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My take on the “emerging church” phenomenon is that it is driven by a misguided desire for experiences and feelings over reason and sound doctrine, as well as by a desire to be loved by the world and seen as “cool” by them. To anyone who has actually read the Bible, of course this is all nonsense, and the precise opposite of what we are called to do.

We are repeatedly warned about the dangers of letting our feelings (our heart) rule us, as that is the easiest way for us to be deceived. To ensure that this does not happen, we are exhorted to “test the spirits” and to stand on sound doctrine. Yet, the emerging church rejects doctrine outright, falsely labeling it as “legalism.” Those who merely try to point out the scriptural guard rails that are being ignored are immediately likened to Pharisees, and also called “legalistic.”

Instead, “emergents” can’t get enough of blatantly false practices and “signs and wonders” such as gold glitter and feathers falling from the ceiling, people laughing and twitching uncontrollably (demonically, really), writhing around on the floor and making animal noises, a seemingly endless parade of self-appointed “prophets” and even “apostles”, etc. It’s all feelings-driven, rather than seeking true wisdom in the scripture and being “wise as serpents but harmless as doves.” And as for the desire to be “relevant” and “cool”, Jesus promised us exactly the opposite, saying that we would be hated for his name’s sake, and that the world hates the truth and hates the light, preferring darkness over light. The reality that the emerging church ignores is that there isn’t really “anything new under the sun.” The true gospel is still the true (and difficult for the world to accept) gospel. All of the corporatism (Willow Creek), ecumenism (also Willow Creek), and strange and unbiblical manifestations (all of them, but particularly Bill Johnson and Bethel Church) are in vain and worse, spiritually dangerous. These people act as though Christianity and the gospel never really existed until they came on the scene and “reinvented” it. How arrogant, especially in light of how they barely pay heed to God’s written word, and in the small, carefully chosen snippets they do cite they often manage to completely misunderstand the words or worse, twist and distort them.

After attending a Vineyard church for several years, I began to see that the commonality between these types of churches is that they are infested with liberalism, with varying levels of spiritism or mysticism thrown in. They practice precisely zero true discernment, but instead will indiscriminately swallow whole any weird message or practice that they believe has been communicated to them by “the spirit.” This kind of insanity is PRECISELY why we are told to test the spirits to see if they are from God. That wasn’t a message to unbelievers or the world, it was a message to THE CHURCH. Yet so many people are deceived into thinking that every “message” they receive must be from the Holy Spirit, or that the fact that they are sincere somehow protects them from being deceived. This belief is NOT BIBLICAL at all!

In fact, if you add up all the elements there is a clear agenda of deception occurring here. I don’t believe it is intentional on the part of the humans involved, but rather a spiritual deception occurring. Just look: First, these churches unwittingly separate people from the scripture as THE source of truth and God’s will for our lives, and replace it with an emphasis on signs, wonders, miracles, and alleged direct “new” revelation from spirits of unknown origin, or from humans who have very unwisely labeled themselves “prophets” or “apostles.” Of course, these churches do use scripture every day, but they tend to stick to only certain “non-controversial” portions of the Bible, and never go into topics like God’s wrath, God’s righteousness, living a holy life (might “offend” someone, you know) and certainly never ever do they talk about eschatology (end times).

Once our only source of truth has been de-emphasized (remember, to rely too much upon scripture is to be labeled, “legalistic”), then people are ripe for deception. And we have seen abundant evidence of deception occurring on a mass scale. I have seen it personally many, many times and once brainwashed with this stuff it is really difficult to get through to people. They will jump around and make a spectacle of themselves, but can’t answer even the most basic question about the Bible. If you press, even gently, on the truths contained in scripture they will begin to view you as some kind of legalistic, “judgmental” stick in the mud, and eventually ignore you. Yet time after time I have seen folks who have been seduced by this feelings-based “Christianity” ultimately become deeply despondent and depressed when some promised “miracle” failed to occur, or their local “prophet” uttered some exciting pronouncement that somehow just didn’t quite come to pass. Once their deceptive illusion is dashed, they have no solid foundation to fall back on because these “churches” utterly failed them and never taught them the truth. That leads to disillusionment and sometimes, worse.

Those of us not blinded by this nonsense must continue to insist that any church we attend values God’s written word and the truth above all else. We must also insist that our churches clearly communicate a doctrinal statement, and that they adhere to sound, Biblical doctrine. If winds of hyper-emotionalism and unhealthy and dangerous seeking after signs and wonders begins to occur, we should remind our pastors of the command to test these phenomena against the Word of God. And should our churches be swayed by the temptation to be “relevant”, we should do everything in our power to ensure that relevance does not veer into compromise with worldly desires and practices.