by Ken Silva
Apprising Ministries

Recently the Lord has been sending forth some clear warnings that His patience is up with the Evangelical Movement in this "One Nation Under Delusion." Dr. Alan Cairns sounded one such warning in his sermon "The Evangelical Cave-In," as he exposed the poisoned root of some of the rotten weeds that have been growing wildly in this section of His Vineyard for far too long. Even the latest issue of Christianity Today (Falling Away) features an interview with Ben Witherington III that shows just how far Satan's spiritual venom has been injected into the very bloodstream of Evangelicalism. Call it "New Evangelicalism," call it scholarship for the "increasingly postmodern setting," O call it whatever you want, it's still liberal theology and compromise in order for these man-pleasers to protect their own stature within American culture.

Robert Schuller Is The Father Of A New Religion

I wish I had better news to bring but the Evangelical community is already beginning to cave-in of the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures in the Bible. Men and women take an honest look, can’t you see the standard of what passes for acceptable Christian conduct is so much lower than when the Church in this spiritually capricious country heard real preachers who were mightily used by God to reach the masses. Godly men like Edwards and Whitefield in the 1700’s, Spurgeon and Moody in the 1800’s and well"¦let’s not talk about the 1900’s, and nowadays, forget it"“nobody listens to anybody anymore. It’s not that there aren’t real men of God today, it’s that God the Holy Spirit is so grieved with Christ’s Church that the Father is withholding His blessing as more and more leaders within Evangelicalism are turning from what the Bible actually says in order to follow the dictates of their current traditions in the new religion of the purpose driven emerging word faith church of ecumenical seeker sensitive "one size fits all" Christianity Lite.

Do a study the history of the Christian Church in America over the past one hundred years and you will see the root cause for this radical drift into apostasy is an abandonment of the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible as God’s Word in favor of teaching our own views about what Holy Scripture itself says. For instance keep an eye out for the increasing number of doctrinal statements where you’ll notice that the word inerrant will be missing from reference to the Bible. There is good reason why more and more churches will be leaving that word off and that is to appease a rapidly growing faction of current scholarship within Evangelicalism that will eventually convince pastors that while the Bible is our "infallible" guide in faith and morals, today we need to "re-examine" what has been taught with Evangelical Protestantism over the past one hundred years in light of the changing postmodern culture.

Let me tell you what this actually means: "We will do what the Bible says, unless of course, the teaching we receive is one we don’t like i.e. deny yourself; in that case we must figure out a way to change what Jesus meant. In that case we have to be careful not to make the message of Christ too hard for contemporary society (read: themselves) or they won’t be attracted to our new religion Christianity Lite." I truly couldn’t care less right now how these man-pleasers rephrase the language as lightly tap dance and blow their heavy smoke, this is exactly what they are really saying; and it is lack of faith any way you slice it.

The Christian faith as presented today to postmodern America simply does not square with the what the texts of the Bible say when taken at face value and this new religion of Christianity Lite fathered by Robert Schuller would never have cost any of the Apostles their lives. Instead, as religiously superstitious as the first century Greeks and Romans were, they would have flocked to a religion where you can do whatever your own religious system taught, and then at the same time just incorporate whatever parts of what Jesus of Nazareth taught that you happened to like. Can you now begin to see the Emergent Church for what it really is? Can you see the Word Faith Movement for what it really is? And can you now see current Evangelicalism for what it has now become?

You see, once it was only liberal theologians who would attempt to pit "Paul’s" theology against that of Christ Jesus of Nazareth as if what they taught under the direct inspiration of God the Holy Spirit was in opposition. But by the late 1960’s Evangelical leaders like Billy Graham actually held the door to our Lord’s Church open for heretics like his good friend Robert Schuller and in reality ushered him in to teach this rubbish to the Evangelical community at large. Now in fairness it must be pointed out clearly, as researcher Mike Oppenheimer did, that "although it may not have been as obvious what he believed then, it certainly is now" http://www.letusreason.org/Poptea1.htm

The fact is that Robert Schuller’s book Self-Esteem: The New Reformation might as well be the "bible" of this current apostasy, for firmly rooted in its Gnostic philosophies of the metaphysical Mind Science cults are the self-promoting blasphemies of the vile Word Faith movement (WF) as spewed forth by brazen heretics and false prophets like Benny Hinn and Rod Parsely. This poisoned spiritual water of WF is also the very same polluted well that the "kindle, gentler" self-centered musings of Joel Osteen spring forth. One of the most popular of the plethora of man-pleasers in the cult of the Word Faith camp, the smiling Osteen quietly teaches the exact same aberrations and outright heresy once put forth the late Kenneth Hagin; the very same spiritual cyanide that is currently espoused by WF cult leader Kenneth Copeland.

Schuller’s influence can be seen as well in how it even corrupted the more orthodox teachings of men like Charles Stanley, and this apparent desire to please men has twisted people like Rick Warren into religious associations like the one he had with the "Father of Modern Management," the late Peter Drucker. And now listen to Ted Haggard, the President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), who tells CT that when his fellow charismatic and Pentecostals lament a supposed lack of prophets in the modern world he refers them to Bill Bright "“ "’God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.’ Think about that. That was a major prophetic statement into his generation (November 2005, p.44)."

Oh brother Haggard, was it ever; for this is the very umbilical cord that carried Satan’s spiritual venom from Schuller to Rick Warren who founded the new ecumenical man-pleasing purpose driven emergent word faith neo-evangelical church. Bill Bright, one of the driving forces behind the apostate document Evangelicals And Catholics Together, from which the Evangelical church will never recover. So yes indeed Bill Bright was a prophet alright for undoubtedly he could see the purpose driven deception coming

I Will Make Myself

Men and women wake up, the very title of Schuller’s book Self-Esteem really does give its serpentine source away: "

I will make myself like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:14)"¦"ye shall be as gods" (Genesis 3:5). Can you see it? Have you ever heard the American motto: The Self-made Man? Or how about the old satanic classic: "God helps those who help themselves." This kind of thing plays well to our independent American culture doesn’t it? So open your eyes, what does this then tell you about who is really driving this pagan postmodern nation? And even now the Devil has gotten the Evangelical church to buy his oldest lie; the very lie that he fell for in his own delusion: "I will be the master of my own fate, I am the captain of my own soul; I will make myself; I am"¦my own god."

Among the doctrines of demons that Schuller would teach in Self-Esteem, which would tragically go on to poison, paralyze and finally mortally wound what has now become Evangelicalism, we find the source of the current infatuation with secular psychology "“ "Are we aware that theology has failed to accommodate and apply proven insights in human behavior as revealed by twentieth-century psychologists?" (p. 27) There’s where the Evangelical train jumped track, but we were already warned "“ See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Colossians 2:8).

And just as in the history recorded in the texts of the Bible God called for people to make choices to either follow what He says or what the world says, the Lord called His Church in America to do the same. History will show that Evangelicalism would instead choose to follow people like Robert Schuller and those twentieth century psychologists down an ecumenical sinner sensitive road into a brand new ecumenical purpose driven emerging word faith church of "one size fits all" Christianity Lite. Jesus refers to this broad way"“which passes right back through Rome on its way to Hell"“as the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it (see"“Matthew 7:13-14). In his book Self-Esteem Robert Schuller makes the ludicrous comment: " Classical theology has erred in its insistence that theology be "˜God-centered,’ not man-centered.’" In "A New Reformation? The Faulty Gospel of Robert Schuller," Joseph P. Gudel comments on this foolish statement:

One might legitimately ask why Dr. Schuller believes classical theology errs so gravely. His answer: Luther and Calvin were listening to the wrong person! He asks the following rhetorical question: "Luther and Calvin, we know, looked to the Book of Romans in the Bible for their primary inspiration. Were they, unknowingly, possessed more by the spirit of St. Paul than by the Spirit of Jesus Christ? Are we not on safer grounds if we look to our Lord's words to launch our reformation?" [18] The implication is that what Jesus said in the gospels overrides everything else in the Bible.

For Schuller then, some parts of the Bible (i.e., what Jesus said as recorded in the gospels) have more authority than other areas of the Bible. In other parts of SELF- ESTEEM: THE NEW REFORMATION, Dr. Schuller is more explicit. "But can anything be above the Scriptures? Yes, the Eternal Word transcends the written Word. Christ is the Word made flesh. Christ is the Lord over the Scriptures; the Scriptures are not Lord over Christ...The Bible must not compete with the Lord for the seat of glory. We are "saved by the blood," not "by the Book." We believe in the holy Trinity, not a holy Quadrangle. Christ must be, at all times, Lord over the Scriptures." http://www.issuesetc.org/resource/archives/gudel2.htm

Tell Me Some Bible Stories Ben

Do you seriously think that all of this has not had a hugely detrimental effect on the fading Evangelical church; in the November 2005 CT article "The Problem with Evangelical Theologies," Ben Witherington III shows us how much he has been affected by this slide to apostasy, and is now a large part of the problem himself when he says:

We are all children of the Enlightenment, so we’ve tended to treat the Bible as if it were a history of ideas, where topics like soteriology, justification, the new birth,"¦were the main themes, and our job was to link one idea to another. But in Scripture, we’re not talking about a history of ideas but about people who have stories and encounters with God. If you read the Bible carefully, on or below the surface"¦[it’s] more about stories than the history of ideas that are imbedded in the stories (November 2005, p. 68).

And this is what the Lord is saying to His Church right now in its so-called postmodern postchurch state "“ 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 (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Those who have ears to hear know that the time has arrived.

This horrible apostasy (and it’s only going to grow) that has come upon the Church of our Lord here in pagan postmodern America is a fulfillment of 1 Peter 4:17 "“ For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? The remnant the Great Shepherd is speaking to"“the true Body of Christ"“is going to have to pay very close attention to our Christology"“a big word that just means the study of just Who Christ is"“as this doctrine is the key element of Christianity as you might imagine. You need to understand that this people-pleasing postmodern-purpose driven-emerging-word faith-new evangelicalism will only follow the same serpentine road as the Cult of Liberal theology and it will "cave-in" on just Who Christ really is.

Here is an example of how subtle is the shift of new evangelicalism which will ultimately lead to its own sad demise. In the CT interview plugging his new book this noted Evangelical scholar comments on whether the Apostle Paul was a "didactic" teacher of doctrine. Herein we see the attack on the doctrine of the Divine inspiration of Holy Scripture from within the Evangelical camp. Watch now as it begins through equivocation when Witherington waffles:

That view of Paul is a travesty. It treats Paul’s letters as if they were theological treatises, which they certainly are not. Paul is operating out of his storied world. He is theologizing and ethicizing into particular situations. His letters are not an abstract collection of eternal principles that we can then link to. He’s a pastor preaching, if you will, proclaiming, persuading his audiences on particular points. The question is: What was he theologizing out of? And the answer is: his storied world"“in particular, the story of Jesus Christ.

The gigantic problem with this idea is the flat contradiction with, and therefore a fulfillment of 2 Peter 3:15-16 "“ Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. And then 2 Timothy 3:16 emphatically states "“ All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Doesn’t sound like we are to view Paul’s writing as "stories," and then Peter’s writings as other "stories."

In fact, Peter himself is also diametrically opposed to Witherington’s postmodern myths:

And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things. We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:15-21).

An Example Of The Coming Cave In

We end this installment with one quick example of what happens when we cave in on the doctrine of the inerrancy and infallibility of the absolute Truth of God’s Word in the Bible. In that latest issue of Christianity Today (Falling Away) I have been referencing we see that the Pacific Southwest region of the apostate American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA), "has begun defecting in the largest church exodus from any denomination over the presenting issue of homosexuality." But oh, this ""˜is totally unnecessary,’ says Tony Campolo, professor of sociology at Eastern University, an ABCUSA-affiliated school. Campolo, is also an ordained American Baptist pastor. Campolo says the denomination should have let local congregations decide how to handle homosexuality (November 2005, p.23)."

Then we are told why the ABCUSA, which I personally left in the early "˜90’s, is rotting away from within. "The denomination of 1.5 million members and 5,800 congregations, founded in 1907 as the Northern Baptist Convention, allows for wide diversity." One wonders how this fits in with what the Christ they say they know said in Matthew 7:13-14 "“ "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." To any of us with even a modicum of a grasp on the English language it would appear that Jesus Christ of Nazareth, as recorded here by an eyewitness, would have a serious difference of an opinion with "wide diversity" in His Church.

Tony Campolo, one of the many emerging man-pleasers currently infecting the Body of Christ"“take a look at Ted Haggard’s impression of Joel Osteen on the CT cover"“then goes on say that homosexuality "shouldn’t be a defining issue." However, the Bible is quite explicit in its denunciation of homosexuality. In the Old Testament "“ Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination (Leviticus 18:22). In the New Testament "“ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion (Romans 1:26-27).

Clearly this passage in Romans has absolutely nothing to do with one particular culture’s view of homosexual behavior versus another’s because this act is being called perverse and unnatural as it relates to the God’s creation of mankind itself. Further, since the Bible lists homosexual offenders among the people who will not inherit the Kingdom of God (see"“1 Corinthians 6:9), then why wouldn’t these supposed "ministers" of the Gospel want to warn these people instead of actually helping them toward their destruction? And then you might even be wondering, "how in the world (that is the answer) can they possibly miss something that is so obvious? The source of this critical problem is stated quite clearly by Bill Nicoson, executive director of American Baptist Evangelicals (ABE), a 13-year-old renewal group in the beginning of the very next paragraph of the CT article.

"Those leaving [the ABCUSA] argue that something more crucial is at stake. "˜Biblical authority has brought [separation] to the head today,’ says Nicoson. "˜I just can’t do ministry and missions together with somebody who may deny theTrinity"¦.I didn’t want to spend any more energy or donors’ money in fighting a losing battle’" (ibid).

And a losing battle it will be, in fact the ABCUSA already lost the war a long time ago when they systematically squeezed our Bible believing Christians and gave leadership positions to men and women who denied the inerrancy of the Bible. The second that happens the Author of Holy Scripture"“God the Holy Spirit"“begins to grieve, and when He does, the infallibility of the Bible is seriously undermined. Then as the Lord slowly withdraws His Presence from a given church group it starts an inevitable slide down a slippery slope to fullblown apostasy as it theology will very quickly become corrupted until ultimately God Himself will remove its Lampstand"¦forever"¦