Two sides of the same coin :The emergent and evangelical church

This is a response to "How to Know When the Emerging Church 

Shows Signs of Emerging in Your Church" by Roger Oakland on the website:www.understandthetimes.org

"God’s adversary does not want mankind to understand the simple message. His plan is to deceive the world. If he can blind people from the gospel or convince them that they believe the gospel when indeed they do not, his plan has been successful. Throughout the ages, countless billions have been duped, either rejecting the truth, or believing that they had believed the truth when instead they had been deceived."  -from understandingthetimes.org

We are not capable of making the choice in salvation due to the fact that we can be "convinced that we believe the gospel when we indeed do not."  The choice is not ours, but has been set before us in His plan.  In order for God to be all sovereign, the calling of the saints cannot be thwarted by meager deceptions by His adversary.  So either God's will is subject to the deceptions of His adversary, or the idea that we have the choice in the matter of salvation is a fallacy.  If God's truth has no power over the deceiver, then how can it be of any value?  Truth would sheerly be no different than the lie if the two are equal as they are in the dualistic ideas prevalent in most Christian theologies.  God and the devil would simply be two sides of the same coin: one evil, one good; one true, one false.  It is God himself who shall reveal himself to man in His word and through His creation, not man's interpretations of the two based on his reason and intellect, for if it were the later, any being bearing any form of reason would choose God, but that very same reason can lead him astray.  Sometimes God's will lies far beyond the cognitions of human reason and rationale, thus in those times, God alone must lead the way.  Why else was Jesus the first to walk on water and Peter only the first to follow?

"The postmodern mindset moves beyond the rational and the factual to the experiential and the mystical. In other words, in the past it was possible to know right from wrong and black from white. In the postmodern era all things are relative to the beholder. What may be right for you may be wrong for someone else. There is no such thing as absolute truth. The only thing that is absolute is that there is no absolute."-understandthetimes.org

It was possible in the past to know good from evil if we let out the possibility of other perspectives and relied singularly upon our individual reason, but in the course of history mankind has discovered of his fellow man, that he too has a brain, thus two opposing opinions are both the same in their source: human perspective.  Sure we all have different angles in life, but all are similarly skewed by the nature of man.  It is very possible to have absolute truth in relative world: There is an absolute truth, but we all relatively have a fragment of it.  There are two absolutes to absolute truth: God's truth is absolute and man in his finite intellect cannot absolutely grasp it.  Only through God's intervention can we grasp the absolute.  

"One of the main indicators that something has changed can be seen in the way the future is perceived. Rather than urgently proclaiming the gospel according to the Scriptures and believing the time to do so is short, the emphasis has now shifted. No longer are “signs of the times” significant. The battle cry is very different. A major emphasis among evangelicals is the idea that the world can be radically improved through social programs.

This concept, while on the surface may sound very good, has some serious biblical implications. According to the Scriptures, there will be no kingdom of God until the King arrives. All the human effort man can muster up will fall short of bringing utopia. In fact, according to the Scriptures, fallen man will lead us further down the road to a society of despair and lawlessness just like it was in the days of Noah.

Thus, this purpose-driven view of establishing global utopia may be a plan, but it is “driven” by humanistic reasoning and not led by the Holy Spirit."-understandingthetimes.org

The cry of, "urgently proclaiming the gospel according to the Scriptures and believing the time to do so is short," is a concept that,"while on the surface may sound very good, has some serious biblical implications."  For just as, "the idea that the world can be radically improved through social programs." is a human effort, so is the former cry.  Both are futile for, "All the human effort man can muster up will fall short of bringing utopia. In fact, according to the Scriptures, fallen man will lead us further down the road to a society of despair and lawlessness just like it was in the days of Noah."  It does not matter if man is "urgently proclaiming the gospel according to the Scriptures and believing the time to do so is short," or believing, "the idea that the world can be radically improved through social programs." man cannot save man, but only God through His Son has the power and sovereignty to do so.  He works through us, so we labor in vain unless He builds the house.  "Thus, this purpose-driven view of establishing global utopia may be a plan, but it is “driven” by humanistic reasoning and not led by the Holy Spirit." , no matter if it is emergent or evangelical.  

Pastors and church leaders who get involved in such man-driven programs can usually be identified by certain characteristics:

• Sound biblical doctrine is dangerous and divisive, and the experiential (i.e.,mystical) is given a greater role than doctrine.
• The words "biblical doctrine" and "experiential" can easily be interchanged to switch the argument from the evangelistic side to the emergent side.  Both sides just attack each other, so really both the Bible and experience are necessary to the Christian faith, for the Bible is most vivid when in the context of experience, just as an auto repair manual is most effective when in the hands of a mechanic who has experience with cars.
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• Bible prophecy is no longer taught and is considered a waste of time
• The problem with most evangelistic prophecy is it is often taken out of the context of scripture and applied to current events in culture, thus it appears to be used to motivate social and cultural revolution taking advantage of people through the key element of apocolyptic fear.
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• Israel becomes less and less important and has no biblical significance

Again this leads to people having superstitions about Israel.  It is used in America to motivate Christians to have concern for Israel out of fear rather than out of Christ-like love.

• Eventually the promises for Israel are applied to the church and not Israel (Replacement Theology).
• Galatians 3:26-29  "26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
• Bible study is replaced by studying someone’s book and his methods
• The same was done for years by the modern evangelical movement.  Many read C.S. Lewis, MacArthur, Sprolls and countless others rather than the Bible.  In the past, the Bible has been replaced by Christian writers in the evangelical movement just as it has by writers in the emergent movement of the present.  Also, tenants of faith have been taught with more importance than the very Scriptures they were quoted from. 
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• Church health is evaluated on the quantity of people who attend.
• This has always been the case since the beginning of the institutionalized version of the church.  When the focus of a church is maintaining a mass, the health will always be deduced from quantity and the motivation of spreading the gospel will also be of fear and not of love.  The institution, in fear of disintegrating, instills in its members a zeal to others into the mass, thus maintaining its existence.  The effect is much like the video tape in the movie, The Ring.  
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• The truth of God’s Word becomes less and less important
• The truth of God's Word has been distorted by the tongues of men over the course of history.  So much has been said in the name of God's truth, but not much of what has been said contains God's truth.  All that has been said simply speaks in the name of His truth, but God in His sovereignty has revealed His truth against the contrasts that are the words of man.  The Word of God is a light that shine brightly among the dark words of man.
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• God’s Word, especially concepts like hell, sin and repentance, is eventually downplayed so the unbeliever is not offended.
• The evangelicals on the other hand use concepts like hell and sin to frighten the unbeliever into superficial repentance motivated by fear.  Both sides are the same in that they overplay and underplay various concepts of  God's plan of graceful redemption, thus both distort the Word of God for their own purposes, yet God in His sovereignty works around the errors of man.

I am skipping the spiritual formation and transformation portion because I am aligned with the author for the most part on his views of this phenomenon.  I will say though, that just as the Word of God is now becoming less important, thus leading to mysticism, the higher emphasis upon the words of evangelical figures over the Word of God in the past has lead to many heresies also, such as the high emphasis on external righteousness, whether genuine or superficial. 

Signs the Emerging Church is Emerging

There are specific warning signs that are symptomatic that a church may be headed down the emergent/contemplative road. In some cases a pastor may not be aware that he is on this road nor understand where the road ends up.

Here are some of the warning signs:

• Scripture is no longer the ultimate authority as the basis for the Christian faith.
• The centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ is being replaced by humanistic methods promoting church growth and a social gospel.
• More and more emphasis is being placed on building the kingdom of God now and less and less on the warnings of Scripture about the imminent return of Jesus Christ and a coming judgment in the future.
• The teaching that Jesus Christ will rule and reign in a literal millennial period is considered unbiblical and heretical.
• The teaching that the church has taken the place of Israel and Israel has no prophetic significance is often embraced.
• The teaching that the Book of Revelation does not refer to the future, but instead has been already fulfilled in the past
• An experiential mystical form of Christianity begins to be promoted as a method to reach the postmodern generation.
• Ideas are promoted teaching that Christianity needs to be reinvented in order to provide meaning for this generation.
• The pastor may implement an idea called “ancient-future” or “vintage Christianity” claiming that in order to take the church forward, we need to go back in church history and find out what experiences were effective to get people to embrace Christianity.
• While the authority of the Word of God is undermined, images and sensual experiences are promoted as the key to experiencing and knowing God.
• These experiences include icons, candles, incense, liturgy, labyrinths, prayer stations, contemplative prayer, experiencing the sacraments, particularly the sacrament of the Eucharist.
• There seems to be a strong emphasis on ecumenism indicating that a bridge is being established that leads in the direction of unity with the Roman Catholic Church.
• Some evangelical Protestant leaders are saying that the Reformation went too far. They are reexamining the claims of the “church fathers” saying that communion is more than a symbol and that Jesus actually becomes present in the wafer at communion.
• There will be a growing trend towards an ecumenical unity for the cause of world peace claiming the validity of other religions and that there are many ways to God.
• Members of churches who question or resist the new changes that the pastor is implementing are reprimanded and usually asked to leave.

Again I would love to go through these one by one and point out the idiocies, but I will simply point out that this whole argument just positions the opposing ideas as the opposite of truth with no logical argument other than the fact that it is not in line with the evangelical way of thought.  What I will say is that the author is right in stating that history repeats itself, for the emergent church is taking on the same form of thought as the evangelical church: that man can make people go to church without the help of God's intervention.  All the emergent church does is attempt to go up the very hill the evangelical church stumbled down in failure, only they go at it from a different angle.  I must add a disclaimer.  This examination of this article took only 3 hours, so there may be many spelling and grammatical errors.  Also, some of my ideas may not be fully articulated. I apologize.