Two things Brian McLaren is NOT:
1. Dave Ramsey's twin.
2. A believer in orthodox Christianity.
Posted on 02/18/2010 6:51:58 PM PST by Recovering_Democrat
Early in George Orwell’s iconic 1984 is a particularly haunting scene. Winston, the hero of the story, is confessing to his diary a sexual encounter with a prostitute. Though Big Brother rigidly controls even sexual union and though sex is viewed as “a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema,” still Big Brother cannot remove from humanity the desire and the need for intimacy...
It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about Brian McLaren and got in trouble. Reflecting on seeing him speak at a nearby church, I suggested that he appears to love Jesus but hate God. Based on immediate and furious reaction, I quickly retracted that statement. I should not have done so. I believed it then and I believe it now. And if it was true then, how much more true is it upon the release of his latest tome A New Kind of Christianity. In this book we finally see where McLaren’s journey has taken him; it has taken him into outright, rank, unapologetic apostasy. He hates God. Period.
(Excerpt) Read more at challies.com ...
1. Dave Ramsey's twin.
2. A believer in orthodox Christianity.
Are you sure about that first one?
I read some excerpts from this on a web site. They appear to have abandoned any pretense of believing in biblical Christianity. A man’s ways are right in his own eyes but the Lord weights the heart.
Well, they come and go, that will never change.
How long ago was it that Jim Wallis was all the rage?
Itchy ears.
I hear more and more “Christians” say that the “old rugged cross” and such isn’t working nowadays, that we have to reach people where they are.
I thought the Holy Spirit had to reach people, with us as the mere instrument. Perhaps we’re unwilling instruments?
Marketing God to people has to be the rankest apostasy of this age.
Yes, and they've swallowed whole much of the modernistic "church" philosophies currently in vogue. For instance, find an emergent church group and they're sure to embrace homosexuality as "ok."
Thanks for posting this, I had heard that Challies had reviewed the book and forgot to look for it.
A sad descent into heresy...
Big bloggable bump.
When man inserts his intellect into places where he should not go, it ends in disaster!
(Ecc 1:9) ...and [there is] no new [thing]under the sun.
(Notice the Preacher is talking about those that don't know the Lord and under the sun there is no new thing for the heathen or man without God. Christians are Not earth dwellers we abide with the Lord seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Our walk and life is in the heavenly realm not the earth.)
(1Jn 2:19) They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would [no doubt] have continued with us: but [they went out], that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
(1Cor 11:19) For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
“Marketing God to people has to be the rankest apostasy of this age.”
Amen, along with trying to “prove” God, as though He doesn’t do it sufficiently for Himself.
These fads come and go, and we are told so. 1 Tim 4:1-6 is a highlight.
On the one hand, there’s nothing wrong with presenting the Gospel in a way that people can understand. That’s why we sing our songs in English instead of Aramaic or Greek these days.
On the other hand, there’s EVERYTHING wrong with watering down the Gospel and claiming that it’s so you can “reach” people.
God draws His own unto Himself - He doesn’t need our help. We evangelize NOT because that soul will be lost if we don’t, but because that was the very last command Jesus gave us before ascending into Heaven. God loving me first is what saved me, and because of His love, I love Christ enough to do what He tells me (or at least try).
Jesus covered the concept quite well in the Parable of the Sower. Broadcast the seeds, and those that God wills, will grow and produce; the fate of the rest of the seeds are not our responsiblity.
You are correct, it is rank apostasy to "sell God", especially if you have to do so in ways that that would make an Amway salesman blush.
The purpose is to spread the message, and let come what may; not fill (and pay for!) mega-churches with what people WANT to hear, instead of what God wrote.
An exceptional rebutle to the heresy of the Emergent Church movement is “The Truth War” By Dr. John McArther
I have seen things these days that I would have never thought possible in this age: Goth and "grunge" style "preachers," covered with satanic tattoos and body piercings, playing and writhing to the most hell-inspired music imaginable - and blessing it all in the name of Jesus. Their heretical teaching and false literature; books like The Shack, which are lapped up by millions of quasi-believers, is a harbinger of the end of this Age of grace, in my opinion. Their open contempt for the "faith delivered to our fathers," who suffered, bled and died to show it approved of God, is manifested for everyone with eyes to see, but I suppose the Prince of this World has blinded many, as was foretold.
Sadly, the battered Anglican Church is an example of that.
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