Series Studies
The Great Falling Away
The Great Falling Away
(NOTE: This is a continuation of the Wolves in Wool Series. This post assumes the prerequisite reading of earlier posts)
In concluding this series on false doctrines in the church, a return to its beginning is in order; once again examining the scriptures which warn of such coming practices. In retrospect, the teachings of the Word of Faith and the Emergent movements find themselves fully uncovered in light of numerous scriptures which have rightly predicted their rise in the latter days, their unbiblical basis of “truth” and the true motivations for their practices.
In 2 Thessalonians, the apostle Paul articulates events concerning the future rise of Antichrist and the season of the coming Great Tribulation. Apparently, some had attempted to delude the church into believing that such events had already begun. Paul sets the record straight that such cannot be the case until several key events have taken place. Continue reading
The Emerging Ecumenicism: “We’re Ready to Believe You!”
The injection of transcendental meditation, code-named “contemplative prayer,” into the church creates a dangerous precedent for the future of the body of Christ. This is a place along the path from which there is no jumping off point. Contemplative prayer is not a recipe which is encouraged to be joined into the monthly rotation of one’s Christian practice, but rather is to become the new staple for those who have embraced it’s folly. And, once one adopts an element of pagan practice, full-blown paganism will follow in time. Just as the characterization of “gateway drugs” is rightly understood to lead one down a slippery slope into a full-fledged drug involvement, so transcendental meditation- with all of its Christian-sounding names- is a pathway to demonism. If one gets on that path, one will indeed arrive at its final destination. Continue reading
The Emergent Contemplative Prayer Model
The Emergent Contemplative Prayer Model
(Continued from the previous post) This lengthy introduction to transcendental meditation is not the focus of this study, however. The immediate concern is the fact that identical tenets, beliefs and practices to those of transcendental meditation have been repackaged under the Christian-sounding title of “contemplative prayer” and are being taught as biblical concepts by popular Emergent leaders.
I know of numerous Christians who maintain that contemplative prayer is not necessarily synonymous with transcendental meditation. I find myself doubting that, yet will leave that argument for another day. The focus of this portion of the series is specifically the contemplative prayer model practiced and encouraged by Emergent leaders, which is clearly nothing more than a warmed over demonic tradition, recast in Christian robes. Continue reading
Emerging Mysticism
Emerging Mysticism
In preparation for the next post a short introduction of certain mystical practices is necessary. It will be contended that a particular worship practice of the Emergent mainstream is deeply rooted in pagan traditions which recently have been described categorically as “New Age” thought and practice. Thus, an examination of these practices is a good preparatory exercise. This section will make no attempt to connect Emergent practices to New Age, as that correlation will follow. Rather, this side-bar fragment will simply identify and describe a mystic principle from pagan traditions which will later be demonstrated to have been adopted by Emergent tradition. Continue reading
The New, Friendlier Gospel
A Friendlier Soteriology
The natural consequence of the emergents and post-moderns rejection of certainty (regarding scripture or anything else) is a very natural outflow of that lack of certainty into their theology. The religious relativism and deconstruction of the “certainty” regarding a theology of Hell discussed so far are only a small sampling of the complete historical re-writes which many in the emergent movement are conducting on every theological idea previously defined. For people who do not believe theology is very important, they do an impressive job disassembling and rebuilding it in their own post-modern image. Even more ironically, those who reject notions of absolute truth speak quite absolutely concerning their own redefined theological platform. Continue reading
Emergent Deconstructionism: Hell
Deconstruction of Hell
Deconstruction is a philosophical idea which fits nicely into post-modern, and consequently emergent, thought processes. Essentially, deconstruction is the systematic removal of all certainty and propositional truth from a text based on the assumption (loosely) that a text finds its meaning from its readers rather than having a finite and comprehensible intent of its own. Or, put another way, there is no way to understand a text outside of our own insights. This is supposedly due to the subtle biases which exist in every society. Therefore, no text is able to produce a singular, declarative truth outside of a communal consensus which can remove all such biases through continued examination. Continue reading
An Emerging Relativism
Religious Relativism (part 2 of Emergent Characteristics)
“Relativism” is the philosophical concept that a certain aspect of one’s experience is dependent upon another. For example, one person may believe an individual to be beautiful while another person believes that same individual to be quite unsightly. In such cases, the application or understanding of beauty is indeed “relative” to the person interpreting it. In certain applications however, relativism is the philosophical enemy of the concept of “absolute truth,” (or universal truth) which essentially asserts that what is true for you is true for me, and it is true for people of all times and places. Continue reading
Emergent: History & Characteristics
Introduction
The Emergent/Emerging movement needs special explanation concerning its inclusion in the Wolves in Wool: Creeps in The Church series. More specifically, a disclaimer should be noted concerning this movement. Unlike the Word of Faith movement studied up to this point, the Emergent/Emerging movement is much more difficult to define. And, its definition leaves perhaps half of the movement in the “Creeps” category, while the other half of the movement – though suspect- appears to be attempting to uphold orthodox theological thought. Continue reading
Word of Faith Wealth Theology: Part Two
The Apostles Were Wealthy
Continuing this charade of wealth being the divine right of believers, WOF teachers furthermore present the apostles as wealthy men, heavy hitters and financially influential in their time. Continue reading
Word of Faith Wealth Theology: Part One
Continuing in their pursuit of “get what you want” theology, the next major assault of the Bible in the WOF teaching concerns their doctrine of wealth. This doctrine teaches that each believer in Christ should expect to be wealthy and have the absolute best of everything our culture offers.
[flash http://www.returningking.com/video/wolf10.flv]
(Notes below are scrollable)
Word of Faith Wealth TheologyContinuing in their pursuit of “get what you want” theology, the next major assault of the Bible in the WOF teaching concerns their doctrine of wealth. This doctrine teaches that each believer in Christ should expect to be wealthy and have the absolute best of everything our culture offers. And, to not be wealthy puts one in the same esteem as one who is not healthy in their world view: a spiritual failure. Continue reading |
