Sincerely Mistaken

Because a few of my friends are gushing about books written by some in the Emergent Church Movement (Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell, and Brian McLaren) I've had to check out a few of their articles, videos, and audio to find out what's up.

These guys are smart. They're probably a lot smarter than me. They know all kinds of 10 cent words like "binary reductionism" which they learned in university or seminary. And they also have very magnetic personalities. And if you listen, read, or watch them for any length of time, you get the impression that they really have it all worked out.

I personally am even convinced that they sincerely want to serve Jesus Christ.

And then you stop for a second and actually pay attention to what they are saying, and their rhetoric begins to disintegrate. "Professing to be wise, they became fools." (It's in Romans, look it up for yourselves.)

This seems to be the basic message I'm hearing: "We don't know the truth, we're incapable of knowing truth because of our individual subjectivities, so why do we insist that we're right about the Bible and arrogantly assume that everyone else is wrong. In fact, let's just drop the whole preaching thing anyway and just do something that going to make a difference in this world."

So they make these grandiose efforts to redefine and re-imagine Christianity:

Despising doctrine, not realizing or not caring that they're actually throwing away the Scriptures. That's what doctrine is, folks. Doctrine = Scripture. Jesus criticized the Pharisees, saying "You teach as doctines of God the traditions of man." I can't think of anything more "traditions of man" than the practices of the Emergent Church.

Adopting practices from Eastern Mysticism, and calling it "body prayer" and "contemplative prayer," as if relabeling these things in slightly evangelical terms makes them any less dangerous.

Accepting blatant false teachings with surprising gullibility despite their education, simply on the basis that "it works and it feels good so it must be from God." Where is the discerning of spirits? Oh yeah, they'd have to study the Bible to do that.

How many of these wilderness pitfalls must we wander into generation after generation while the Word of the Lord is present and able to lead us into His promises?

The Bible is very clear to the earnest student. And aside from the few tricky passages, the rest is very easy to understand, so much so that it has challenged every philosphical paradigm throughout the ages, including the postmodern view.

The Bible is meant to be read, understood, and embraced. Truth is absolute, and His name is Jesus. God Almighty in the flesh. You can't get any more objective than that.

God chooses to use words written and spoken to communicate to us in meaningful ways.

But are we really listening... ?

Pontius Pilate stood in the Presence of The Way The Truth And The Life, and said

"What is truth?"