A Call to Truth!

While Martin Luther called the Church back to the truth of Scripture and the simplicity of the gospel, modern movements like the “Emerging Church” uphold “mystery” and question the traditional understanding of the gospel.

“We want to embrace mystery rather than conquer it,” declare leaders within this movement. One prominent Emerging figure was quoted in Christianity Today: “I don’t think we’ve got the gospel right yet ...I don’t think the liberals have it right. But I don’t think we have it right either. None of us has arrived at orthodoxy.”

Emerging Churches are an informal network of worldwide Christian communities who believe God’s way for today’s generation is to focus more on relationships and emerging ideas than hard-and-fast truths and traditional statements of faith. They favour dialogue over doctrine and are filled with people who say traditional Church no longer works for them. Inside their walls, you’ll typically find couches in place of pews, conversation instead of preaching, compromise in place of convictions, and questions in place of truth.

An evangelical writer and pastor recently expressed his deep concern about the Emerging Church - "While those leading the movement say that the gospel can’t be clearly known, they presume to know one thing for certain: “The Bible doesn’t mean what traditional people think it means.”"

The Emerging Church is just one of the latest assaults on the truth and certainty of God’s Word. They are saying, in effect, that God may have spoken, but He mumbled, and we’re not really sure what He said.

But, saying that Scripture is not clear is just another way to undermine biblical authority!

The Emergent movement is not an intellectual movement. This is not a movement that has discovered evidence that overturns inspiration, evidence that overturns inerrancy or authority. This is a movement born of people who do not want to accept the clarity of Scripture.

“Solomon’s Porch”, ‘pastored’ by Doug Pagitt, is a popular Emerging Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This and other Emerging Churches seek to embrace mystery and put less emphasis on truth.

This kind of thinking is very deceptive. If God’s Word is not clear, then we’re not responsible to follow it.

It allows them not to take a position on homosexuality, premarital sex, or anything, besides ‘Let’s light some candles and incense, think good thoughts about Jesus, and give to the poor.’

Furthermore, to claim that the Bible is not sufficiently clear is to assault God’s own wisdom and integrity.

Sadly, some Christian bookstores now devote entire sections to books promoting the Emerging Church movement.

There are several reasons for the movement’s explosive growth:

• If they don’t believe anything, they can’t offend anybody.
• They’re not under any mandate to say anything in particular.
• They play on the bad experiences and disappointments of a number of people raised in the Church.
• They basically can define themselves by experiences that are familiar to the culture.

“Just Give Me Jesus - But Don’t Make Me Change My Ways” This is a metaphor for the whole movement. A young lady stated that she “loves Donald Miller, the author of Blue like Jazz, because [she] wants to be religious but isn’t prepared to let religion alter her lifestyle.” “I’m a Jesus girl,” she said. “But I also like to go out and do tequila shots with my friends.”

Doubting God’s Word - from the Beginning?

Is this truth war unique to today’s post-modern culture?

No, the assault has never stopped since the Garden of Eden. It just escalates and escalates and escalates. It takes different forms and moves in whatever direction the mood of the mob - the spirit of the age - dictates.

Not only have people questioned God’s Word from the beginning of time, but many Christians today doubt God from the beginning of His Word. Such doubt is usually the result of a very flawed view of Scripture. For example, just take note how few Christian colleges continue to believe and promote the literal creation account.

The Emerging Church promotes a different version of Church history. According to the Emergent movement, the great men of faith end up becoming fools. And the fools who compromise and who don’t take a stand become the heroes. It’s an attempt at turning history on its head. They try desperately to undo the Reformation so they can go back to a quasi-Christian, medieval ‘spirituality’.

The Church today is much more susceptible to false teachers, doctrinal saboteurs, and spiritual terrorism than any other generation in Church history. Biblical ignorance within the Church is deeper and more widespread than at any other time since the Protestant Reformation.

As a result of the last twenty years of the seeker-friendly movement, which stripped Bible teaching, especially expository teaching, out of the pulpit, we have now ended up with a very, very marginally knowledgeable Church, largely made up of unconverted people.

Many pastors today simply tell a lot of stories with powerless, silly little cultural insights. They seem to think that their own inventions have more power than the Word of God.

However, no matter what deviations Satan comes up with, God’s Word endureth forever! [1st Peter 1:25]

Truly, genuinely born again Christians have the obligation to protect and defend that truth. It is our duty to guard, proclaim, and pass that truth on to the next generation. We who love God and believe His Word must awaken to the reality of the battle that is raging all around us. We must do our part in the ages-old truth war. We are under a sacred obligation to join the battle and earnestly contend for the faith!