, and to receive a different spirit from the one we received, and to accept a different gospel from the one we’ve always accepted (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:4). King has been warping youth with this spurious CSM for years now, Ian Cron comes endorsed by a who’s who of heresy and pastrix Wallis is in open rebellion against the Word of God. Not surprisingly, many of those lavishing praise upon Cron are also speaking at WGF, such as:

Living Spiritual Teacher and Roman Catholic mystic Richard Rohr, alongside his fellow Red Letter Christians Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis and Brian McLaren

We’re also told by Kumar that among WGF speakers we’ll find “‘evangelical progressives’ like Tony Campolo“; who is neither progressive nor evangelical, and “author Jay Bakker, the pastor son of former televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.” I’ve told you before e.g. in Jay Bakker Critiques Ken Silva At Religion Dispatches that gay-affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker heads up a rather rapscallion, and largely Biblically illiterate, bunch in the Emergent Church who’ve crowned themselves Outlaw Preachers, Well you need to realize that Bakker is also tip of the spear for the ongoing EC advance of their pro-gay agenda to convince your young evangelicals that the deviant and sinful lifestyle of homosexuality is a viable one for the regenerated Christian.

Such is the time you now live in, and this is just how far that a pernicious postmodern progressive Christianity has slithered into the heart of the Christian community. You’d better get prepared because this is no longer simply an issue tearing apart mortally wounded mainline pretending to be Protestant denominations; that Christian Post is covering WGF is further indication of the popularity and influence within the mainstream of people like Bakker, who shouldn’t even be teaching Sunday School, let alone be pastor of a Christian church. You watch, in the not so distant future a major evangelical figure will come emerging from their closet and announce that they are gay; this will then detonate the homosexual debate right within the heart of the conservative Christian community itself.

It’s but a matter of time now that truth is bring decided by fickle feelings rather than by the objective standard of God’s Word in the infallible and inerrant Scriptures contained in the Bible. Kumar notes that after its hatching from hell circa 1997 this:

Emerging Church Movement has invited criticism from mainstream Christians. In “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church,” theologian D.A. Carson says the movement, which arose as a protest against the institutional church, modernism and seeker-sensitive churches, comprises those who believe the modes of expressing the Gospel should appeal to a postmodern mindset.

Many of the movement’s thinkers take a reductionistic view of modernism, are dismissive of confessional Christianity, and are reluctant to assert that Christianity is true and authoritative, the [sic] Carson says. (Online source)

What the EC actually is, would be another arm of the man-centered Church Growth Movement vomited out of the belly of Fuller Seminary; in other words, as the Purpose Driven/Seeker Driven marketing strategy ala Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren is aimed at more middle-of-the-road evangelicals, so the Emerging Church is designed to sell the same product, i.e. “church,” only to the pouty postmodern set. However, what we’re ending up with through reductionist views, deconstruction, CSM, and postmodernism’s irrational philosophy is not Christanity at all. The effects are devastating; for example, look how far the heresy of Open Theism is advancing as respected evangelical theologian Roger Olsen enlightened us just the other day:

As everyone knows, I’m not an open theist but I have defended open theism as a legitimate evangelical option. I personally knew Clark Pinnock and know Greg Boyd, John Sanders and William Hasker. These were/are godly men who base their views of God’s foreknowledge on Scripture… (Online source)

Um, I think not; but I’ll resist the urge to wrestle with the serpent here. Since it’s not the point of this piece to argue Open Theism, let me just tell you that it’s about to get even worse for the spiritually spineless in evanjellyfish because the parallel track of panentheistic process theology has also been brought into The Build-A-God Shop as well, which you can see from The Emerging Church, Doug Pagitt & Process Theology. As I close this, for now, I bring you back one last time to Left-Leaning ‘Wild Goose’ Festival Draws Ire of Evangelicals by Christian Post contributor Anugrah Kumar who tells us:

While evangelicals say the attempt to revive the Emerging Church Movement is doomed to yet another failure, Wild Goose proponents think it is “unstoppable.”

“In the spirit of vibrant, category-defying Celtic Christianity, we saw our desire embodied in the Celtic Church’s way of speaking about the enigmatic Holy Spirit: The Wild Goose, who wanders where she will. Who can tame her? No one. Far better it is to embark on a Wild Goose Chase, and see the terrain of our faith be transformed,” the organizers say on the festival’s website. (Online source)

Let me remind you, there’s no need to revive this Emerging Church 2.0 because it’s already metastatizing as a spiritual cancer in the visible body of Christ; and as you can see from what the organizer’s say on the WGF website below, we’re not dealing with an actual move of God:


(Online source)

Now, these emerging neo-Gnostics—the spiritual equivalent of 1960′s hippies—are welcome to their wild goose chase; but they should not be permitted to pass it off as truly representative of the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). As long as the Lord chooses to allow dwindling funding to keep me here along the Internet Front of this Vietnam of a Truth War you can count on me doing everything in my power to stand against these Emergent vipers who’ve arisen from within our own selves who’re speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them (Acts 20:30); and further, let it also be known that:

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. (1 Timothy 1:5-7)




THE WILD GOOSE OF THE EMERGING CHURCH IS NOT THE HOLY SPIRIT : Apprising Ministries

[billiefan2000]

SEXUAL IDENTITY WITH THE EMERGING CHURCH ON THE WILD GOOSE CHASE
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jun 29, 2011 in Current Issues, Emergence Christianity, Emergent Church, Features

The sinfully ecumenical Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church has proven to be a Trojan Horse where Satan was able to off-load his ne0-Gnostic mystic corruption Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) right within the very heart of the church visible.


So now a large part of our online apologetics and discernment labors Apprising Ministries is to document the New Downgrade within evangelicalism, which accelerated when its own mainstream made the fateful decision to more fully embrace these vipers.



I’ve told you before that this spurious CSM—the refried Roman Catholic mysticism “discovered” by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, and now perpetrated as supposed Spiritual Formation with an able assist from his spiritual twin SBC minister Dallas Willard,

was a core doctrine in the EC right from its hatching in hell.


Having kicked out the pillar of sola Scriptura a now upgraded to the Emerging Church 2.0 is spreading its own new postmodern form of “big tent” Progressive Christianity—a Liberalism 2.0.



As you’ll see in Brian McLaren Admits Ken Silva Was Right the cloaking device has been switched off and many of these rebels against the final authority of God’s Word aren’t even trying to hide their Emergence Christianity anymore.


I pointed out earlier that the latest EC apostasia-palooza called the Wild Goose Festival (WGF), which I covered in The Emerging Church On A Wild Goose Chase, was some ten years in the making.



In their time at The Build-A-God Shop the EC had been furiously constructing a version of the mush god of mysticism with a man-shaped hole in his/her/its heart; and as it heads out upon its spiritual long road to nowhere we know The Wild Goose Of The Emerging Church Is Not The Holy Spirit. Today Steve Knight of the Emerging Church And Its TransFORM Network would tweet:


(Online source)

The link takes us to Wild Goose Festival where we find the video Peterson Toscano: 2-Minute Monologue on Sexual Identity below and get a little taste of what went on at WGF. Knight tells us Peterson Toscano:

describes himself : “Quirky Queer Quaker.” He is the creator of Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House & Transfigurations, a play about transgender Bible characters.

In this monologue presented at the Wild Goose Festival, Toscano tells his life story on sexual identity in under two minutes.

Toscano, who “co-founded BeyondExGay.com & is a Quaker,”[1] is also known for Transfigurations—Transgressing Gender in the Bible where he draws upon:

inspiration from interviews with transgender and genderqueer individuals, Peterson Toscano weaves their experiences into the stories of transgender and gender-variant people from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. (Online source)



SEXUAL IDENTITY WITH THE EMERGING CHURCH ON THE WILD GOOSE CHASE : Apprising Ministries

[billiefan2000]

GAY, TATTOOED, AND GENERALLY LIBERAL FOLK ON THE EMERGING WILD GOOSE CHASE
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jul 4, 2011 in Current Issues, Emergence Christianity, Emergent Church, Features

Apprising Ministries has been covering for you the latest apostasia-palooza thrown by the sinfully ecumenical [i.e. Reformation repudiating] Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church. You may recall that in articles like The Emerging Church On A Wild Goose Chase and The Wild Goose Of The Emerging Church Is Not The Holy Spirit I told you about the recently concluded interspiritual shindig, which they called the Wild Goose Festival (WGF).

It’s important for you to realize that this evil Emergent menace attacking the final authority of God’s Word has quite literally grown into a full-blown neo-liberal cult operating within evangelicalism; and it’s swallowing up large sections of the church visible.

This is leading to a real and present Progressive Degeneration Within Mainstream Evangelicalism; and the fact is, WGF was actually a way for the EC to more fully showcase its spiritual circus “big tent” Emergence Christianity, which is their Liberalism 2.0—a new postmodern quasi-universal form of Progressive Christianity. At its satanic core it carries the ne0-Gnostic mystic corruption Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism(CSM)—a refried Roman Catholic mysticism, which was supposedly “discovered” by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster.

With an able assist from his spiritual twin SBC minister Dallas Willard, this spurious CSM has been perpetrated as Spiritual Formation for years now, particularly in the younger sectors of the evangelical mainstream. Now, it’s critical to understand here that for CSM to thrive it has to destroy confidence in the proper Christian spirituality of sola Scriptura; here’s the critical point for you to get down, practitioners of this neo-Gnosticism depend upon highly subjective experience concerning what they think God has said, as opposed to objective experience found by looking in Scripture, where we know God has spoken.

Can you see what’s happened; the heart of the ostensibly Protestant Christian community is responsible for crippling its own future by handing their young to wolves like gay-affirming universalist Doug Pagitt, his progressive/liberal theologian in residence Tony Jones, two-thirds of the apostate EC trinity along with Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren. Because of their long-time practice of CSM and rejecting of sola Scriptura these leaders within the early EC have long ago left anything even remotely representing the historic orthodox Christian faith.

Each of them was involved with WGF, which is why I said that the wise Christian will have nothing to do with these neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience. Well, as we can see in Tony Jones Of The Emerging Church Shares About Ken Silva, apparently the truth hurts. Looking down on the battlefield from this vantage point let’s take a look at A broader church: Fun in the woods with gay, tattooed and generally liberal folk, which begins:

AT LEAST 25 Christian music festivals are held each summer in America, but they have never catered for theological liberals. Until this year, that is, when the Wild Goose Festival—named after a Celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit—kicked off on June 23rd…
(Online source)

That would depend upon how one defines liberal, but it’s interesting the author of this piece equates “theological liberals” with WGF. They are correct; as I just showed you in Brian McLaren Admits Ken Silva Was Right, guru McLaren is now out of his theological closet and openly refers to himself as a progressive Christian. The author is also right that WGF “was based on Britain’s Greenbelt Festival,” which I told you about in Greenbelt Festival A Peek At Future Inclusive Christianity. As I previously pointed out that it’s just more quasi-Christianity. A “have it your own way” Burger King faith for the postmodern set; and it’s not only gay affirming, but it’s also highly ecumenical and steeped in counter-Reformation spirituality.

Next we’re informed WGF was indeed as spiritually whacked as Greenbelt:

Instead of Bible studies, there were labyrinth walks. Instead of praise-and-worship music, there was hymn-singing in a beer garden and a bluegrass liturgy presided over by a tattooed female Lutheran minister. (Online source)

That “tattooed female Lutheran minister” would be heretical self-professed “queer inclusive” ELCA pastrix Nadia Bolz-Weber whom I introduced you to in Christianity 21 And Alleged Innovative Voices In The Faith: Nadia Bolz-Weber. Then we find out WGF is not interested in advancing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but rather ala 2 Timothy 3:2 it’s really a celebration of the self:

Lecture topics ranged from sex trafficking and social justice to authority in the church and interfaith relations. Visitors could learn from Tom Prasada-Rao, a singer, how to chant “Om” and “Hallelujah Hare Krishna”, or hear Paul Fromberg, a pastor from San Francisco, talking about his 2005 wedding to another man.

“God is changing the church through the bodies of gay men,” Mr Fromberg told a packed session on human sexuality. Also under discussion was “religious multiple belonging”—in other words, belonging to a clutch of different faiths at once. (Online source)

A genuine Christian would be grieved by those caught in the idolatry of Hinduism, not encouraging people to learn how to practice it. It’s one thing to be interested in people of other faiths, which as someone dealing in Comparative Religions I am; however, it’s quite another to join them in pagan worship of demons (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:20-21). As far as the fantasy of Fromberg is concerned, there actually is an element of truth in what he said. Sadly, using these emerging fools, the god of this age is changing the church visible through the bodies of gay men. You can also see we’re off-roading again into wasted Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language with “religious multiple belonging.” This has zero to do with Christianity; God hates idolatry.

The writer of the report then introduces us to an old friend as we’re told that gay affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker who leads a sad church social club by the name of Revolution:NYC was at WGF to give “meandering talks on growing up fundamentalist.” I’ve told you in pieces like Jay Bakker, Homosexuality, And Gospel Reductionism that Bakker also heads up a group of largely biblically illiterate, and I say a rather rapscallion bunch spiritually, who anointed themselves Outlaw Preachers (OPs) and have galvanized around him. Another part of Bakker’s legacy figures for him to be tip-of-the-spear for the EC’s pushing for acceptance within evangelicalism that the deviant and sinful lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex, i.e homosexuality, is a viable one for the regenerated Christian.

Later we’re given the following fable:

We’re a laboratory for justice, spirituality and art in the way of Jesus,” explained Gareth Higgins, the festival director and a peace activist from Belfast who has worked with Greenbelt and now lives in North Carolina. He and other organisers managed, miraculously, to recruit 150 musicians and speakers, none of whom charged for their services. They hope that the emergent cohort will rise from the ashes of an evangelicalism ruined by right-wing politics. (Online source)

No, this is not the way of the actual Jesus, nor is it Protestant evangelicalism at all. As I said before this is a Wild Goose Chase after another Jesus than the one we’ve always proclaimed, and to receive a different spirit from the one we received, and to accept a different gospel from the one we’ve always accepted (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:4) because their mystic mush god with a man-shaped hole in his/her/it’s heart has issued them a new command: “You shall shut off your mind and love mankind, whom you worship, with all of your heart and all of your true self and all of your strength in your nonduality.” We’re also told that the Empress of Emergence Phyllis Tickle was there at WGF and said, “‘We’re at the start of a 500-year upheaval in culture and the church.’”

I’m not sure if it’ll last 500-years, but these Emergent neo-Gnostic apostates do figure to cause the same upheaval within the mainstream of evangelicalism that their evil forebears in the original cult of liberalism did in the mainline denominations. It doesn’t figure to be too long before a known evangelical figure announces themselves a homosexual, which will then detonate the very same debate now ripping apart the mortally wounded mainline. So it should come as no surprise that:

Mainline Protestants, however, seemed delighted by the festival, and may well latch on to the emergents to shore up their shrinking numbers. Buoyed by their success, Wild Goose’s organisers are planning to repeat the festival next year in the same bucolic place.
(Online source)

Tragically, such as these can’t see that they’re only merging onto the broad path which Jesus said:

leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13).



GAY, TATTOOED, AND GENERALLY LIBERAL FOLK ON THE EMERGING WILD GOOSE CHASE : Apprising Ministries