The “Emergent” church needs to be on everyone's radar. Their ideas and approach are poison. This is NOT authentic, biblical Christianity, and it's becoming more evident all the time. Many of the leaders are truly "coming out of the closet" and unashamedly advocating heresy.
The Emergent Church leaders are now collaborating with a pro-homosexual Catholic priest, Richard Rohr. He is on the docket at conferences with Brian McLaren, Shane Claiborne, Phyllis Tickle and others.
Just a quick background: these "Emergent" leaders advocate pagan spirituality dressed in new clothes."Practices" not belief, "spiritual formation" and other approaches are unveiled as alternatively "progress" or a return to ancient church practices. But it's mystical "knowledge" (i.e., contact with some spirit) that is sought over faithful doctrine informed by Scripture.
Contemplative prayer, seeking some "experience" of God, is an open door to deception, and is not the prayer model of Scripture, nor does God ever teach us that sensational experiences are the key to knowing Him. These are sensualists, not authentic believers.
How did Jesus tell us to know Him? "...If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. Then you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:31-32) "Spiritual formation" comes through authentic belief in Christ as Savior, repentance of sin, and embrace of all the truth He teaches. Failure to accept that, is failure to have the Holy Spirit enter your heart. It's that simple. The only "spiritual formation" that will then happen will be through demons. And it may seem like revelation and enlightenment. But it's a sham.
Truth becomes really unimportant in the Emergent model.The message is that Christ is not necessarily the only way to salvation, and we need to reconsider homosexuality, and abortion,and not be hateful like the fundamentalists are.They engage in near-constant trash-talk about the "religious right," meaning those who want to expose this deception and remain biblically-faithful. Youth are gobbling this up, especially those with little biblical background, because it is packaged as a way to embrace worldly sexual sin and still believe one is a "christian."
If you see any of this creeping or galloping into your your churches, beware. These are the doctrines of demons.
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, talks about "practices" being the key--he advocates running away from doctrine--and there's a reason he avoids doctrine. His angle is not just the "social gospel," i.e., feeding the poor brings salvation, although he does talk about this.
His web site really shows his main focus: "rites of passage" masculinity retreats for men, where they get in touch with themselves by blending male and female, the "yin" and "yang" of Eastern faiths. This gender synthesis experience is open to males as young as 16 and open to males without fathers.So you see where this is leading...
Rohr has a letter of endorsement on the web site of Soulforce, the homosexual religious group pressuring colleges and churches for manipulative "dialogue." Rohr writes: "Our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered brothers and sisters have been left outside of his [Jesus'] realm of grace for far too long...."
Not true. They exclude themselves because of their proud sin. Jesus is open to any of us who are repentant. These folks aren't. They want Jesus to change. Ancient sin, new packaging.
