Thursday, March 23, 2006

EMERGING DECEPTION

We're in a fight. We're in a spiritual battle which rages on daily even when we choose not to acknowledge it. If we decide not to become engaged in the warfare we have unwittingly decided to assist the enemy. There is no neutral ground. Every morning when you wake up the battle continues and throughout your entire day the strategy will change to suite the enemy's next ploy.

A.W. Tozer puts it well:

"The Old Testament prophets were men of contention. Our Lord Jesus while on earth was in deadly conflict with the devil. The Apostles, the Church Fathers and the Reformers were men of controversy. They fought the devil to the death and kept the torch of truth burning for all succeeding generations. Is our contribution to history to be the ignoble one of letting the torch go out?"

The difficult thing is that our enemy will cleverly use even the people closest to us. He may use family members, friends, even trusted senior pastors and youth pastors within our trusted churches.

Remember what it says in Jude v. 3-4

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Among the many topics and issues we post on this site now and in the future, the issues which concern us the most are those which involve the erroneous doctrines, subtle false teachings and pragmatic church methodologies making its way throughout the entire church body today.

THIS ARTICLE posted last month gives a brief overview of one of these current trends, namely, "Emergent Church" which is slithering it's way into churches all over. It is usually first manifested in the churches' youth groups. The fact that this trend or movement is geared toward the post-modern generation, the perfect recipients of this would be the "post-modern" youth.

It is absolutely imperative that we understand what the Emergent Church movement is really all about. It will take some time to understand but it is crucial to know about and read about since this movement's ideologies are either blatantly or subtly heretical. And for the sake of protecting our kids since many youth groups today is where this trend is catching on like wildfire.

PBS did a two part story (link to PART ONE and PART TWO) on the Emergent Church movement. This is a good introduction to Emergent but this movement actually runs much deeper into many other things. One of which is it's tendency toward mysticism from the "ancient" Roman Catholic mystics and desert fathers (monks).

Also thanks to Richard Foster's book on mysticism "Celebration of Discipline" and other various authors, many among the current generation of spiritually hungry young people are being tutored on unbiblical ancient mystical practices.

I haven't even begun to get into the heresies of Brian McLaren or the bizarre theologies of Rob Bell. Those will be for a future series of posts.

One important verse to keep at the forefront of your mind when reading into these things is Colossians 2:8:

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

-KTO
PS: more info on it's way soon.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Satan may use this blog too

7:10 PM  
Blogger kennyo said...

you're right, Satan can manipulate anyone. That is why we need to hold fast to scripture and much prayer.

7:20 PM  
Blogger Mark said...

Hey Kenny,

I'm interested in the comment about "Celebration of Discipline". That book's been making the rounds in my circles. I haven't had time to read and evaluate it. Sounds like you've got some issues with it. Is that correct?

Thanks!

Mark Stedman

1:58 PM  
Blogger kennyo said...

I do.

It basically has to do with the resurgence of the practice of the so called "spiritual disciplines". There are several articles written about this which explain well the problem with engaging in these spiritual disciplines.

Also through this Emergent movement these practices are being reintroduced mostly to the youth who are eager to "experience" God and grow closer to Him, which can lead to spiritual harm if it is based on unbiblical methods.

Before christians embrace any "new" trend in christianity they really ought to make sure who they are reading and what they are teaching. Brian McLaren is a good example. Many christian teachers and church leaders just assume that authors like him are fine until you begin to see just what some of these guys stand for and defend and it has nothing to do with God's truth. In some cases it's heresy.

check these out:

• http://thinkerup.blogspot.com/2006/03/richard-foster-and-christian-mysticism.html

• http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/03/contemplative_p.html

• http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/richardfoster.pdf

There is a lot more I could send to you. It would be great if we could discuss sometime.

Thanks for your comments Mark.
Kenny

2:30 PM  

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