Do The Dobson’s and Focus on the Family Agree with the Emergent Church?

[Sing4Him]

Do The Dobson’s and Focus on the Family Agree with the Emergent Church?

By Brannon S. Howse

Do Dr. Dobson, Mrs. Dobson and Focus on the Family agree with the worldview of the emergent church?



While I respect so much of the great work of Dr. Dobson, Shirley Dobson and Focus on the Family, there has been a recent trend that is disturbing.



Not only is Mrs. Dobson agreeing with the decision by Dr. Ravi Zacharias not to conclude his prayer in the name of Jesus, at this year’s national event, but this past weekend Shirley appeared with Dr. Robert Schuller on his Hour of Power. Click here to view her appearance: http://www.crystalcathedral.org/hour_of_power/index.php



Do Mrs. Dobson, Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family agree with the heretical theology of Pastor Robert Schuller? In the early part of 2008, H.B. London, who is Dr. Dobson’s cousin and vice president of outreach/pastoral ministries for FOTF spoke for the Re-think Conference hosted at the Crystal Cathedral by Dr. Schuller and Emergent Pastor Erwin McManus.



Are the Dobson’s and Focus on the Family in agreement with the Emergent Church? I know that Dr. Dobson made Emergent Pastor Tony Campolo very famous. I also know that, as of today, Dr. Dobson has not hosted a program to reveal the false teaching of the Emergent Church and the man he made famous with numerous appearances on his radio program; despite our calls to his office more than a year ago.



What is going on with the Dobsons?



In February of 2007, Ryan Dobson, son of Dr. James and Shirely Dobson, wrote me an e-mail. In this e-mail he stated:



“I am a HUGE fan of Rob Bell. I think you really should look into his ministry before bashing him too. He is an exemplary man of God.”



Really? I have concluded through all my research that Pastor Rob Bell is embracing nothing more than universalism so how does that make him a man of God? Bell also just appeared with the Dalai Lama in Seattle for an interspiritual conference with a host of false religions and their leaders. Use the search engine on the top, left hand side of www.christianworldviewnetwork.com and read all the documented articles on Pastor Rob Bell and decided for yourself if you think Emergent Pastor Rob Bell is a “man of God”.



Despite my private plea to Dr. Dobson, through his personal secretary, to join us in opposing the Emergent Church, now Mrs. Dobson shows up with Emergent Pastor Robert Schuller.



All the evidence seems to point to the fact that the Dobson’s and Focus on the Family are deliberately embracing the Emergent Church theology by speaking at their conferences and churches.

If Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family are NOT in agreement with the Emergent Church then Dr. Dobson should release a letter stating that he does not agree with Emergent church leader, Dr. Robert Schuller, apologize for his wife’s appearance with Dr. Schuller on The Hour of Power, state his opposition to past guest Tony Campolo and commit that he will invite former Emergent Church pioneer, Jason Carlson on his program to expose the heresy of this Trojan Horse in our camp.



I am not going to hold my breath because I am not sure that Dr. Dobson and Mrs. Dobson join me in my opposition of the Emergent Church theology. Why? Because at the conclusion of her interview with Dr. Robert Schuller, Mrs. Dobson says, “Thank you, thank you, thank you Dr. Schuller. God bless you and the good work you are doing here”



What? “God bless the good work you are doing here”? What good work is that, leading millions of people to hell with a false gospel? Really, I would like to know what good work she is talking about.

Here is a small collection of the things Dr. Shuller has been teaching that now Focus on the Family and the Dobson’s have give credibility to whether they realize it or not.

In an interview with Christianity Today, published on Oct. 5, 1984, Robert Schuller was quoted as saying:

“I don’t think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality and, hence counterproductive to the evangelism enterprise than the often crude, uncouth and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition.”

In his book "Self-Esteem, the New Reformation," Schuller argues that we now have a far more enlightened understanding of what is really going on in our souls:

"Lack of self-love or self-esteem, here is a scientific, scriptural doctrine of original sin."

What Bible is he reading from? According to mine, the original sin of Adam and Eve was a choice of desiring what they – the self – wanted over what God desired for them. Adam and Eve succumbed to Satan's lie of human supremacy, which is to love self to the extent of seeing yourself as god. They also believed the favorite falsehood of humanism that they could be the ones to determine truth and to control their destinies. It was the desire to serve "self," not God, that led to disobedience and the original sin.

Later in his book, Schuller reveals the core of happy-talk teaching:


"Let us start with a theology of salvation that addresses itself at the outset to man's deepest need, the 'will to self worth.'"

The truth is, man's deepest need is not "self worth" but forgiveness of sins through repentance and belief in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Unless we die to our own will and the desires of self-love and become alive to Christ and His will, there is no salvation.

When describing salvation, Jesus' words never sounded remotely like those of Robert Schuller. That belies the fact that the messages of Robert Schuller and Jesus Christ are in direct conflict. Jesus spoke about self-denial and dying to self, while Schuller promotes self-worship.

Robert Schuller, like many of today's liberal pastors, have a strong desire to avoid using the "S" word. In "Self-Esteem, The New Reformation," Schuller writes:

"Salvation is defined as rescue from shame to glory. It is salvation from guilt to pride, from fear to love, from distrust to faith, from hypocrisy to honesty."


Schuller never uses the word "sin" and says nothing about repentance. This kind of misleading verbiage actually leads people away from salvation, for without acknowledging sin and repenting of that sin, there can be no salvation.

This is quite clear in I John 1:8-10: "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us."

Actually, I should acknowledge that Schuller doesn't' forsake the "S" word entirely. He offers a rather creative re-invention that still shields us from the dark reality of our needs when he writes:

"So lack of trust or a lack of self-worth is the central core of sin."

Uh … no. The central core of sin is disobedience toward God and our being in rebellion against His character and nature. The more we focus on self and self-worth, self-importance or our rights, the deeper our offending sin.

Schuller also writes:

"Jesus Christ employed a strategy of evangelism where he never called a person a 'sinner.' They were sinners, of course, but he never told them they were."

I repeat: What Bible is that? Jesus not only told His audience He was calling sinners to repentance, but He called some of them names even less flattering than "sinner." How would today's happy-talk audience like to be addressed as "vipers," "serpents" or "tombs"?

In II Timothy 4:3-4, Paul predicted that we would see false teachers like the happy-talk crowd and that many in the audience would eagerly accept their false teachings:


For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.



Jesus soundly warns us of the punishment that awaits those who add or take away from the Scriptures. He notes that we would be better off to tie a millstone around our necks and jump in a lake rather than to doctrinally deceive children or those that are new to the faith.

Why on earth would Mrs. Dobson do appear on The Hour of Power and then ask God to bless “the good work” he is doing? FOTF and the Dobson’s have nothing to gain by cooperating with Schuller, but they do have their credibility to lose with discerning, conservative, Bible-Believing Christians.

I plead with Dr. Dobson and Mrs. Dobson not to be part of the elect that will be deceived in the last days as the Bible says will occur.



Distributed by www.ChristianWorldviewNetwork.com

[KBKMNN]

This saddens me so much. :ohno I like Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family. :ohno There don't seem to be very many 'true' Christian pastors these days. That is, out in the public eye.

[Gospel Messenjah]

“I am a HUGE fan of Rob Bell. I think you really should look into his ministry before bashing him too. He is an exemplary man of God.”


Wow! Cant believe that. Seems Apsotasy is getting worse.

[Waiting...]

Is this another witch hunt?

[Sing4Him]

It's sure important to take a look at the unscriptural message Bell presents. More than one way of salvation etc.. horrid.

we have a number of good threads on this.. please take a look if you have not seen them.

[lisa]

Is this another witch hunt?

It would be a witch hunt if there was no evidence to look at. As sad as it is, all of what's been posted seems well-documented and hard to refute. You can choose to ignore it if you wish, but we feel it's our responsibility to bring it out into the light rather than pretend it doesn't exist. Believe me, it would be much more comfortable to do the latter. :( But we can't in good conscience do that.

Pray for the Dobsons. Seek truth. Write letters urging them to steer clear of these false teachers. Write letters urging them to stand on the Bible alone. It's all we can do. But we can't pretend things are as they always were.

[Sing4Him]

ROB BELL: SALVATION FANTASIES
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. (Psalm 102:25-26)
Redeeming The Earth

If we were a doctor looking at the future of the cosmos based on the logical inferences derived from simply reading the above text and letting it speak for itself we would have to say the prognosis isn’t very good. But oh no, says the Emerging Church (EC) we are already in the Kingdom of God and Christ redeemed the universe on the cross. We’ll be looking more specifically at Rob Bell’s view in his book Velvet Elvis: Repainting The Christian Faith, which is indicative of most within the EC, but I also wish to make a quick point in passing. Within the new evangelicalism of the Purpose Driven Church, the Emerging Church and the Word Faith Church the prevailing views concerning soteriology (salvation) involve some kind of a universal atonement of the world.

Space doesn’t allow me here to go into great detail but you will find this within the dominant positions of eschatology (end times) today, which are called by various names such as “Christian Reconstructionism,” “Dominion Theology,” “Kingdom Now.” Though these do have differences, they are all similar in the misunderstanding that Christ left His Church on the earth to “Christianize” it and prepare it for His coming rule. Each of the aforementioned views have been adequately covered elsewhere, I only bring this up here to uncover for you what the EC is generally talking about when they speak of “the Kingdom of God,” and being “followers of Jesus.” They are referring to the idea that God’s Kingdom is here on the earth right now through Christ’s atonement and that to be His “follower” we are to make this world a better place.

Again we must resist “wrestling with the serpent” here because there is truth mixed within Satan’s lie regarding the Kingdom of God and the mission of Christ’s Church to our fellow man. For our purposes here we simply point out that through the Church of Jesus Christ–the universal Body of Christ–the Kingdom of God is present on the earth to a limited degree, and then a secondary function of our mission for the Lord is to care for our fellow man. The EC has been very successful in selling the completely false idea that one like myself who holds to the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3, NKJV) believes we have no responsibility to the nation we live in and to our fellow man. It is simply an incontrovertible fact that the true Christian faith has been responsible for improving the living conditions of mankind in virtually every area of life.

Universal At-One-Ment

We return now to the main point of this series concerning Rob Bell’s warped writings regarding Christ’s atonement and the actual mission of the Christian Church. In chapter five of his book Velvet Elvis (VE) Bell begins to describe his novel spin of “this Jewish man” Jesus of Nazareth “who lived” and “died” and then “according to his first followers, was alive again” (124). Then, in words that even Fosdick, Ferre and Bultmann could agree with, Bell goes on to tell us:

As his movement gathered steam, this Jewish man came to be talked about more and more as God, fully divine as well as fully human. As his followers talked about him and did what he said and told and retold his stories, the significance of his life began to take on all sorts of cosmic dimensions (ibid).
This is not to say that Rob Bell doesn’t believe in the Deity of Christ, but in grand McLarenesque style, from VE it’s hard to tell just what Bell himself does believe. However, it’s the next part of Bell’s story about the Master that concerns this work as he informs us that the followers of Jesus:

realized that something much bigger was going on here, involving them and the people around them and all of creation. Something involving God making peace with the world and creation being reclaimed and everything in heaven and earth being brought back into harmony with its Creator (ibid, emphasis added).
Let us stop right here. This is where we see the idea of a universal atonement, or if Bell is heading in the direction that Emergent spiritual director Guru Brian McLaren is heading, we see the doctrine of panentheism. It would appear Bell holds to the former rather than the latter in light of his mention of the cross in VE, something that is missing from McLaren’s work. Be that as it may, this is the foundation from which the faulty understanding of the Kingdom of God in Emerging Church springs. Bell is espousing the party line that somehow anyway Jesus brings all of creation back into its proper relationship with God. We’ll be returning to this issue later, but for now this false teaching has a couple of very serious flaws. If all of creation is now “in harmony” with God then the Devil himself would have to be included, and there would now also be no need for regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

The Toxic Effect Of Bell

Our focus initially will be on the ramifications that if all of creation has been redeemed by Christ there is no need for man to be born again. But as we begin men and women I know firsthand about the rapidly growing influence of this counterfeit Christian pastor-teacher Rob Bell and how his toxic teachings are shipwrecking the faith of the young people who end up following him. I have received numerous letters from parents across the country who have seen their children twisted up by Bell’s spiritual musings. The mom of one young man in particular comes to mind whose son had been progressing nicely in his walk with Jesus and had met with his pastor about entering the ministry. Sadly he ended up going to Mars Hill Graduate School and has come home turned completely backward in his faith after coming under Bell’s influence there.

Sure Rob Bell’s constant use of Hebrew words and his incessant references to what the so-called “Rabbis” say is quite impressive to the youth he speaks to. But those of us who happen to have a working knowledge of the original texts of Scripture and of the actual history of the Church can see through it. Meaning no disrespect to orthodox Jewish rabbis who most certainly know the Hebrew language better than I, in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, the Master Rabbi, Christ Jesus had an interesting discussion with a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus. A very important part of it is the following exchange:

“You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” (John 3:7-12)
Born Of The Holy Spirit

What needs to be stressed here as it applies to our discussion of Rob Bell and the Rabbis, which actually is a spiritual group of sorts, is that Christ is talking with a Jewish religious leader and the Master chides him for not understanding the concept of having to be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God. How sad that much of what professes to be Christ’s Church today, and most particularly the Emerging one misunderstands the exact same thing! Keep that in mind as we look at Jesus tell Nicodemus – “you people do not accept our testimony.” We need to ask ourselves here: “What people do not accept our testimony?” The answer is the unregenerate, those who have not been born again through God’s grace alone–through personal faith alone–in Christ alone.

This idea wasn’t “made up” by the Reformers. This is what the historic Christian Church has always taught because this is what the Bible says. And Jesus tells Israel’s teacher that – I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? So now we know whom it is the Master speaks of when He talks about our testimony in verse 11. Primarily Christ is referring to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit when He says “our testimony,” but using the other edge of the double-edged Sword of the Spirit, which is Word of God, our Lord is also talking about His Church. You must remember that those who are not born of the Spirit will not accept our testimony either. Can you see how this works?

Now we might apply this Truth to many professing Christian teachers today like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren and Rick Warren and Joel Osteen who also don’t accept our testimony. This should give you pause for thought. Do you really think that the evangelical method of mass evangelism with its “pray a simple prayer” is really from God? Do you begin to see that there are a whole lot less people who have truly been born of the Spirit than claim to be. “‘Krazy Ken’ (as I’m known in Emergent circles) are you trying to tell me these fine Christian men with their big churches and followings that totally obscure yours aren’t born again?” That’s precisely what I am saying becomes a very real possibility if they do not accept the testimony of those who have been born of the Spirit.

Stand For The Truth

It is written: We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us (2 Corinthians 5:20), and this is the position from which I write. As a pastor-teacher myself I am commanded in Scripture to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 31:8), such as those parents who are writing to me for help, and to hold back those staggering toward slaughter (Proverbs 24:11), which are those who are not born again and are headed toward an eternity in Hell. Which brings us to an important point that is totally missed within more and more of the EC because of its neo-pagan mystical experience-oriented “Christianity.” And this is what Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus in our text from John – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This is a key verse to understand in this whole discussion of the views of salvation and the end times that we are talking about, and specifically with Rob Bell’s salvation fantasies. The vicarious penal substitutionary atonement on the Cross by God the Son–Christ Jesus of Nazareth–was to take the punishment of His people’s sins upon Himself that they might be forgiven. With this gracious salvation offered by the Father through the Son by the Spirit comes a completely new creation within men and women who believe. This is what the Christian Church means when we speak of being born from above, or being born again. This is a literal spiritual fact, and just as the man is “recreated” inside, but awaiting his new spiritual body after his cursed natural one dies, so also the cursed heavens and earth will die and will also be recreated.

We’ll talk about this more in the next part and we’ll examine further the faulty man-centered premise that Bell erects his soteriological framework upon. The point that needs to be understood here is those who obey what Jesus has taught us in the Bible are like a wise man who built his house on the rock (Matthew 7:24, ESV). And then conversely, the Master will say of the person in the Emerging Church like Rob Bell who hear these words of mine and does not do them that they will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand (v.26). The Truth is that if you in the EC do not choose to follow Jesus the way He has prescribed in Holy Scripture, then you would be wise to examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)

The critical question for those following things taught by demons and the leaders within the Emerging Church like Rob Bell is this: Do you really think that this life the Creator has given us is so neat and compartmentalized as to be understood by mere human intellect when avoiding Hell took the very intervention of God Himself and His brutal crucifixion on that bloody Roman cross?
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/02/rob_bell_salvat.html

[Sing4Him]

ROB BELL: SALVATION FANTASIES (PART 2)
Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. (Psalm 102:25-26)
The Bell Tolls For The Heavens And The Earth

In Part One we began with the above text of Scripture. This time we have it from the King James Version. Passages from the Bible like these truly make it very difficult for those who read Holy Scripture at “face value,” meaning for what it says, to come to any other conclusion than at some point this present heavens and earth will perish – or be destroyed. However, the predominant view within new evangelicalism is that the Church is here in the Kingdom of God right now to prepare this particular world before its King can come back. This is especially so in the doctrines of soteriology (salvation) and eschatology (end times) for the neo-pagan cult of the Emerging Church.

As an example of simply letting the text of the Bible speak for itself and using the critical reasoning ability that our Creator chose to place within us to separate mankind from the animals we present the following from Matthew Henry:

They shall perish; they will not last so long as we shall last. The day is coming when the earth and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up; and then what will become of those that have laid up their treasure in it? Heaven and earth shall wax old as a garment, not by a gradual decay, but, when the set time comes, they shall be laid aside like an old garment that we have no more occasion for. (Matthew Henry Commentary, E-Sword version)
This is an insightful comment from Henry, and even more so because it is based on what the text throughout the Bible is telling us. So this is what we are saying: If this is what Holy Scripture says, then it follows that this is what God says. The logic is inescapable and there is simply no amount of man-centered wishful thinking that is ever going to change this. Which is precisely the point I have trying to make the Church aware of when I speak of the Purpose Driven Church, the Emerging Church and the Word Faith Church as one entity within the twisted new spirituality of the new evangelicalism. We’ll return more specifically to Bell’s skewed teachings about the Kingdom of God based on his warped and toxic view of the Bible in a moment.

The True Christian Witness

Here though is a good place for me to make clear something that is apparently misunderstood about my writing by people who are not hearing the Voice of the Great Shepherd. I have had people say that I don’t know what I am talking about by “carelessly” lumping together such disparate religious systems together. It’s been asked: “Don’t you know that these movements have nothing to do with each other?” Ah, but this is only more of those “salvation fantasies.” I couldn’t care less that individual adherents don’t see that in God’s eyes they are all the same, people following seducing spirits and believing doctrines of devils. You see my first responsibility is to my Lord Who sent me, and this is a major issue that His true ministers will be trying to show you today.

Each of these major movements within new evangelicalism have this in common, they are violating a very old Biblical mandate. To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn (Isaiah 8:20). Each of these movements deny the Protestant Reformation which is then misrepresented (albeit in different ways) as something that was largely men who simply decided to teach some things–specifically the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible–which are just not that important to our culture today. However, as Dr. John MacArthur has correctly stated recently in his highly recommended series on discernment, today the new evangelical PDL/EC/WF church is all about “love and unity” and so the doctrines of the Reformation become irrelevant to them.

I suggest here that if you find yourself among the “frogs” in the Purpose Driven Church or the Emerging Church or the Word Faith Church–the major “kettles” the Devil is slowly bringing to a boil–then you are ever so subtly being indoctrinated into thinking about the Christian faith exactly backward. The messages you hear from their pallid pulpits will invariably be about the “worth of man,” the critical importance of “saving our environment,” and how the “King’s kids” should expect health and financial prosperity in this world. When the truth is that men sent by the Lord–and yes, pastors will be men–will tell you about the worth of God, the critical importance of obeying Him, and how as unworthy servants we should expect absolutely nothing from our Lord and Master.

No, in gratitude for a salvation we didn’t ask for and don’t deserve, our love for Christ should constrain the true Christian to help his fellow man see he is worthy only of death. Our love for our Creator should compel us to do what we can to make this world as good as it can be while we share the Gospel with those staggering toward destruction. Then by learning from the mistakes of God’s chosen Israel in the Old Testament, we should joyfully be sharing our Lord’s incredible generosity to His children with others God places around us. This would be the inevitable result that would come from a Body of Christ that adheres fully to the doctrines recaptured from the apostate Church of Rome when God the Holy Spirit raised up men willing to sacrifice their lives in the Protestant Reformation.

Peas In A Doomed Pod

I must warn you that the Lord Jesus Christ is close to spewing this shallow, superficial and nauseating brand of self-centered American “Christianity” right out of the mouth (see–Revelation 3:15-16). Let not the Warren-ites and McLaren-ites and Osteen-ites be so foolish as to think that just because they claim to be Christian they might continue on in their foolish fantasies unscathed. Compromise and self-ish living by those who claim to be among God’s chosen–just as was the case in Christ’s first time on His earth–is all the same to the LORD God Almighty. Hear the Word of the Lord:

“Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:7-10)
And…Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness. (Isaiah 8:21-22)
Prayerfully this will clear up any further misconceptions as to why I write as I do in regard to these various movements, which is really one doomed ecumenical movement marching in line with the other antichrists right back through apostate Rome. And the principle was laid down very clearly by Christ Himself when He said – “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30). The Purpose Driven Church obviously follows Rick Warren’s seeker sensitive model and his man-pleasing interpretations of Scripture. In reality much of what Warren regurgitates is simply repackaged Robert Schullerisms. The Emerging Church is a schismatic rebellion against authority period, but most specifically against that of Holy Scripture. And the Word Faith Church is deeply rooted in the Gnosticism of the metaphysical Mind Science Cults as first taught by Essek W. Kenyon, and which penetrated evangelicalism by way of Kenneth Hagin.

Each of these movements has this is common; by what they are teaching regarding the nature of man and essentially paying lip service (at best) to Sola Scriptura, they are in fact denying that the Protestant Reformation was a move by God the Holy Spirit to return the Church to what Dr. Walter Martin often referred to as “the historic orthodox Christian faith.” Just the other day I was encouraging a brother via email that someone who is a part of the Emerging Church had blindsided with the old chestnut: “By you denying what we are doing is of God you are blaspheming the Holy Spirit.” What I explained to him was that the reverse is also true; by these groups actively seeking to consider the apostate Church of Rome as legitimate Christians, and to join them in fellowship, they are themselves denying that the Reformation was a move of the Holy Spirit. So you see, this “blasphemy” works both ways and as this Age comes to an end with increasing rapidity you will have to decide which side you are on.

Bell Rings In The Here And Now

As we saw last time Rob Bell’s salvation fantasies originate in a universal atonement by Christ, which is the prevalent view within the mystic Emerging Church movement, and through the link of “contemplative prayer,” this is also becoming true for most of new evangelicalism as well. And this itself has to do with a backlash against so-called Calvinism. I’m not going to wrestle with the serpent about that here, but what I do want to point out is that the fallacious philosophy of Robert Schuller that mankind is allegedly of such incredible worth is actually permeating all three of these movements. However, this twist of demonic doctrine itself can very easily be traced back through his mentor Norman Vincent Peale, then back even further through those aforementioned Gnostic Mind Science cults, and from there all the way back to its actual origin in Genesis 3:5 where the Devil himself tells Eve – “you will be like God.”

Here in a nutshell is where Rob Bell stands in regard to what the Cross of Jesus Christ means in his soteriology. As we look at this quote from his book Velvet Elvis: Repainting The Christian Faith (VE) and Bell articulates the doctrine of salvation in the Emerging Church movement you will be able to see why they would have such a high emphasis on saving the environment. We are already aware of Bell’s disdain for Biblical authority, and in typical fashion among EC writers, in VE Bell first sets up an incorrect definition of Reformed soteriology as a straw man for him to knock down. Then Bell says that the “point of the cross isn’t forgiveness. Forgiveness leads to something bigger: restoration” (108) As he elaborates further the EC doctrine of a universal salvation of the kosmos (world) clearly emerges:

The Bible paints a much larger picture of salvation. It describes all of creation being restored. The author of Ephesians writes that all things will be brought together under Jesus. Salvation is the entire universe being brought back into harmony with its maker. This has huge implications for how people present the message of Jesus. Yes, Jesus can come into our hearts. But we can join a movement that is as wide and deep and big as the universe itself. Rocks and trees and birds and swamps and ecosystems. God’s desire is to restore it all (ibid., 109,110, emphasis added)
Once you understand that for Bell, and for the Emerging Church movement, salvation is virtually entirely focused on the here and now it will then help you to understand why these predominantly young people approach their version of the Kingdom of God as they do. For the Emergent the universe itself, and as you see above, everything in it was redeemed by Christ on the cross when He took “punishment” so that God could “restore” it. Exactly how He is doing so isn’t clear, but the main point is that in EC soteriology all of mankind has been forgiven and they only need to become “followers of Jesus” (or not as in McLaren’s AGO).

You need to understand that even though Bell says “Jesus can come into our hearts,” in VE he has just spent the previous part of this chapter speaking against what the Christian Church means when we use that phrase. In VE the postmodernist Bell never specifically speaks of being born again as in his thinking it seems that only some type of decision to believe is all that is needed. Which is rather odd when you realize that the philosophy of postmodernism itself actually discourages believing in something objectively. One is left to wonder how would these people even be able to believe in the first place? As Dr. Doug Groothuis has pointed out in his book Truth Decay:

This raises the perennial question of the nature of truth. What does it mean for a statement, a belief, a philosophy or a religion to be true? This has been the subject of much debate in postmodernist circles, where the traditional view of truth as objective and knowable is no longer accepted (23).
Everything Will Be Destroyed

As with any who depart from the faith as they begin to follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons there are the half-truths and the confusion of issues. I’ve stated numerous times that there certainly is a secondary facet of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which does focus on making this world (for the time we each have left) a better place for mankind. The goal for the true Christian however, is that such activity is designed by the Lord to lead us into opportunities to share the Gospel of forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ and eternal life with God “there” until He reveals the new heavens and the new earth when His Kingdom will fully come to a new “here” (see–Revelation 21:1-2). That the Emerging Church is way off track here becomes obvious when we look at a few things the Bible says that are de-emphasized, or simply re-imagined in their warped and toxic theology.

It is true that many adherents to the historic orthodox Christian faith which was once for all delivered to the saints could improve on their efforts in the secondary phase of the Gospel. However, the EC has gone way too far in the opposite direction, which would not be surprising when one considers the denial of the vicarious penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the Cross by virtually all of its leaders. The Church of our Lord must seriously begin to examine this question: How can someone even be saved by Christ who is denying the very means that God has established for being born again in the first place? And in 1 John chapter 2 God the Holy Spirit quite clearly tells the true follower of Jesus:

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (vv.15-17)
There is very good reason for this beyond the obvious. That obvious would be that Jesus taught for one to even be born again in the first place he must “repent,” which is to turn away from “the world.” Another reason not to love the world or anything in the world is for the literal fact that everything in the world will pass away. This is what we read in The Old Testament, as evidenced by our initial text, and in Isaiah 51:6 – Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. And this is further confirmed by the Apostle Peter, whom we must understand received this information from the Creator Himself. Whether taught in Person or by revelation Peter tells us with crystalline clarity:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. (2 Peter 3:10-12)
Undoubtedly we can see here that everything will be destroyed. The only way to ignore this truth is to follow men like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren who allegorize texts such as this. However, to do so is to think as a child who covers his face with his hands and exclaims: “You can’t see me!” The fact is no matter how loud an untruth is told, it will always remain an untruth. Better that we grow up and face the real world that is passing away and let those like Rob Bell who choose to ignore warnings such as this go where they will. In The Expositor’s Bible Commentary while discussing those who cause divisions in Romans 16:17 Dr. Everett Harrison makes the following perceptive comment: “As a practical measure, it is necessary to ‘keep away from them,’ giving no opportunity for inroads into the congregation. Religious errorists covet opportunities for ‘friendly discussion’" (Romans, CD Rom, emphasis mine)

I find it quite telling that the Emerging Church happens also to refer to itself as “the conversation.” No, how much wiser that the true Christian turns away from convoluted conversation and determines to follow men like the Apostle Paul whom the Lord urges you to imitate (see–1 Corinthians 4:16). It was also Paul who gave us the ultimate example of the mature Christian when he wrote:

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far (Philippians 1:21-23).
Men and women, let us not forget that twice in the Gospels it is recorded as Christ Jesus tells us in terms impossible to miss – “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 5:18; Luke 21:33). And O what the LORD God Almighty could do with a Church full of true Spirit-filled followers of Jesus who love the Lord enough to ride to the sound of the guns…

http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/03/rob_bell_salvat_1.html

[Waiting...]

It would be a witch hunt if there was no evidence to look at. As sad as it is, all of what's been posted seems well-documented and hard to refute. You can choose to ignore it if you wish, but we feel it's our responsibility to bring it out into the light rather than pretend it doesn't exist. Believe me, it would be much more comfortable to do the latter. :( But we can't in good conscience do that.

Pray for the Dobsons. Seek truth. Write letters urging them to steer clear of these false teachers. Write letters urging them to stand on the Bible alone. It's all we can do. But we can't pretend things are as they always were.

Sorry. It was simply a question. I think that we are going to discredit our testimony by picking and choosing who we call legitimate or most often not. NonChristians come here and see all of this division. It sickens me.

[Final Trumpet]

Waiting...said:

Is this another witch hunt?

Yes it is. How dare anyone call out someone else for false teachings. For shame that they try to warn people from following false doctrines to their own destruction. They should just be quiet and let them be decieved.