Stations of the Cross and the Emerging Church

By Justin Edwards

As we near Resurrection Sunday in remembrance of the price paid by the Savior to atone for our sins and His glorious resurrection from the grave, it is important to recognize the trappings of ancient rituals of which many are entering evangelical churches through Emergence Christianity. One of such religious traditions are Catholocism's Stations of the Cross, which seek to engage the senses in order to draw closer to God.

This religious experience is subjective and holds no biblical support for its practice. Born-again Christians do not need such mystical props of candles, incense, static, and tangible "things" to "experience God. We are to "encounter" God through worship, His Word, and prayer - all of which are found in Scripture - not man-made traditions.

The material found at this  Lighthouse Trails Research link gives a brief description of this practice and some examples to follow. The most dangerous aspect of this ritual is that a non-believer can go through these stations and come away with an "experience from God", and falling into deception that this subjective experience was a genuine encounter God and one that gives them a false hope. There is no salvation in these mystical methods of "worship". Salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone - and absolutely everything we need to come to saving faith comes from the Word of God ALONE.

Dallas Willard's Apostasy

DEBUNKING DALLAS WILLARD AND BEING WORTHY TO BE SAVED

By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Mar 16, 2010

I have previously shown you that at his personal blog, specifically in the article Apologetics in Action, Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard—spiritual twin of Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster—tells us, “It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved.” The reasons behind Willard’s speculation are first of all, his longtime practice of corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), where one receives a delusion that CSM practitioners refer to as transformation.

And then secondly, this experience also causes these CSM practitioners to feel—ala Roman Catholic mystic Meister Eckhart—that God already dwells within all of mankind [1], which leads these new mystics to the belief that “if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved.” This is why we know Willard really is telling us that he feels people can make themselves “good” enough to be saved by being sincere in their religious traditions—no matter what faith they might be. [2]

This is crystal clear from the following. Below Willard’s role-playing as if in “an evangelistic conversation with a 20 year old girl” who is a Christian “but finds her worldview challenged when she goes to college.” Willard is supposedly acting as her pastor when, in this hypothetical situation, she tells him:

I used to believe strongly in the Christian faith, but now I think that there are many ways to see the world, and that, just because they differ, doesn’t mean they are right or wrong. (Online source)

There’s some back-and-forth concerning belief in God; but what’s most important to our discussion here is when she says:

“But I still struggle with how I should view those who have other beliefs. I’m not sure I am ready to condemn them as wrong. I know some very good Buddhists. What is their destiny?” (Online source)

Warning: We are now about to enter the mystical world of  Humpty Dumpty Language as Willard says:

I would take her to Romans 2:6-10: “God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.”

What Paul is clearly saying is that if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved. At that point many Christians get very anxious, saying that absolutely no one is worthy of being saved. The implication of that is that a person can be almost totally good, but miss the message about Jesus, and be sent to hell. What kind of a God would do that?

I am not going to stand in the way of anyone whom God wants to save. I am not going to say “he can’t save them.” I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved. But anyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: “There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.” (Online source, emphasis mine)

For our purposes here I’ll not wrestle with the snake; instead, I want you to pay very close attention to what I highlighted above, and particularly to what I underlined. Notice what Willard is suggesting here; he’s saying there is such a thing as being “worthy of being saved”; a person can be “good,” and that someone can be saved (means being regenerated) who does not even know Jesus. Now, in case you’re inclined to think Willard has changed his mind since then, the other day in the Apprising Ministries piece Is Dallas Willard A Christian? I showed you where he recently said the same things again.

This time while Willard’s answering questions put to him by his friend John Ortberg beginning at 07:22 of the audio clip below you’ll hear Willard say once more, “Now, I believe that everyone who deserves to be saved will be saved no matter where they are or what they do.” And then Willard goes on continuing to contradict the Bible when he says:

It’s so important to understand that God is not biased about these matters [being saved and devout] and He is open and in touch with everyone in the world, and for all who seek them with all of their heart—and that is defined in terms of coming to love Him, and not just have the right beliefs about Him—but coming to love Him, and loving their neighbor as themselves.

Now it’s that this point I’ll share with you something I find rather odd about these mentors of the Emerging Church like Willard and Foster, who’re the ones that spawned the current neo-liberal Apostles of Unbelief around the Emergent Church such as EC icon Rob Bell. Suddenly these mystics such as Willard, who delight dwelling in mystery, absolutely feel they know that God “is open and in touch with everyone” who’s supposedly seeking Him “with all their heart.” And this when what Willard is saying is in direct contradiction to what we know God has actually said in His revealed Word in the Bible.

Well, I’d have to say that it’s very likely their real problem is one of selective biblical hearing and then knowing just what they want to know. So this seems a good place to end this piece for now; and Lord willing, next time we’ll go roaming through Romans to see what God has to say about the speculations of Dallas Willard, beginning with:

as it is written: “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, there is not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12)

________________________________________________________________________________
Endnotes:
1. Mystics will refer to this as “the divine spark,” which I refute in Understanding The New Spirituality: God Indwells Mankind.
2. Practitioners of CSM often call it discovering the “authentic” or “true” self; I cover this further in The Real Truth About Your “True Self”.

See also:
DELUSIONS OF DALLAS WILLARD
CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY OF RICHARD FOSTER ROOTED IN THE EASTERN DESERT AND THOMAS MERTON
DISCIPLINES TO DECEPTION IN SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
THE NON-GOSPEL OF THE EMERGING CHURCH 2.0
THE NEW CHRISTIANITY OF BRIAN MCLAREN AND THE EMERGING CHURCH
MARCUS BORG AND CHRISTIANS WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN JESUS

The Apostasy of Mother Teresa, Shane Claiborne, Tony Campola, and the Emerging Church

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