By Justin Edwards
The following article by Ken Silva is an excellent summation of where the road of contemplative spirituality and mysticism can lead an individual - universalism. Ken provides examples from Mother Teresa, Shane Claiborne, and Tony Campola (with mention of Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, and Brian McLaren) illustrating their ultimate belief that all roads lead to heaven and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is moot and non-essential (even useless).
If you are a born again Christian attending an Emergent Church or realize your church is heading into that direction, then I implore you to flee this apostasy and return to sound teaching from the Word of God. The teachings from these men and the Catholic church do not lead people to the cross of Jesus Christ, they lead them away to an eternal hell.
If you read nothing else in this article, please read the words of Mother Teresa (highlighted in red). It becomes clear that she did not uphold the Gospel of Christ, and if she took this belief to her grave, she is eternally separated from the love of God. It goes to show that good works cannot save you; it is only by the grace of God alone through faith alone in the biblical Jesus Christ alone that you may be saved.
It is a tragedy if she died with this belief; it is a greater tragedy that millions are following in her footsteps.
MYSTICISM’S GOSPEL OF GOODNESS AND SHANE CLAIBORNE
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher
“I did not send these prophets, But they ran. I did not speak to them, But they prophesied. But if they had stood in My council, Then they would have announced My words to My people, And would have turned them back from their evil way, And from the evil of their deeds.” (Jeremiah 23:21-22, NASB)Sincere; But Sincerely Wrong
Anyone familiar with Emerging Church icon Shane Claiborne knows that he was quite taken with the late apostate Mother Teresa, who actually took her name out of her respect for so-called “Christian” mystic Teresa of Avila. Below are the words of Mother Teresa from my personal copy of her book Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations and Prayers.
And therein you will be able to see the resulting deception gleaned from her years of practicing Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM); a gospel of goodness with its resulting denial of the exclusive claims of the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ:
We never try to convert those who receive [aid from her organization] to Christianity but in our work we bear witness to the love of God’s presence and if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, or agnostics become for this better men — simply better — we will be satisfied. Growing up in love they will be nearer to God and find him in his goodness. Every human being comes from the hand of God and we all know what is the love of God for us. My religion is everything to me but for every individual, according to the grace God had given that soul. God has his own ways and means to work in the hearts of men and we do not know how close they are to him but by their actions we will always know whether they are at his disposal or not.
Whether you are a Hindu, a Moslem or a Christian, how you live your life is the proof that you are fully his or not. We must not condemn or judge or pass words that will hurt people. Maybe a person has never heard of Christianity. We do not know what way God is appearing to that soul and what way God is drawing that soul, and therefore who are we to condemn anybody? It matters to the individual what church he belongs to. If that individual thinks and believes that this is the only way to God for her or him, this is the way God comes into their life — his life. If he does not know any other way and if he has no doubt so that he does not need to search then this is his way to salvation. This is the way God comes into his life. (81, 82, emphasis mine)Now as loving as this might appear on the surface, it’s very definitely not the Gospel that was preached by Christ and His Apostles. No need to be born again; no making disciples of Christ, and no teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. However, the above fantasy is completely consistent with the delusion received by those who practice the Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) of the spurious CSM aka Spiritual Formation espoused by ordained Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard and his spiritual twin Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster.
With this backdrop Apprising Ministries now shows you that this past Tuesday The Simple Way tweeted:
Update: On Evangelicals and Interfaith Cooperation http://goo.gl/fb/NYde (Online source)
If you don’t know, The Simple Way (TSW) is “a community of faith” to which Claiborne himself belongs. It’s also quite telling that under Recommended Books “On Ecclesiology (theology of Church)” are A Generous Orthodoxy and A New Kind of Christian by the heretical Brian McLaren, who’s now also a Living Spiritual Teacher alongside such as Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Eckhart Tolle, and Marianne Williamson; as well as a leading guru in the the neo-liberal cult of the sinfully ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—that’s now morphed into Emergence Christianity.
Shane Claiborne is also one of the Red Letter Christians alongside the likes of his mentor Tony Campolo, Roman Catholic mystic Richard Rohr, and Brian McLaren. Now the above tweet takes us to On Evangelicals and Interfaith Cooperation at the TSW website where they tell us: “A few years ago, Shane interviewed Tony Campolo for an article in Cross Currents Magazine. We think it’s still relevant.” Since I discussed that 2005 interview in Emergent Evangelical Prophet Tony Campolo, back in February of 2006, this immediately caught my attention because it means Claiborne’s view is unchanged.
So because TSW and Claiborne have just brought the subject back up by linking it at their faith community website, and in light of their recommendation of the warped and toxic theology of EC guru Brian McLaren, I am once again going to highlight a couple of things from that Claiborne’s interview with Campolo. In Brian McLaren Invites You On His Quest To Destroy Christianity I pointed out that with his new book A New Kind of Christianity (ANKoC) McLaren has laid out his reimagined i.e. new form of Progessive Christianity aka liberal theology, which so many in the EC actually adhere to as well.
Like Mystics Ala Mother Teresa, Like Shane Claiborne And Tony Campolo
It’s also an incontestable fact that the following view of the false religion of Islam that Shane Claiborne and his mentor Tony Campolo portray below—completely consistent with Teresa—is the result of their own practice of CCP. First here’s Campolo from his book Speaking My Mind:
a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God, which seem at odds with their own spiritual traditions but have much in common with each other. I do not know what to make of the Muslim mystics, especially those who have come to be known as the Sufis. What do they experience in their mystical experience? Could they have encountered the same God we do in our Christian mysticism? (149,150, emphasis mine)
Actually Tony yes, they do encounter the mystic mush god with you; but it most definitely is not the God of the Bible. The following section below comes from the interview mentioned above, which TSW has just linked now at their own website. The section contains a very interesting exchange between Claiborne and Campolo about a third of the way down the page:
SC: Both Muslims and Christians are very evangelical in the sense of desiring others to come to faith in their God. When we talk about inter-religious cooperation, does that mean that we need to stop trying to convert each other?
TC: We don’t have to give up trying to convert each other. What we have to do is show respect to one another. And to speak to each other with a sense that even if people don’t convert, they are God’s people, God loves them, and we do not make the judgment of who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.
I think that what we all have to do is leave judgment up to God. The Muslim community is very evangelistic, however what Muslims will not do is condemn Jews and Christians to Hell if in fact they do not accept Islam.
SC: That seems like a healthy distinction—between converting and condemning. One of the barriers seems to be the assumption that we have the truth and folks who experience things differently will all go to Hell. How do we unashamedly maintain a healthy desire for others to experience the love of God as we have experienced it without condemning others who experience God differently… (Online source, bold mine)
Resisting the urge here to wrestle with the serpent I’ll just say that, as far as it concerns Islam and hell, Campolo is quite mistaken so I simply refer you to the Quran itself:
And, by thy Lord, verily We shall assemble them and the devils, then We shall bring them, crouching, around hell. Then We shall pluck out from every sect whichever of them was most stubborn in rebellion to the Beneficent. And surely We are Best Aware of those most worthy to be burned therein. (Surah 19:68-70, emphasis mine)Of course what Campolo and his disciple Claiborne are talking about is not the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ; but it is a primary online source giving you a glimpse at the gospel of goodness that these men personally believe. And this false teaching is completely consistent with the universalism one sees as they study mysticism as I have for years now. However, even if Campolo did happen to be correct when he dreams “even if people don’t convert, they are God’s people,” then this question comes emerging: Then why should they ever need to convert in the first place?
Why should we even waste our time and money, not to mention risking our lives in Islamic controlled countries, to try and convert “God’s people”…ah, into…um, “God’s people” I guess? McLaren’s already on record saying hell is false advertising for God, and we also know that the other two thirds of the Emergent trinity heretical EC pastor Doug Pagitt and his equally heretical “theologian in residence” Tony Jones, both deny the doctrine of original sin along with guru McLaren so in their bankrupt Emergence theology there’s nothing to be save from anyway.
In other words, conversion has now been redefined to mean joining them in their social gospel of goodness, which they usually express something along the lines of living the way of God in Jesus and being co-creators with Him in order to make God’s dreams for the world come to pass. But it’s well past time now to finally awaken from your slumber and realize that if this reimagined Emergence Christianity, where all of mankind is already the family of God, is true then there really is no Gospel left to preach. And so I wonder; just who might have come up with that little idea?
No, this is more than enough reason for me to tell people to stay away from this “missional” Emerging/ent/ence Church. And remember, Emerging Church spokesman Dan Kimball has revealed to us that Emergent Wolves Enter Your Sheep Pens Through Youth Groups. The truth is that the time has arrived when we must reject these Emergent dreamers and their quasi-Christian universalism with its warped and toxic neo-liberal repainted social gospel ala Walter Rauschenbusch. And when all said and done, in the end, Claiborne is really just a Rob Bell with dreadlocks.
See also:
MEET MENTORS AND METHODOLOGY OF BRIAN MCLAREN
FOR BRIAN MCLAREN AND MARCUS BORG BEING “BORN AGAIN” IS REACHING “ENLIGHTENMENT”?
TONY JONES, THE EMERGING CHURCH AND PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY
DOUG PAGITT AND ARROGANCE OF LIBERAL/PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANS
EMERGING CHURCH AND PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
THE EMERGING CHURCH AND EMERGENT LIBERALISM 2.0
KEN SILVA ON MISSION AMERICA WITH LINDA HARVEY DISCUSSING “EMERGENT” APOSTASY
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