The Emergent Church — “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”

 

How Has It All Happened?

American culture has contributed to the problem, too. We are living in a day and age when discriminate discernment, based upon standards of law, common sense, and Biblical teaching, is frowned upon and squelched. Although liberalism of thought would lead us to believe that we are living in an age of acceptance, those who choose to appeal to higher standards of moral absolutism are "shouted down" and viewed as intolerant. This general attitude has infiltrated the church and has led to a form of postmodernistic theology, based upon the axis of personal authority and not Biblical and Godly authority. Postmodernity, as a theory, refuses to allow any single defining source for truth and reality beyond the individual.

Whereas the church used to be a pillar for the truth, it has now become no more than a vehicle for cultural assimilation. With the human spirit's longing for meaning and truth, now, instead of hearing "rightly divided truth" from the pulpit and reading the Bible as THE source of all truth, there is a void for the kind of truth that Jesus referred to that sets an individual free. This void is critical.

The human spirit will not allow that void to exist for long. In man's quest to find meaning, his penchant toward filling the void is a quest that eats away at his whole spiritual being. Thus, with the void created by a lack of objective truth, all that is left is to seek truth through other means, personal means, means that de- fine truth in personal rather than objective terms.

All this being said, the church is RIPE for false teaching! Cultural conditioning away from definitive, objective truth has led to an atmosphere where seeking "experiences" is the pathway to discovering truth. Without the "book, chapter, and verse" standard that we once knew to be true and faithful, instead, we are being led like lemmings over a cliff leading into a sea of relativism. There now is no need to question just about anything that is being introduced into the life of the church!

So, what are we facing? 

The Emergent Church movement is moving quickly to fill the void created by a lack of objective truth with a mystical, experiential approach which melts Christianity into all forms of religious expression and fully accepts other religions, based upon the assumption that a new age will bring total unity and harmony to the earth. Emergent churches are characterized by eclectic use of traditions in worship which now include candle lighting, prayer stations, liturgy, symbols, meditation, etc., yet, not forms of worship that lead an individual to the one source of truth, Christ and His Word, but to an experiential, mystical form of "religion."

Emergents prefer theology that runs away from propositional statements of truth and any form of definitive doctrine that discerns right from wrong or even one's standing before God. You will never hear Emergents speaking on the judgment to come, the exclusivity of salvation in Christ, or the awful nature of sin, mainly because it creates a confrontational atmosphere where the individual must reform personal behavior and surrender to the will and Word of God. Spiritual anarchy is the rule of the day for emergents. Individual truth is valid truth to the emergent because somewhere in the fog of relativism one may find themselves as they come face to face, not with God, but with their own desires.

A synthesis of religious practices is a hallmark of Emergents. Hindu and Buddhist practices are em- braced. Rick Warren has stated that we can find truth in other religions . . . HE HAS! On "Larry King Live," on November 22, 2004, Rick Warren stated, "There's truth in every religion . . . I believe I've learned a lot of truth from different religions. Because, they all have a portion of the truth." This is nothing more and nothing less than UNIVERSALISM! Universalism teaches that all religions hold elements of the truth and that no religion or religious teacher is fully right or wrong. This is one of the ways to build bridges to other religions, and make them united.

John MacArthur states, and rightly so, "This is not an intellectual movement. This is not a movement that has discovered evidence that overturns inspiration, evidence that overturns inerrancy or authority. This is a movement born of people who do not want to accept the clarity of Scripture." This kind of thinking is very convenient, MacArthur explains. If God's Word is not clear, then we're not responsible to follow it. "It allows them not to take a position on homosexuality, premarital sex, or anything, besides 'Let's light some candles and incense, think good thoughts about Jesus, and give to the poor,'" he observes. But, as MacArthur reminds us, "To claim that the Bible is not sufficiently clear is to assault God's own wisdom and integrity."

Speaking on the church today, MacArthur writes, "It is quite possibly more susceptible to false teachers, doctrinal saboteurs, and spiritual terrorism than any other generation in church history. Biblical ignorance within the church may well be deeper and more widespread than any other time since the Protestant Reformation."

MacArthur attributes much of this to the twenty years of the seeker-friendly movement, which he says stripped Bible teaching, especially expository teaching, out of the pulpit. "You end up with a very, very marginally knowledgeable church, largely made up of unconverted people," he said. Wayne Teasdale, an emergent advocate states, "The rise of community among cultures and religious traditions . . . makes possible what we can call 'interspirituality'; the assimilation of insights, values and spiritual practices from the various religions and their application to one's own inner life and development."