Any comments on this article? ‚   ‚  Do you think they explained the Emerging
Church well?

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s06030118.htm

William M. Alnor, Ph.D.
SCP Access Director

Hello Bill,

This article from my perspective is not a good representation. (the theologian DA Carson did a semi-scholarly review of McLaren & the
Emergent Church which was very good, but was not exhaustive or published in a popular magazine).

McLaren (a non-theologian) does not accept that Christianity is or ever was predicated upon propositional truth.

He therefore cannot subscribe to any centrality of the Gospel in the biblical sense because it is predicated upon propositional truths of the
fallen nature of man, God's election of Israel as a light to the nations through whom to give His eternal Word and send the Messiah as propitiation for sin and only means of redemption, and the literal historicity of the resurrection.

Secondly, as is seen in McLarens denial of hell, and his inability to agree the bible calls homosexuality wrong, there are no moral absolutes in the Emergent church ; it philosophically becomes effectively amoral by any objective standard taught in scripture.

Emergent church is a combination of New Age mysticism, Experiential Theology, and Post Modernism. It is a pseudo church for a post modern, post Judeo-christian/ neo pagan western society. The main door into this lie is predictably fast becoming the marketing & psychology driven lie of Rick Warren/ Bill Hybels and other such neo-Schullerists.

The pathetic brood of 'know nothings' embracing it are the same undiscerning and biblically ignorant crowd who followed Toronto, Pensacola, Alpha, Promise Keepers, God Chasers, phony gold teeth, Jim Challenge, The Prayer of Jabez, and all of the other unbiblical nonsense and 'quick fix gimmicks' these same people fell for in order to stop the decline the Western Church. All have been categorical failures and none have delivered what their proponents and leaders promised.

The latest fads in this serial of failures are Purpose Driven and its natural partner The Emergent Church which will likewise uniformly fail, but as with aforementioned list of "wrong roads to revival", it is a toll road with a toll to pay. Although the decline of Western Christendom will not be halted(if anything these cheap unscriptural gimmicks serve as catalysts to advance the rate of decline and spread further disillusionment), it will earn a very pretty penny for religious con merchants who profit from it.

New Age and Post Modernism are the threat to 21st century Western Christianity that the secular humanism that emerged from 19th century German rationalism were to Christianity in the early 20th century, and ecumenism in the latter 20th century.

The stupid response of mainstream Protestantism to the threat of secular humanism of the 20th century was to become it. The clear result was the 'Emergence' of 'Liberal Protestantism' complete with higher criticism etc. Now, their theological presuppositions rooted in a Darwinistic approach to textual criticism are being undermined by The Dead Sea Scrolls and the archaeological record. With no answers to the questions people are asking, those abject denominations are now in a radical spiral of numerical decline and closing churches (as Islam, cults, and Eastern religions grow in the West) and are hopelessly trying to carve a niche for themselves with Desmond Tutu style leftist political activism carried out under a religious guise.

True to form, supposedly Evangelicals are responding to the 'Emerging' ‚   'Post Modern'/ "New Age" threat to Western Christianity in the same
ridiculous and ultimately self destructive manner that Protestantism responded to secular humanism a century ago. They are becoming it.

This has always been a very familiar pattern in church history. When Platonic philosophy emerged as the threat to the church at the time of
'Constantine The Great'- ‚   ‚  Low and Behold, here comes Augustine of Hippo to Platonize the Church. They became it.

When Aristotelianism emerged as the threat in The Middle Ages, Low and Behold, here comes Thomas Aquinas to Aristotelianize it. They became it.

When modern consumerism emerged as a threat to the church - Low and Behold, here come Kenneth Copeland to consumerize it. They became it.

When ecumenical seduction concocted by The Vatican becomes a threat - low and behold, Chuck Colson arrives to "ecumenize" Evangelicals. They became it

The Emergent Church is the same old stupid, satanically orchestrated game - only the crackpot hirelings masquerading as clergy are too ignorant, too biblically ignorant, and far to undiscerning to realize it.

So when Post Modernism and New Age 'Emerge' as a threat to Western Christianity, Low and Behold - Brian McLaren becomes it.

New Age / Eastern Religion are the emergent threat. The influences of Kundalini yoga in the Toronto Experience & Pensacola were obvious. Now at the National Pastor's conferences with Rick Warren in San Diego in 2004, they had sessions on yoga for Christian pastors! McLaren and the Emergent Church are hyper ecumenical mysticism complete with icons et al. Objective doctrine cum propositional truth is replaced by mystical experience owing more to the Eastern religious influences that permeated The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches in The Middle Ages than to biblical Christianity (the inevitable results of this flawed mentality can easily be observed in the church of Chuck Smith Jr.). ‚   ‚   ‚   ‚   `

This is precisely what The Emergent Church truly is and this is what it represents (as The Lord so led me, I warned of this coming for nearly
10 years on my tape 'The Dilemma of Laodicea').

I profoundly hope that Tal Brook and SCP address this issue publicly and comprehensively. Perhaps you might find it profitable to share my reply with Tal Brook as I value his expertise on New Age.

In Christ,

Jacob