This Emergent Church scare seems to suggest that many are led astray. If it were possible to deceive the elect.
On the other hand they claim traditional churches are too legalistic and hurt the people they claim to help.
Does anyone have reason to believe the Emergent church preaches a false gospel? The Bible does say we are to watch out if something like this happens in the last days. :boxing:
To be completely honest, I didn't know what you were talking about. And after googling 'Emerging Church' and reading a few of the articles, I'm still not 100% sure of their beliefs. That, in itself is scary. Please correct me if I'm wrong, and feel free to expound on any information you have that I'm lacking. It seems they don't believe in pews, instead couches and recliners and such? And they don't focus on salvation? It seemed they were more Works based than Faith. In the few articles I read, which included interviews with Brian McLaren, God wasn't even mentioned. It was more about making people comfortable...like more psychological (to get people to come) than faith-based.
A simple reading of the Bible will reveal that the gospel is not about what we have done for Jesus, but what Jesus has done for us (Rom 5:19, 2 Cor 5:21, Phil 2:8). The mystery of God has been made manifest in the Person and work of the Son, who frees prisoners, gives sight to the blind, breaks loose our chains and changes hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. At one time we were taken captive to do Satan's will and could not escape until Christ set us free. In other words, Christ did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He lived the perfect life that we should have lived and died the death we should have died, in order to free us so that we might then proclaim His excellencies, make known his gospel and spread justice and mercy to the poor.
But this is not what many of the the most notable characters in the Emerging church (e.g. McClaren, McManus, Bell) mean when they use the term �gospel�; for Christ, in their view, did not primarily come to us as a Savior, who delivers us from His just wrath, but rather, He came to make us "Christ followers". In other words, Jesus came as a moral example of how we might live, treat one another, and form communities. But as has been repeatedly shown throughout the testaments, this is a recipe for failure. In Romans 3:20 the Apostle teaches that the purpose of the law was not so much to show us how to live (although it was that too), but more importantly, to reveal our moral inability and hopeless bondage to sin in the face of God's holy majesty apart from the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Some major voices in the emergent church are saying they want a relationship with Jesus and not doctrines, but we must ask which Jesus do they want to have a relationship with? If words mean anything it appears they want a relationship with a moralistic Jesus of their own imagination. They want to believe that God is pleased with us because of what we do ... that He is pleased with us if we join Him in being active in crusades against social ills such as corporate greed, global warming, racism and poverty. That doing this is what the Gospel is all about. But as good as some of these things might be, God is not pleased with them if they do not come from faith in Jesus Christ as a Savior first, not as a mere example for us to follow. The background of the true gospel is that Jesus revealed His sinlessness and our moral impotence and bankruptcy in the face of his holiness. Thus our need for His mercy. But McLaren and many of the other emergent church leaders trumpet their belief that the gospel is more about ethics than the work of Christ on our behalf. They appeal to bettering the world around us as a task that is opposed to and more pressing than seeing our own rebellion and poverty, which prove our need for reconciliation to God through the life, death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. This unbiblical bifurcation of orthopraxy and orthodoxy, and foundational preference for the former, is just plain contrary to the Christian gospel.
Ultimately, the emergent "gospel" is not about the grace of Jesus Christ who delivers people from the wrath of God and puts them into the kingdom of light, but rather about becoming a 'Jesus follower', about walking as Jesus walked and trying to live the life he exemplified. Apart from the fact that, according to Scripture, this is an impossible goal when drawing from our native resources, but it misses the whole point for which Jesus came. The gospels showed Jesus setting his face like flint toward Jerusalem for a reason. He did not come primarily to be a moral example for us, but to become a Savior who does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. The emergent ideology, in other words, is appealing to the fallen will without the merciful act that God has done for us in Jesus. Since we woefully fall short of God's call to us to live this way, it offers no hope.
In his book, Why We're Not Emergent, Kevin DeYoung says, "I am convinced that a major problem with the emerging church is that they refuse to have their cake and eat it too. The whole movement seems to be built on reductionistic, even modernistic, either-or categories. They pit information versus transformation, believing versus belonging, and propositions about Christ versus the person of Christ. The emerging church will be a helpful corrective against real, and sometimes perceived, abuses in evangelicalism when they discover the genius of the "and," and stop forcing us to accept half-truths."
My fear, and I believe it is well founded, is that Emergent (and emerging) is just a newly cast form of the old Semi-Pelagian heresy of behavior modification, or to put it bluntly, moralism. The most tragic "either-or" category they have set up for themselves is this: faith in Christ as a Savior versus following Christ as an example. Many of its leading proponents assert that right living leads to right doctrine, thus reversing the Biblical priority of grace. But ethics are not what make Christianity to differ from other world religions. All world religions offer ethical programs that are remarkably similar to ours. But ethics/morals don't bring us into relationship with God unless you can perfectly keep them (James 2:10, Gal 3:10-12). In that case, you might need a helper, but you certainly don't need a Savior. What makes Christianity to differ is that it is the only way which acknowledges that its own adherents are rebels and without hope in themselves, that is, apart from the sovereign mercy of their Head, who procured salvation for them. All other religions rely on moral improvement and good works, but Christ has shown us that "there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins." (Ecc 7:20) Trusting in Jesus as a moral example alone, trusting in our good works and the social justice we do, simply makes Jesus' Person and work of no effect, for we are ascribing the power to do those things to ourselves apart from His redeeming us. Thus it would appear that both the emergent and seeker sensitive churches are cut from the same moralistic cloth. If you are a young person considering either of these, remember that seeing Christ as merely an example and seeing church as a place to hear stories about how we are to live, apart from the new birth, is a man-centered and not a Christ-centered message and should be steered clear of as you would a poisonous viper.
�Emergence,� or the �Emerging� or �Emergent� Church, is a movement inside and outside the boundaries of Protestant Christianity that has been deeply impacted by the worldview of Postmodernism, and in particular, the Postmodern hermeneutic of Deconstructionism (see question #74 above). Although it varies significantly from one group to the next, one of its most common characteristics is a deep distrust of sure doctrinal convictions, which the Church has historically used, in their opinion, to wield authority and oppress the weak. All theological convictions and points of doctrine should be held with �humility� (read: �uncertainty�), and open to ongoing dialogue, in which all opinions and perspectives should be embraced and affirmed. Real Christianity, they claim, is not about believing anything in particular, but rather about doing what Jesus did, eating with and loving sinners and the weak and despised.
In much of the �Emergent Church,� this attitude has led to a downplaying or outright denying of some very vital doctrines: the penal substitutionary atonement has often been denied, as has hell and eternal punishment, it has been suggested that �good� moral people of other faith traditions such as Islam and Hinduism are true members of the Kingdom, there has been an acceptance of homosexuality in a �loving� relationship as a positive and moral thing, and many other similar things have been affirmed. At its heart, in much of the movement, Christianity is no longer about faith in a Christ who saves, but about finding salvation through being a good, loving person, accepting those who have been hurt by the power structures of Christianity (which often means affirming them in their sin as well), taking good care of the earth, and so on.
Emerging Churches usually define themselves as those who like to take the life of Jesus as a model way to live, welcome those who are outside, share generously, participate, create, lead without control and function together in spiritual activities or communities who practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. While all of these activities may be good, please notice that all of the above emerging principles are not about what Christ has done for us, but what we do for him. So the the very central core of Christianity is left out. The true gospel, rather, is news about what Christ has already done for us as a Savior, rather than instruction and advice about what we are to do for God. The primacy of His accomplishment, not ours, is the essence of our faith. The gospel of Christ above all brings news, rather than instruction.
We believe that false religion always consists placing the focus on what we do for Christ rather than what Christ has done for us. There are two religions in the world: 1) human attainment and 2) Divine accomplishment. If acting as Christ is what true religion was about then what need have we of a Savior?
Some of the most widely known Emergent leaders who have denied fundamental doctrines such as the substitutionary atonement or else embraced entirely unorthodox opinions of the sort mentioned above are Brian McClaren, author of A Generous Orthodoxy; Doug Pagitt, pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis; Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, and Tony Jones, a popular Emergent speaker and blogger. There are several good critiques available of the Emergent Church, including The Courage to Be Protestant, by David Wells, Why We're Not Emergent, by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, and Don't Stop Believing, by Michael Wittmer.
Of course it is possible. Yet, that possibility exists with every church, every denomination, every style.
I think it depends on how they follow the Lord's leading. It does entail very carefully following God's leading for an emergent church to stay true to God's word and not go too far off the path.
It seems a more elaborate prosperity gospel. It does not have doctrines to go by as I can see from trying for months to find info. It is a group of men who started out prophesying about a lot of disasters. Of course, some happened, then they were called Prophets, now Apostles. They are a Kingdom now group - believing that all believers are supposed to work to take over government to bring godliness back to their culture & nations. That is bringing Kingdom influence into the world which will save the world from the wrath of God.
Many Pastors of different denomination have submitted themselves to these men & pay tithes to them. They have very passionate people praying to throw down the demonic rulers over areas so the church can 'emerge' as the authority instead.
This could probably use some more study but I'm not in the mood to dig deeper. I think it is foolishness, that's enough for me. Not saying that I don't want to see true believers in positions of authority but the greatest impact of the church is to be used by Jesus to preach the gospel & make disciples. I do not believe we can stop the end of the world or rather make the world ready for Christ to come back after the church takes over. I have read that they believe there will be a civil war in the church where the true church will have to be ready to put the false believers to death.
