Light Brings Salt
Volume 3, Issue 26 June 26, 2005
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
'Emerging
Church Movement' a threat to the Gospel
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
(BP)--A recently developed way of envisioning church known as the
"Emerging Church Movement" deals carelessly with Scripture and compromises the
Gospel, according to a prominent evangelical scholar and a Southern Baptist
seminary president.
But Brian McLaren, one of the movement's leaders, told Baptist Press
that such
criticisms are unfounded and that the Emerging Church Movement is "seeking to
be more faithful to Christ" in the current postmodern cultural context.
"McLaren, who is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge
Community Church near
Baltimore, Md., and was listed as one of 25 influential
evangelicals by TIME magazine,
said that he rejects the label 'movement' to describe the Emerging Church.
"I generally don't
even use the term movement at this point," he said. "I think it's more
of a conversation. It's a group of people who are talking about the Gospel
and church and mission, especially in terms of changes going on in our
culture that some people call a shift from modern to postmodern
culture."
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary in
Responding to McLaren's book, "A Generous Orthodoxy," Mohler writes, "Embracing the worldview of the
postmodern age, he embraces relativism at the cost of clarity in matters of truth and
intends to redefine Christianity for this new age, largely in terms of an
eccentric mixture of elements he would take from virtually every theological
position and variant."
"... As a
postmodernist, he considers himself free from any concern for propositional
truthfulness, and simply wants the Christian community to embrace a pluriform understanding of truth as a way out of doctrinal conflict and
impasse."
"When it comes to
issues such as the exclusivity of the gospel, the identity of Jesus Christ
as both fully human and fully divine, the authoritative character of
Scripture as written revelation, and the clear teaching of Scripture
concerning issues such as homosexuality, this movement simply refuses to
answer the questions," Mohler writes.
"Homosexuality
either will or will not be embraced as normative. The church either will or
will not accept a radical revisioning of the
missionary task. We
will either see those who have not come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as persons to
whom we should extend a clear gospel message and a call for decision, or we
will simply come alongside them to tell our story as they tell their
own."
When asked whether a
person must trust Christ as dying to make atonement for sin in order to
be a Christian, McLaren replied, "I want to help
people understand
everything they can about the cross. ... I wouldn't say that having that
understanding (Jesus dying as a substitute for sinful humanity) is all that it
means to be a Christian. I think that some people might have that understanding
and not be interested in following Jesus. They want Jesus' blood to
pay for their sins so they can go to heaven, but they aren't really
interested in following Jesus in this life."
Mohler
concludes that McLaren and other leaders in the
"The worldview of
postmodernism -- complete with an epistemology that denies the possibility
of or need for propositional truth -- affords the movement an opportunity
to hop, skip and jump throughout the Bible and the history of Christian
thought in order to take whatever pieces they want from one theology and
attach them, like doctrinal post-it notes, to whatever picture they would want
to draw" (BP News, David Roach, Mar 23, 2005).
“The Goddess has now emerged from the dark
moon phase of a long-term lunar cycle at a time when humanity is collectively passing through a
dark phase in
the precessional age solar cycle. With the rebirth of
the Goddess, we are being
given the opportunity to reclaim her dark aspect.”
- Demetra George, Mysteries of the Dark
Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess, p. 266.
Author Berit
Kjos commented recently,
“You
probably wouldn’t
expect to find goddesses
in a conservative farming community in
I
agreed, so I drove to a stately white church, walked to the parsonage next door, and rang
the bell. The pastor’s
wife opened the door and led me into a large room she had changed into a
bookstore, leaving me to browse. Scanning the shelves along the walls, I noticed
familiar authors such as Lynn Andrews who freely blends witchcraft with Native
American rituals, New Age
self-empowerment, and other occult traditions to form her own
spirituality.
Among
the multicultural books in the children’s section, one caught my attention.
Called ‘Many
Faces of the Great Goddess,’ it was a ‘coloring
book for
all ages.’
Page after page sported voluptuous drawings of famed goddesses. Nude,
bare-breasted, pregnant, or draped in serpents, they would surely open the
minds of young artists to the lure of “sacred” sex and ancient myths.
Driving
home, I pondered today’s
fast-spreading shift from Christianity to paganism. Apparently, myths and
spiritualized sensuality sound good to those who seek new revelations and “higher” truths. Many of
the modern myths picture
deities that fit somewhere between a feminine version of God and the timeless
goddesses pictured in earth-centered stories and cultures.” (Kjos,
A Twist of Faith, pp. 10-11)
Commenting
on this universal goddess aspect, Professor Cesar Vidal writes,
The importance of mother goddesses in the various mythologies of
paganism is
so evident that even a shallow description could easily fill entire volumes . . .
The mother goddess received different names and external appearances,
but, in substance, she was always the same. In
Our
modern culture likewise has a propensity to following the Queen of Heaven. The New Age Movement has been a real force in
this, bringing the Gaia
concept to the forefront-the idea that the Earth is a living organism, a hypothesis
intrinsically linked to the goddess movement and Mother Earth.
Christianity
isn’t
immune to the allure of the goddess. In 1993, at the Re-Imaging
Conference in
Mother Earth,
too, can be found in our modern church culture—especially through Earth
Day celebrations within the Christian community (See Goddess Earth by
Samantha Smith and Dave Hunt’s Occult Invasion: The Subtle Seduction of the World and Church).
But
goddess influence within churches goes beyond Mother Earth and Sophia.
The biblical figure of Mary has been erroneously elevated to a
goddess status
by Roman Catholic theologians. She is known as the Queen of Heaven, Mother of God,
Eternal Virgin, Queen of Peace, Our Mother, Lady of the Good Death, Co-mediatrix, and Blessed Mother. Thousands of shrines around
the world
commemorate her. Visions, apparitions, visitations, and channeled messages
accompany the mystical experiences of her followers.
Detailing
the broader New Age Goddess and feminist influence within church and society, Berit Kjos writes,
... This new spiritual movement is transforming our
churches as well as our
culture. It touches every family that reads newspapers, watches television, and
sends children to community schools. It is fast driving our society beyond
Christianity, beyond humanism -even beyond relativism— toward new
global beliefs and values. No one is immune from its subtle pressures and
silent promptings. That it parallels other social changes and global movements
only speeds the transformation. Yet, most Christians— like the
proverbial frog-have barely noticed.
The
point that Mrs. Kjos makes is essential to
understanding our times: Christianity is facing
a paradigm shift of global proportions, and the goddess thrust of the New Age
Movement is an important facet of this spiritual and societal-wide change. It matters what influences your thinking!