Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins has stirred up something of a hornet’s nest of controversy, which we find puzzling. The man has been denying eternal hell and teaching a universalistic faith for a long time.

In a 2005 interview with Beliefnet, Bell said “the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever.”

In his influential book Velvet Elvis, which is popular with a great many Southern Baptists, he described a marriage that he conducted for two pagan unbelievers who told him that “they didn’t want any Jesus or God or Bible or religion to be talked about” but they did want him to “make it really spiritual (p. 76). Bell agreed with this ridiculous request and said that his pagan friends “are resonating with Jesus, whether they acknowledge it or not” (p. 92).

Love Wins is just more of the same. Not only does he preach near-universalism, he preaches a false god, a false christ, a false gospel, a false heaven, a false hell, you name it. He is a master of taking Scripture out of context and shoehorning his heresies into a text.

The Fresh Oil & New Wine Conference for 2007 features radical charismatic speakers such as John Kilpatrick, who led the “Brownsville Outpouring” in the 1990s as the pastor of the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida. When the “outpouring” began in June 1995 Kilpatrick fell to the floor and lay there almost four hours. He said, “When I hit that floor, it felt like I weighed 10,000 pounds. I knew something supernatural was happening” (Charisma, June 1996). Supernatural, yes; Holy Spirit, no!!! Kilpatrick got so “drunk in the spirit” at times that men in the church had to haul him out of the church auditorium in a wheelchair, carry him home, and help inside the house. He told of trying to drive in this drunken condition and running into garbage cans and backing into another automobile. On one occasion Kilpatrick fell onto the platform and a woman from the “worship team” fell into his arms and they lay on the platform in a drunken stupor together. He laughingly tells this story on an audio cassette that I have. It is definitely not the Holy Spirit who causes that kind of moral temptation and confusion. “Spiritual jerking” was also a feature of the “Brownsville Outpouring.”

Gary Folds is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Belle Glade, Florida. He has written a book promoting the Toronto “Blessing” entitled “Bull in a China Shop: A Baptist Pastor Runs into God at Toronto.” He describes being “slain” in the Spirit and other such things. Following is how he described the meetings he attended: “Some people would simply lay on the floor as though they were sleeping … Others would writhe in what appeared to be anguish, pain, or possibly agony. Some would twitch, while others shook, and some would even have convulsive-type jerking. Many would cry, while an even greater number would laugh … Many of them would laugh for an hour or longer. One night I saw people laugh for almost two and a half hours.”

James Robison is another example of SBC charismatics. The once fiery evangelist used to lift his voice against sin and apostasy, but those days are over. In 1979, he had some sort of charismatic experience. That same year he spoke at an Assembly of God church. By 1981, he had completely gone over to the ecumenical charismatic-Roman Catholic line. That was the year he first invited a Roman Catholic to speak at his Bible conference. Robison was so comfortable with the ecumenical program by 1987 that he joined hands with 20,000 Roman Catholics, including hundreds of priests and nuns, at New Orleans ‘87. At this meeting, Robison made the following amazing statement: “I tell you what, one of the finest representatives of morality in this earth right now is the Pope. People who know it really believe he is a born again man.” I was at this meeting with press credentials and personally recorded the message from which this excerpt is taken. Robison remains affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and has influenced many Southern Baptists in the charismatic direction.

Another example is the Missouri-based evangelist Bill Sharples. He resigned a Southern Baptist pastorate after accepting the tongues-speaking movement, but 25% of his meetings are in SBC churches. He claims that 15 to 20 percent of Southern Baptists that he meets are open to the Charismatic movement.

Billy Graham is another Southern Baptist who has recommended tongues and charismatic signs and wonders. In his 1978 book, The Holy Spirit, he “endorsed laying on of hands, divine healing and tongues.” He said: “As we approach the end of the age I believe we will see a dramatic recurrence of signs and wonders, which will demonstrate the power of God to a skeptical world.” Graham even promoted the false charismatic prophet Oral Roberts. Graham spoke at the dedication ceremony of Oral Roberts University in 1962. Later that year Graham joined Oral Roberts as a speaker at the July 1962 convention of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International in Seattle, Washington. Graham invited Roberts to the World Congress on Evangelism in 1966 and recommended him to influential Evangelical leaders.

Pat Robertson is another example. In the late 1950s he became involved in the Pentecostal movement and began “speaking in tongues.” He established the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960, and that same year was ordained by the Freemason Street Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia, a Southern Baptist congregation. A few years later he formed the “700 Club,” which spread ecumenical and charismatic doctrine far and wide. He still claims to be affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Speaking at Celebration 2000 in St. Louis, Missouri, Robertson testified that though he is a Baptist, he sees the need for Roman Catholic charismatics to visit Baptist churches in order to teach the Baptists how to dance and worship God.

Another charismatic Southern Baptist is Pastor Wallace Henley, Crossroads Baptist Church, Houston, Texas. His church practices tongues speaking, and he supports the “revival” at the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, where the pastor gets so “drunk in the spirit” that he cannot lead the congregation. Henley claims that those who are opposed to the charismatic movement are “pharisaical” and “mean-spirited.”

Another charismatic Southern Baptist church is Riverside Church of Shreveport, Louisiana. Pastor Lee Jenkins received a Pentecostal experience in 1998 and led the church into full blown Pentecostalism, losing a large percentage of the congregation in the process. The church dropped the name “Baptist” but remained a part of the SBC. In 2000 the church supported Rodney Howard-Browne’s Good News Shreveport-Bossier conference (“Southern Baptist Pastor in Louisiana Opens Door for Charismatic Renewal,” Charisma, July 2000).

In November 2005 the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board voted to forbid missionaries to speak in tongues, but Jerry Rankin, the head of the board, says that he has spoken in a “private prayer language” for 30 years!

Speaking at a chapel service on August 29, 2006, Dwight McKissic, a trustee of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told the students that he speaks in tongues in his “private prayer life” (“Southwestern Trustee’s Sermon on Tongues Prompts Response,” Baptist Press, Aug. 30, 2006). McKissic, who is the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, an SBC congregation in Arlington, Texas, said he has prayed in tongues since 1981. The first time, he says, was when he was a seminary student. He recalls, “Strange sounds begin to come out of my mouth” (“Southern Baptists Debate Tongues,” cbs11tv.com, October 07, 2006).

In support of the doctrine of a “private prayer language” McKissic sited the teaching of New Testament professor Siegfried Schatzmann of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (“Texas Pastor Calls for BF&M Statement on Tongues,” Baptist Press, Sept. 19, 2006).

Missionary David Rogers, son of the late Adrian Rogers, SAID HE WORKS WITH MANY MISSIONARIES WHO PRACTICE PRIVATE TONGUES (“Baptists Are Caught up in Controversy Again,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 11, 2006).

Charles Carroll, SBC missionary to Singapore who was dismissed by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board in 1995 because of his charismatic activities, testified that many
Southern Baptists living overseas are charismatic, but most remain “in the closet” for fear of being fired (“Baptist Missionaries in the Closet,” Charisma, March 1999, p. 72).

A 2007 study by LifeWay Research indicates that half of Southern Baptist pastors believe that the Holy Spirit gives some people a “special prayer language” today. More than 400 Southern Baptist pastors were contacted by phone and asked, “Do you believe that the Holy Spirit gives some people the gift of a special language to pray to God privately? Some people refer to this as a Private Prayer Language or the ‘private use of tongues.’” The replies were 50% “Yes”; 43% “No”; and 7% “Don’t know” (“LifeWay Released Prayer Language Study,” Baptist Press, June 1, 2007).

Thus, it appears that this is not a small issue or one that will go away any time soon. Rankin and those supporting his position are trying to distinguish between public tongues and private, saying that while they are opposed to public tongues they believe there is a private form of tongues that one can use to edify oneself. In fact, biblical tongues are biblical tongues. The tongues of Acts are the tongues of 1 Corinthians 14. They were real languages that a believer could speak supernaturally. They were a sign to the nation Israel that God was going to send the gospel to every nation and create a new spiritual body composed of both Jews and Gentiles (1 Cor. 14:20-22, quoted Isaiah 28:11-13). Each time tongues were spoken in Acts (Acts 2, 8, 10, 19) Jews were present. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, the Jews rejected the sign and were judged. Its purpose ceased even before the events recorded in the book of Acts were completed. The last mention of tongues is in Acts 19. The sign, having been fulfilled, ceased. When John Chrysostom wrote in the 4th century about the sign gifts of 1 Corinthians 12-14, he said: “This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to, and BY THEIR CESSATION, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place” (“Homilies on 1 Corinthians,” Vol. XII, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Hom. 29:2). There is no “private prayer language” in the New Testament. It is the recent invention of Pentecostals and Charismatics who, having realized that they cannot speak in real tongues that can be interpreted (one of the absolute biblical requirements), were forced either to renounce their experience or to create some sort of cockeyed defense for it. There is not one example of a prayer in the Bible that is uttered in unintelligible mutterings that “bypass the intellect.” Jesus Christ did not pray that way and neither did the apostles. I have heard Charismatics speak in their “private prayer language” in churches and conferences in many parts of the world. Larry Lea’s “private prayer language” at Indianapolis ’90 went something like this: “Bubblyida bubblyida hallelujah bubblyida hallabubbly shallabubblyida kolabubblyida glooooory hallelujah bubblyida.” I wrote that down as he was saying it and later checked it against the tape. Nancy Kellar, a Roman Catholic nun who was on the executive committee of St. Louis 2000, spoke in “tongues” that went like this: “Shananaa leea, shananaa higha, shananaa nanaa, shananaa leea…” repeated over and over.

Friends, this is not any sort of biblical prayer; it is childish nonsense, but it is neither innocent nor lacking in spiritual danger. The Bible warns repeatedly and forcefully about the danger of spiritual deception, and those who empty their minds through the practice of a “private prayer language” are in danger of the devil filling them.

The Southern Baptist Convention would do well to cleanse itself of all charismatic practices, but this does not appear to be in the cards. How ridiculous is it to forbid missionaries to do something that the head of their agency does!

The 2008 Southern Baptist Hymnal contains many songs written by charismatics and published by charismatic music companies such as Integrity, Maranatha, and Hillsong. For example, songs by David Ruis, Paul Baloche, and Darlene Zschech are included. These popular worship leaders are extreme charismatic ecumenists and contemporary Christian rockers.

Ruis is one of the worship leaders at the Toronto Airport Church where people roll on the floor, bark like dogs, roar like lions, laugh hysterically, and get “drunk in the spirit” during their “revivals.” Ruis’s song “Break Dividing Walls” calls for ecumenical unity between all denominations.

Baloche is worship leader at the charismatic Community Christian Fellowship of Lindale, Texas. Their 2002 Leadership Summit featured Ricky Paris of Vision Ministries International, who calls himself an apostle and is said to give “apostolic covering” to Vision Church of Austin, Texas. Baloche’s Offering of Worship album was recorded at Regent University in Virginia Beach, which was founded by the radical charismatic ecumenist Pat Robertson. As far back as 1985, Robertson said that he “worked for harmony and reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics” (Christian News, July 22, 1985). Some of the Regent professors are Roman Catholic and Regent’s Center for Law and Justice has a Roman Catholic executive director. According to Frontline magazine, May-June 2000, a Catholic mass is held on Regent’s campus every week.

Zschech and her Hillsong worship band recently performed for the Catholic Youth Day in Sydney, with the Pope present. The lyrics to Zschech’s “Holy Spirit Rain Down” (which is included in the new Baptist Hymnal) begin: “Holy Spirit, rain down, rain down/ Oh, Comforter and Friend/ How we need Your touch again/ Holy Spirit, rain down, rain down.” Where in Scripture are we instructed to pray to the Holy Spirit? To the contrary, the Lord Jesus Christ taught us to pray to the Father (Mat. 6:9). The charismatic movement is not in submission to the Word of God and does not care one way or the other that there is no Scriptural support for this type of prayer, but shame on Baptists who follow in these presumptuous and disobedient footsteps.

Zschech’s song “I Believe the Presence” from her Shout to the Lord album preaches false Pentecostal latter rain theology. The lyrics say: “I believe the promise about the visions and the dreams/ That the Holy Spirit will be poured out/ And His power will be seen/ Well the time is now/ The place is here/ And His people have come in faith/ There’s a mighty sound/ And a touch of fire/ When we’ve gathered in one place” (“I Believe the Presence” from Shout to the Lord).

Shame on Lifeway for giving charismatics a powerful forum to influence Baptist churches, and shame on the Southern Baptist Convention for allowing Lifeway to do these things.

Because the SBC refuses to deal with charismatic error consistently, the leaven will doubtless spread.

The Bible warns that “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” This is true for sin (1 Cor. 5:6) as well as for false doctrine (Gal. 5:9).

For more about the charismatic movement see The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements: History and Doctrine, which is available from Way of Life Literature.

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“I feel like a fundamentalist who’s losing his grip--whose fundamentals are cracking and fraying and falling apart and slipping through my fingers. It’s like I thought I was building my house on rock, but it turned out to be ice, and now global warming his hit, and the ice is melting and everything is crumbling” (p. 22).

When he first begins talking with “Neo,” the evangelical pastor admits that he is afraid that Neo’s ideas are corrupting him and turning him into a heretic (p. 26), but he quenches the fear and proceeds down the path of error.

Instead of opening his Bible and seeking the face of God alone and finding out what God has to say in His Word and re-orienting himself to the eternal Word of God, instead of confiding in a man of God who believes the Bible, this evangelical pastor turns, in his hour of doubt, to a clever unbeliever and is led into the deepest error.
This is exactly what is happening to men and women throughout the evangelical world, because they have been brainwashed to think that separation from false doctrine is mean-spirited and that a “positive, non-judgmental” approach to Christianity is preferable. As a consequence, evangelicalism, over the past 50 years, has been infiltrated with every sort of heresy.

A visit to a typical evangelical bookstore is evidence of this. On the shelves of such a bookstore you will find Chuck Colson’s radical ecumenism, Robert Schuller’s Self-esteemism, C.S. Lewis’s Anglo-Catholicism, and all sorts of Psycho-heresy. You will find Mother Teresa exalted as a model Christian, even though she was committed to a false gospel and thought Jesus was a Catholic wafer and believed that Hindus go to heaven if they believe sincerely in their gods. You will find books by Bruce Metzger, who believes that Jonah is “popular legend” and Job is an “ancient folktale,” and books by Kurt Aland, who rejected the infallibility of Scripture and claimed that even the canon of Scripture is yet unsettled. You will find Greek New Testaments edited by the Roman Catholic Cardinal Carlo Martini. You will find books by men who claim that Matthew and Mark and Luke didn’t write their Gospels directly by divine inspiration but that they used various mythical sources such as a “Q” document. You will find histories that present the Roman Catholic Church as an authentic form of Christianity. You will find heretical “church fathers” such as Augustine and Origen exalted as men of God. You will find books by charismatics who believe that the Holy Spirit knocks believers onto the floor and glues them there and that the supernatural gift of tongues is a talent that can be learned. And we have only begun to describe the dangers that are found in a typical evangelical Christian bookstore today.

It is New Evangelicalism that has created the climate whereby the average Christian does not have a mindset of being on the constant outlook for heresy and of carefully testing everything by Scripture. It has created a gullible generation.

Brian McLaren’s “A New Kind of Christian” is a dangerous book that ridicules a staunchly biblical, fundamentalist position on every hand. It slanderously describes such a position as Phariseeism and likens it to medieval Roman Catholicism. In the very beginning of the book, the Postmodern guide Neo says: “I don’t dislike fundamentalists, taken individually--they tend to be pretty nice folks. Get them together in a group though, and I get nervous. I start to twitch and break out in a rash” (p. 9).

That is the best thing the book has to say about those who hold a strict Biblicist stance, whereas theological liberals and Romanists are depicted in a much more sympathetic light.

Though purporting to represent a more intellectual approach to Christianity, the book is filled with strawman arguments, shallow reasoning, and Scripture taken wildly out of context.

It teaches that the Bible is not the infallible Word of God and that all doctrines and theologies are non-absolute, that we need to approach the Bible “on less defined terms” (p. 56). It teaches that the Bible alone should not be our authority, but that the Bible should be one of many authorities, such as tradition, reason, exemplary people and institutions one has come to trust, and spiritual experience (pp. 54, 55). It teaches that it is wrong and Pharisaical to look upon the Bible as “God’s encyclopedia, God’s rule book, God’s answer book” (p. 52). It teaches that the authority of the Bible is not in the text itself but in a mystical level above and beyond the text (p. 51).

It teaches that Christians should not try to judge right from wrong in an absolute sense because all of our understanding of the Bible is colored and conditioned by extra-biblical things such as one’s time and culture. It teaches that the postmodern Christian is one who “relativizes your own modern viewpoint,” thus understanding that everything he believes about the Bible and Christianity is only relative and uncertain (p. 35). It teaches that there is no such thing as “the Christian worldview,” that every doctrinal position, “no matter how resplendent with biblical quotations--can claim to be the ultimate Christian worldview, because every model is at the least limited by the limitations of the contemporary human mind, not to mention the ‘taste in universes’ of that particular age” (pp. 36, 37).

It teaches that ecumenism is good and that all “denominations,” including Roman Catholicism, can contribute to a proper form of Christianity. We are informed that “there are good Catholics, good Greek Orthodox, good Pentecostals, and good Episcopalians” (p. 73). It teaches that labels such as Catholic, Protestant, liberal, and evangelical “are about to become inconsequential” in a postmodern Christianity (p. 41). It teaches that mystical Catholic practices are authentic and desirable (p. 58).

It teaches that people should not ask pastors questions such as, “Do you believe in inerrancy?” or “What’s your position on homosexuality?” because to make them answer such questions is to “cheapen” them and to make them sell themselves (p. 61).

It teaches that the real issue for Jesus is “goodness, not just rightness” (p. 61), as if goodness and righteousness and truth are in some sort of conflict.

“A New Kind of Christian” teaches that Jesus’ objective was “holistic reconciliation.”

“I think what Jesus was about ... was a global, public movement or revolution to bring holistic reconciliation, a reconnection with God, with others, with ourselves, with our environment” (p. 73).

Here the author is not referring to what Jesus will do when He returns to establish His kingdom but what he is allegedly doing today. He claims the proper objective of churches is not merely the salvation of souls but the renewal of the world and saving the planet from destruction (p. 83).

It teaches that it is right for Christians to use pagan practices such as the Native American sweat lodge, peace pipe, dance, dream catcher, and smoke (pp. 26, 74-78). Apparently McLaren thinks that God’s warning, “Learn not the way of the heathen,” (Jer. 10:2), is no longer in effect.

It teaches that unbelievers and pagans can possibly be saved without personal faith in Christ (p. 92).

QUOTES FROM OTHER BOOKS AND ARTICLES BY MCLAREN

In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren says the Bible is “not a look-it-up encyclopedia of timeless moral truths, but the unfolding narrative of God at work...” (p. 190). He compliments the Anglicans because to them the Bible is a factor in their thinking “but it is never sola--never the only factor. Rather Scripture is always in dialogue with tradition, reason, and experience” (p. 235).

McLaren’s doctrine of salvation is as murky as any I have ever read. He says:

“I DON’T THINK WE’VE GOT THE GOSPEL RIGHT YET. What does it mean to be ‘saved’? When I read the Bible, I don’t see it meaning, ‘I’m going to heaven after I die.’ Before modern evangelicalism nobody accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, or walked down an aisle, or said the sinner’s prayer. I don’t think the liberals have it right. But I don’t think we have it right either. None of us has arrived at orthodoxy” (“The Emergent Mystique,” Christianity Today, Nov. 2004, p. 40).

McLaren doesn’t think we have the gospel right yet, but two thousand years ago the Lord Jesus commanded, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). It is a little late to be trying to get the gospel right, isn’t it!

In A New Kind of Christian, McLaren has his postmodern hero say that he rejects the idea that the gospel is about getting individual souls into heaven because this “smacked of selfishness” and was unacceptable to postmodern thinking (pp. 82, 83).

McLaren identifies with Anabaptists because they (allegedly) teach that “one becomes a Christian through an event, process, or both, in which one identifies with Jesus, his mission, and his followers” (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 229). Though Christ described salvation as a birth (John 3), McLaren thinks it might be more a process than an event.

McLaren has “a strong conviction that THE EXCLUSIVE, HELL-ORIENTED GOSPEL IS NOT THE WAY FORWARD” (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 120, f. 48).

McLaren says the emerging approach is “less rigid, more generous” (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 190), and it is “conversational, never attempting to be the last word, and thus silence other voices” (p. 169). He says it “doesn’t claim too much; it admits it walks with a limp” (p. 171). He says, “To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall” (p. 293). He likens doctrinal dogmatism to smoking cigarettes, saying that “it is a hard-to-break Protestant habit that is hazardous to spiritual health” (p. 217).

In his books The Secret Message of Jesus and Everything Must Change, McLaren says that “the essential message of Jesus” is the kingdom of God, and this is “not just a message about Jesus that focused on the afterlife, but rather the core message of Jesus that focused on personal, SOCIAL, AND GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION IN THIS LIFE” (Everything Must Change, p. 22). He says that THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS “ABOUT CHANGING THIS WORLD” (p. 23).

McLaren mocks the “fundamentalist expectations” of a literal second coming of Christ with its attendant judgments on the world and assumes that the world will go on like it is for hundreds of thousands of years (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 305). He calls the literal, imminent return of Christ “pop-Evangelical eschatology” (Generous Orthodoxy, p. 267) and the “eschatology of abandonment” (interview with Planet Preterist, Jan. 30, 2005, http://planetpreterist.com/news-2774.html).

McLaren says that the book of Revelation is not a “book about the distant future” but is “a way of talking about the challenges of the immediate present” (The Secret Message of Jesus, 2007, p. 176). He says that phrases such as “the moon will turn to blood” “are no more to be taken literally than phrases we might read in the paper today” (The Secret Message, p. 178).

McLaren epitomizes the emerging church’s radical ecumenism by calling himself “evangelical, post-protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/Calvinist, anabaptist/anglican, Methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, emergent” (A Generous Orthodoxy, subtitle to the book).

The fact that these various doctrinal positions are contradictory and non-reconcilable does not bother the man one iota. He is fully committed to “orthoparadoxy,” being convinced that he can hold contradictions in harmony.

In June 2006 McLaren joined the blasphemous Marcus Borg of the Jesus Seminar, who boldly denies the Jesus of the Bible, at the Center for Spiritual Development in Portland, Oregon. The center promotes New Age and occultic practices such as Yoga, Sufism, Tai Chi, Enneagram, and Reiki. The Episcopalian heretic John Shelby Spong has also spoken at this Center.

McLaren wrote a glowing recommendation of Alan Jones’ book Reimagining Christianity. Jones calls the gospel of the cross a vile doctrine, claims that there is no objective authority, and says that Hindus and Buddhists are God’s people:

“But another ancient strand of Christianity teaches that we are all caught up in the Divine Mystery we call God, that the Spirit is in everyone, and that there are depths of interpretation yet to be plumbed. ... At the cathedral [Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco] we ‘break the bread’ for those who follow the path of the Buddha and walk the way of the Hindus” (Reimagining Christianity, 2005, p. 89).

Of this book McLaren says:

“It used to be that Christian institutions and systems of dogma sustained the spiritual life of Christians. Increasingly, spirituality itself is what sustains everything else. Alan Jones is a pioneer in reimagining a Christian faith that emerges from authentic spirituality. His work stimulates and encourages me deeply” (endorsement on back cover).

McLaren says, “I DON’T THINK IT’S OUR BUSINESS TO PROGNOSTICATE THE ETERNAL DESTINIES OF ANYONE ELSE” (p. 92) and offers a quote from a C.S. Lewis’s novel as his authority. In this novel Lewis’s character was a soldier who served a false god named Tash all his life, but he was accepted nonetheless by Aslan, who represents Christ.

“Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou has done to Tash, I account as service done to me. ... Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him.”

According to C.S. Lewis, who is deeply loved by all branches of the emerging church, an individual might be saved even if he follows a false religion in this life and makes no personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

McLaren said that the Indian Hindu leader Gandhi “sought to follow the way of Christ without identifying himself as a Christian” (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 189).

McLaren teaches that there is much good in pagan religions, that they have been a good thing for the world.

“My knowledge of Buddhism is rudimentary, but I have to tell you that much of what I understand strikes me as wonderful and insightful, and the same can be said of the teachings of Muhammad, though of course I have my disagreements. ... I’d have to say that the world is better off for having these religions than having no religions at all, or just one, even if it were ours. ... They aren’t the enemy of the gospel, in my mind...” (pp. 62, 63).

The man needs to spend a few years living in India or Nepal to see how the Hindu religion has corrupted and debased the people, how it has turned women into chattel, cows and snakes into gods, certain classes of people into untouchables, and human life in general into something of little value, how it has encouraged pride and self-centeredness and corruption at every level of society and has discouraged humility and compassion. Or maybe he should spend a few years in an Islamic country such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan to see what the Muslim religion has done to people. Are they better off because they can change their religion only on the pain of death and because a woman has no real rights and because she can be killed just because she does something that the male members of the family consider unacceptable?

McLaren says that Buddhism is not the enemy of the gospel, but how can a religion that teaches that Jesus Christ is not God and not the only Saviour of the world NOT be an enemy of the gospel? He says the Muslim religion is not the enemy of the gospel, but how can a religion that teaches that Jesus was not God and did not die for our sins and that forbids its members to convert to the Christ of the Bible NOT be an enemy of the gospel?

In a podcast interview in January 2006 with Leif Hansen, McLaren said that if the doctrine of hell is true then the Christ’s message and cross is “false advertising.” He said that since Christ taught that God’s kingdom doesn’t come through violence and coercion, this would be contrary to the judgment of hell. He also said if hell is true then people can legitimately question God’s goodness.

This interview is truly amazing in a fearful way. Hansen says that he doubts God’s very existence and even casts a profanity at Jesus. And yet the two of them ramble on in a very knowing sort of way, mocking fundamentalists and Calvinists and anyone else who won’t accept the emerging church’s unbelief. It is a great warning that if you reject the truth you are walking in utter darkness.

McLaren says:

“Does it make sense for a good being to create creatures who will experience infinite torture, infinite time, infinite--you know, never be numbed in their consciousness? I mean, how would you even create a universe where that sort of thing could happen? It just sounds--It really raises some questions about the goodness of God. ...

“The traditional understanding says that God asks of us something that God is incapable of Himself. God asks us to forgive people. But God is incapable of forgiving. God can’t forgive unless He punishes somebody in place of the person He was going to forgive. God doesn’t say things to you--Forgive your wife, and then go kick the dog to vent your anger. God asks you to actually forgive. And there’s a certain sense that, A COMMON UNDERSTANDING OF THE ATONEMENT PRESENTS A GOD WHO IS INCAPABLE OF FORGIVING. UNLESS HE KICKS SOMEBODY ELSE. ...

“... one of the huge problems is the traditional understanding of hell. Because if the cross is in line with Jesus’ teaching then--I won’t say, the only, and I certainly won’t say even the primary--but a primary meaning of the cross is that the kingdom of God doesn’t come like the kingdoms of the this world, by inflicting violence and coercing people. But that the kingdom of God comes through suffering and willing, voluntary sacrifice. But in an ironic way, THE DOCTRINE OF HELL BASICALLY SAYS, NO, THAT THAT’S NOT REALLY TRUE. THAT IN THE END, GOD GETS HIS WAY THROUGH COERCION AND VIOLENCE AND INTIMIDATION AND DOMINATION, just like every other kingdom does. The cross isn’t the center then. The cross is almost a distraction and false advertising for God” (McLaren, http://www.understandthetimes.org/mclarentrans.shtml and http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/brian_mclaren_p.html).

Hansen replies as follows:

“Oh, Brian, that was just so beautifully said. I was tempted to get on my soap box there and you know--Because as you and I know there are so many illustrations and examples that you could give that show why THE TRADITIONAL VIEW OF HELL COMPLETELY FALLS IN THE FACE OF--IT’S JUST ANTITHETICAL TO THE CROSS. But the way you put it there, I love that. It’s false advertising. And here, Jesus is saying, turn the other cheek. Love your enemy. Forgive seven times seventy. Return violence with self-sacrificial love. But if we believe the traditional view of hell, it’s like, well, do that for a short amount of time. Because eventually, God’s going to get them.”

McLaren also said:

“The church has been preoccupied with the question, ‘What happens to your soul after you die?’ AS IF THE REASON FOR JESUS COMING CAN BE SUMMED UP IN, ‘JESUS IS TRYING TO HELP GET MORE SOULS INTO HEAVEN, AS OPPOSED TO HELL, AFTER THEY DIE.’ I JUST THINK A FAIR READING OF THE GOSPELS BLOWS THAT OUT OF THE WATER. I don’t think that the entire message and life of Jesus can be boiled down to that bottom line” (“The Emerging Church,” Part Two, Religion & Ethics, July 15, 2005, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week846/cover.html).

In the same interview McLaren said that the traditional doctrine of substitutionary atonement makes God into a strange monster that wants to kill his own son and needs to be restrained. He also says the substitutionary atonement detracts from social justice issues. He even blasphemously mocks the atonement by saying that if it is true it would mean that God can’t forgive one person unless he “kicks someone else.” Consider this very foolish statement.

“What’s so bad about sin? Now, I can just imagine some people quoting--See, McLaren doesn’t think sin is a problem. I take sin really, seriously. But here’s the problem, If I were to make this sort of analogy or parable. When I had little children, if one of my little children--Let’s say my son Brett, was beating up on his little brother, Trevor. Now, Trevor is bigger. But back then--What was the problem? Was the problem that I don’t want my younger son to get hurt and I don’t want my older son to be a bully. I want my older son to be a good person. I want my younger son to be a good person. I want them to have a great relationship. Then the problem of sin is what it does to my family and what it does to my boys, you know. That’s the problem with sin.

“But what we’ve created is, the problem of sin is that I am so angry at my son Brett for beating up his younger brother, I’m going to kill him. So now the problem we’ve got to solve is how to keep me from killing my son. Does that make sense?

“And so now it seems to me the entire Christian theology has shifted so now the problem is, how can we keep me from killing Brett? And I don’t think that’s the kind of God that we serve. I think the problem is God wants His children to get along with each other. He wants them to be good people. Because He’s good. And His vision for creation is that they’ll love each other and be good to each other and enjoy each other and have a lot of fun together. ...

“We have a vision that the real problem is God wants to kill us all. And we’ve got to somehow solve that problem. And what that does to me, Leif, that is so significant, is that it then minimizes the concern about injustice between human beings. That becomes a peripheral concern. But what if that’s God’s real concern, from beginning to end, see? ...

“The traditional understanding says that God asks of us something that God is incapable of Himself. God asks us to forgive people. But God is incapable of forgiving. God can’t forgive unless He punishes somebody in place of the person He was going to forgive. God doesn’t say things to you--Forgive your wife, and then go kick the dog to vent your anger. God asks you to actually forgive. And there’s a certain sense that, a common understanding of the atonement presents a God who is incapable of forgiving. Unless He kicks somebody else” (McLaren, http://www.understandthetimes.org/mclarentrans.shtml and http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/brian_mclaren_p.html).

What McLaren ignores is God’s holiness and justice. God is not just a father like a human father. He is a holy and just God who has given man His righteous Law. That Law, having been broken, must be satisfied. The wages of sin is death. Without the shedding of blood is no remission. And to provide the atonement, God hasn’t “kicked” anyone but Himself!

On the issue of homosexuality, McLaren says:

“Frankly, many of us don’t know what we should think about homosexuality. ... We aren’t sure if or where lines are to be drawn, nor do we know how to enforce with fairness whatever lines are drawn. ... Perhaps we need a five-year moratorium on making pronouncements” (“Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question,” Jan. 23, 2006, http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/01/brian_mclaren_o.html).

In December 2006, McLaren spoke at the Open Door Community Church in Sherwood, Arkansas. The church’s web site says:

“The leadership at Open Door Community Churches are excited to see gay and non-gay Christians worshiping together as one. We believe that gay and non-gay Christians can and should come to the table of the Lord together, side by side, without labels. We believe that as these two historically separate communities join together at the cross of Jesus Christ a healing and a new understanding of oneness in Christ occurs in both groups. We are part of a growing revival of grace-filled Christians transcending either the terms ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal.’ Above all things, we are a GRACE CHURCH! We are a family embracing the full spectrum of race, age, gender, family status, sexual orientation, economic status and denominational background.”

On his own web site McLaren even recommends the writings of New Ager Ken Wilber.

Roger Oakland remarks:

“Ken Wilber was raised in a conservative Christian church, but at some point he left that faith and is now a major proponent of Buddhist mysticism. His book that Bell recommends, A Brief History of Everything, is published by Shambhala Publications, named after the term, which in Buddhism means the mystical abode of spirit beings. ... Wilber is perhaps best known for what he calls integral theory. On his website, he has a chart called the Integral Life Practice Matrix, which lists several activities one can practice ‘to authentically exercise all aspects or dimensions of your own being-in-the-world’ Here are a few of these spiritual activities that Wilber promotes: yoga, Zen, centering prayer, kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), TM, tantra (Hindu-based sexuality), and kundalini yoga. ... A Brief History of Everything discusses these practices (in a favorable light) as well. For Rob Bell to say that Wilber’s book is ‘mind-blowing’ and readers should spend three months in it leaves no room for doubt regarding Rob Bell’s spiritual sympathies. What is alarming is that so many Christian venues, such as Christian junior high and high schools, are using Velvet Elvis and the Noomas” (Faith Undone, p. 110).

In Up from Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution (1981, 2004), Ken Wilber calls the Garden of Eden a fable” and the biblical view of history “amusing” (pp. xix, 3). He describes his “perennial philosophy” as follows:

“... it is true that there is some sort of Infinite, some type of Absolute Godhead, but it cannot properly be conceived as a colossal Being, a great Daddy, or a big Creator set apart from its creations, from things and events and human beings themselves. Rather, it is best conceived (metaphorically) as the ground or suchness or condition of all things and events. It is not a Big Thing set apart from finite things, but rather the reality or suchness or ground of all things. ... the perennial philosophy declares that the absolute is One, Whole, and Undivided” (p. 6).

CONCLUSION

Beware of Brian McLaren and the emerging church!

A good test is to ask Christian leaders what they think of this man. Assuming they are familiar with his writings, if they fudge and hedge, refusing to come right out and mark him as a dangerous heretic, they are heretics themselves or at least well down the road of serious compromise!

WHAT CHARLES SPURGEON SAID ABOUT THE EMERGING CHURCH

The emerging church represented by Brian McLaren is not as new as it appears to be. It was already raising its ugly head in the late 19th century, because Charles Spurgeon described it perfectly in his comments on James 5:19-20. He called it “modern thought.” He also described the tolerant attitude of modern evangelicalism that puts up with emerging church type heresies. Spurgeon called this “latitudinarianism.”

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).

“It was not merely that he fell into a mistake upon some lesser matter which might be compared to the fringe of the gospel, but he erred in some vital doctrine--he departed from the faith in its fundamentals. There are some truths which must be believed, they are essential to salvation, and if not heartily accepted the soul will be ruined. This man had been professedly orthodox, but he turned aside from the truth on an essential point Now, in those days the saints did not say: ‘We must be largely charitable, and leave this brother to his own opinion; he sees truth from a different standpoint, and has a rather different way of putting it, but his opinions are as good as our own, and we must not say that he is in error.’

“That is at present the fashionable way of trifling with divine truth, and making things pleasant all round. Thus the gospel is debased and another gospel propagated. I should like to ask modern broad churchmen whether there is any doctrine of any sort for which it would be worth a man’s while to burn or to lie in prison. I do not believe they could give me an answer, for if their latitudinarianism be correct, the martyrs were fools of the first magnitude.

“From what I see of their writings and their teachings, it appears to me that the modern thinkers treat the whole compass of revealed truth with entire indifference; and, though perhaps they may feel sorry that wilder spirits should go too far in free-thinking, and though they had rather they would be more moderate, yet, upon the whole, so large is their liberality, that they are not sure enough of anything to be able to condemn the reverse of it as a deadly error. To them black and white are terms which may be applied to the same colour, as you view it from different standpoints. Yea and nay are equally true in their esteem. Their theology shifts like the Goodwin Sands, and they regard all firmness as so much bigotry. Errors and truths are equally comprehensible within the circle of their charity.

“It was not in this way that the apostles regarded error. They did not prescribe large-hearted charity towards falsehood, or hold up the errorist as a man of deep thought, whose views were ‘refreshingly original’; far less did they utter some wicked nonsense about the probability of their having more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds. They did not believe in justification by doubting, as our Neologians do; they set about the conversion of the erring brother; they treated him as a person who needed conversion: and viewed him as a man who, if he were not converted, would suffer the death of his soul, and be covered with a multitude of sins. They were not such easy-going people as our cultured friends of the school of ‘modern thought,’ who have learned at last that the deity of Christ may be denied, the work of the Holy Spirit ignored, the inspiration of scripture rejected, the atonement disbelieved, and regeneration dispensed with, and yet the man who does all this may be as good a Christian as the most devout believer!

“O God, deliver us from this deceitful infidelity, which while it does damage to the erring man, and often prevents his being reclaimed, does yet more mischief to our own hearts by teaching us that truth is unimportant, and falsehood a trifle, and so destroys our allegiance to the God of truth, and makes us traitors instead of loyal subjects to the King of kings” (C.H. Spurgeon, “Restoring Those Who Have Erred,” Words of Counsel for Christian Workers, pp. 139-142).

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“In this sacrament Christ is present in a unique way, whole and entire, God and man, substantially and permanently. This presence of Christ under the species ‘is called real, not in an exclusive sense, as if the other kinds of presence were not real, but par excellence” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Chap. 1, E, p. 114).

“In the celebration of Mass there is proclaimed the wonderful mystery of the real presence of Christ our Lord under the eucharistic species. The Second Vatican Council and other magisterial pronouncements of the Church have confirmed this truth in the same sense and the same words as those in which the Council of Trent defined it as an article of faith. ... Christ becomes present through an essential change in the elements” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, General Instruction on the Roman Missal, foreword, 3, p. 154).

The Mass Is a Part of Salvation

“As often as the sacrifice of the cross by which ‘Christ our Pasch is sacrificed’ (1 Cor. 5:7) is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 1, 3, p. 324).

The Mass the Center of Christian life

“The celebration of the Mass ... is the centre of the whole Christian life for the universal Church, the local Church and for each and every one of the faithful. For therein is the culminating action whereby God sanctifies the world in Christ and men worship the Father as they adore him through Christ the Son of God” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, General Instruction on the Roman Missal, chap. 1, 1, p. 159).

Christ Is to Be Worshipped in the Wafer

“The reservation of the sacred species for the sick ... led to the praiseworthy custom of adoring the heavenly food which is preserved in churches. This practice of adoration has a valid and firm foundation, especially since belief in the real presence of the Lord has as its natural consequence the external and public manifestation of that belief” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Chap. 3, I A, p. 131).

“The faithful should therefore strive to worship Christ our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. ... Pastors [priests] should exhort them to this, and set them a good example. ... The place in a church or oratory where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the tabernacle [place where the consecrated wafer is kept and worshiped between Masses] should be truly prominent. It ought to be suitable for private prayer so that the faithful may easily and fruitfully, by private devotion also, continue to honour our Lord in this sacrament” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Chap. 3, I B, p. 132).

“Devotion, both private and public, towards the sacrament of the altar even outside Mass ... is highly recommended by the Church, since the eucharistic sacrifice is the source and summit of the whole Christian life” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Chap. 3, III, p. 134).

“All the faithful ought to show to this most holy sacrament the worship which is due to the true God, as has always been the custom of the Catholic Church. Nor is it to be adored any the less because it was instituted by Christ to be eaten. For even in the reserved sacrament he is to be adored because he is substantially present there through that conversion of bread and wine which, as the Council of Trent tells us, is most aptly named transubstantiation” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Intro., C 6, pp. 109,10).

“It is necessary to instruct the faithful that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Saviour and that the same worship and adoration given to God is owed to him present under the sacramental signs” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on Facilitating Sacramental Eucharistic Communion in Particular Circumstances, Piety and Reverence Towards the Sacrament, p. 221).

The Wafer to Be Carried in Processions

“In processions in which the Blessed Sacrament is solemnly carried through the streets to the singing of hymns, especially on the feast of Corpus Christi, the Christian people give public witness to their faith and devotion towards this sacrament” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Chap. 3, III, p. 134).

Masses for the Dead

“Holy Mother Church is extremely concerned for the faithful departed. She has decided to intercede for them to the fullest extent in every Mass and abrogates every special privilege in this matter” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences, V, Indulgences not Attached to Things and Places, Norms, 20, p. 87).

“The Church offers the Paschal Sacrifice [the Mass] for the Dead so that ... the dead may be helped by the prayers and the living may be consoled by hope” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, General Instruction on the Roman Missal, VIII, Masses for the Dead, 335, p. 197).

Mass Must be Performed in Strict Accordance with Catholic Tradition

“To safeguard the success of these celebrations and to obtain a greater spiritual efficaciousness ... attention must be given to the form. ... The texts of the Mass should be taken from the missal or from approved supplements. Every change ... is arbitrary and therefore rejected ... The furnishings of the altar (cross, altar cloth, candles, missal, purificator, corporal, hand towel and communion plate), the sacred vessels (chalice, paten, pyx), the vestments (amice, alb, cincture, stole and chasuble) should be, in number, form and quality, as desired by present legislation. ... The ritual gestures and the ceremonies of the celebrant, as well as the attitude of the participants should be those prescribed for the normal eucharistic celebration” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on Masses for Special Groups, 11a,b, p. 146).

The Wine Can Be Taken Only on Special Occasions

“First, they should be reminded that, according to the Catholic faith, Christ is received whole and entire in a complete sacrament even when people communicate under one kind only [take only the wafer without the juice]. And they are not thereby deprived of any grace necessary for salvation ... With the bishop’s approval and after due instruction the following persons may receive Communion from the chalice ... [there follows 14 groups of persons who are permitted to partake of the juice during special Masses performed at weddings, baptisms, ordinations, and certain retreats]” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, General Instruction on the Roman Missal, IV, 241, 242, pp. 181-182)

Catholic Tradition on Equal Par with Scripture

“Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal ... Thus it comes about that the Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Hence, both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal feelings of devotion and reverence” (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Chap. 2, 9, p. 682).

Salvation Is through the Sacraments and the Church

“Just as Christ was sent by the Father so also he sent the apostles ... that they might preach the gospel to every creature and proclaim that the Son of God by his death and resurrection had freed us from the power of Satan and from death, and brought us into the Kingdom of his Father. But he also willed that the work of salvation which they preached should be set in train through the sacrifice and sacraments, around which the entire liturgical [ritualistic] life revolves. Thus by Baptism men are grafted into the paschal mystery of Christ. ... They receive the spirit of adoption as sons” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Chap. 1, I, 5,6, pp. 23-24).

“In that body the life of Christ is communicated to those who believe and who, through the sacraments, are united in a hidden and real way to Christ in his passion and glorification. Through baptism we are formed in the likeness of Christ: ‘For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body’ (1 Cor. 12:13). In this sacred rite fellowship in Christ’s death and resurrection is symbolized and is brought about” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chap. 1, 7, p. 327).

“For it is the liturgy through which, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, ‘the work of our redemption is accomplished,’ and it is through the liturgy, especially, that the faithful are enabled to express in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Introduction, para. 2).

Salvation Distributed by the Pope

“For God’s only-begotten Son ... has won a treasure for the militant Church ... he has entrusted it to blessed Peter, the key-bearer of heaven, and to his successors who are Christ’s vicars on earth, so that they may distribute it to the faithful for their salvation. They may apply it with mercy for reasonable causes to all who have repented for and have confessed their sins. At times they may remit completely, and at other times only partially, the temporal punishment due to sin in a general as well as in special ways (insofar as they judge it to be fitting in the sight of the Lord). The merits of the Blessed Mother of God and of all the elect ... are known to add further to this treasury’” (ellipsis are in the original) (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences, Chap. 4, 7, p. 80).

Salvation through the Catholic Church

“For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation, that the fulness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God” (Decree on Ecumenism, chap. 1, 3, p. 415).

“This holy Council first of all turns its attention to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself on scripture and tradition, it teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mk. 16:16; Jn. 3:5), and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it, or to remain in it” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, II, 14, p. 336).

Salvation by Good Works

“From the most ancient times in the Church good works were also offered to God for the salvation of sinners, particularly the works which human weakness finds hard. Because the sufferings of the martyrs for the faith and for God’s law were thought to be very valuable, penitents used to turn to the martyrs to be helped by their merits to obtain a more speedy reconciliation from the bishops. Indeed, the prayers and good works of holy people were regarded as of such great value that it could be asserted that the penitent was washed, cleansed and redeemed with the help of the entire Christian people” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences, chap. 3, 6, pp. 78,79).

Salvation through Baptism

“By the sacrament of Baptism, whenever it is properly conferred in the way the Lord determined and received with the proper dispositions of soul, man becomes truly incorporated into the crucified and glorified Christ and is reborn to a sharing of the divine life” (Decree on Ecumenism, chap. 3, II, 22, p. 427).

Salvation Is through Indulgences and Ritual

“By means of indulgences those members of the Church who are enduring their purification are united more speedily to the members who are in heaven ... holy Mother Church again recommends the practice of indulgences to the faithful. ... The remission of punishment by distribution from the Church’s treasury is incorporated into it. The Church recommends its faithful not to abandon or neglect the holy traditions of those who have gone before. They should be welcomed in a religious spirit as a precious treasure of the Catholic family and esteemed as such. ... The Church reminds them constantly of the things which should be given preference because they are necessary or at least better and more efficacious helps in the task of winning salvation” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences, chap. 4, 10,11, p. 82).

Salvation Can Be Achieved through Non-Christian Religions

“The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems. These profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day... Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 2, 16, p. 338).

Salvation Grace Is Not Free but Must Be Earned

“All children of the Church should nevertheless remember that their exalted condition results, not from their own merits, but from the grace of Christ. If they fail to respond in thought, word and deed to that grace, not only shall they not be saved, but they shall be the more severely judged” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 2, 14, p. 337).

The Catholic Church the Only True Church

“This is the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care. ... This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 1, 8, p. 329).

“For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation, that the fulness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God” (Decree on Ecumenism, chap. 1, 3, p. 415).

The Pope Is the Supreme Head of the Church

“The college or body of bishops has for all that no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head, whose primatial authority, let it be added, over all, whether pastors or faithful, remains in its integrity. For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, namely, and as pastor of the entire Church, has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 3, 22, p. 344).

The Pope Is the Infallible Teacher

“The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful—who confirms his brethren in the faith (cf. Lk. 22:32)—he proclaims in an absolute decision a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals. For that very reason his definitions are rightly said to be irreformable by their very nature and not by reason of the assent of the Church... as a consequence they are in no way in need of the approval of others, and do not admit of appeal to any other tribunal. For in such a case the Roman Pontiff does not utter a pronouncement as a private person, but rather does he expound and defend the teaching of the Catholic faith as the supreme teacher of the universal Church, in whom the Church’s charism of infallibility is present in a singular way” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 3, 25, p. 349).

“This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given, in a special way, to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and sincere assent be given to decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 3, 25, p. 348).

Mary the Sinless Mother of God, Perpetual Virgin, Bodily Assumed into Heaven as Queen over All

“Joined to Christ the head and in communion with all his saints, the faithful must in the first place reverence the memory of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ... Because of the gift of sublime grace she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth... The Immaculate Virgin preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords (cf. Apoc. 19:16) and conqueror of sin and death” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 8, I, 52,53; II, 59, pp. 378,381- 382).

Mary Is Co-redemptress with Christ

“Rightly, therefore, the Fathers see Mary not merely as passively engaged by God, but as freely cooperating in the work of man’s salvation through faith and obedience. For as St. Irenaeus says, she being obedient, became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race. Hence not a few of the early Fathers gladly assert with him in their preaching ... ‘death through Eve, life through Mary.’ This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 8, II, 56, pp. 380-381).

Mary Intercedes for Men from Heaven and Aids in Their Salvation

“Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 8, II, 62, pp. 382-383).

Mary to Be Venerated

“Mary has by grace been exalted above all angels and men to a place second only to her Son, as the most holy mother of God who was involved in the mysteries of Christ: she is rightly honoured by a special cult in the Church. ... The sacred synod teaches this Catholic doctrine advisedly and at the same time admonishes all the sons of the Church that the cult, especially the liturgical cult, of the Blessed Virgin, be generously fostered, and that the practices and exercises of devotion towards her, recommended by the teaching authority of the Church in the course of centuries be highly esteemed, and that those decrees, which were given in the early days regarding the cult images of Christ, the Blessed Virgin and the saints, be religiously observed” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 8, IV, The Cult of the Blessed Virgin in the Church, 66,67, pp. 384-385).

Intercessions of and Prayers to Dead Saints

“The ‘treasury of the Church’ ... is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ’s merits have before God. ... This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body. ... The union of the living with their brethren who have fallen asleep in Christ is not broken. ... Now that they are welcomed in their own country and at home with the Lord, through him, with him and in him they intercede unremittingly with the Father on our behalf, offering the merit they acquired on earth through Christ Jesus. ... Their brotherly care is the greatest help to our weakness” (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences, chap. 2, 5, pp. 76,77).

“In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honoured with great respect the memory of the dead ... she has always venerated them, together with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy angels, with a special love, and has asked piously for the help of their intercession. ... When, then, we celebrate the eucharistic sacrifice [the Mass] we are most closely united to the worship of the heavenly Church; when in the fellowship of communion we honour and remember the glorious Mary ever virgin, St. Joseph, the holy apostles and martyrs and all the saints” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 8, I, 52,53; II, 59, pp. 375,377).

“Holy Mother Church is extremely concerned for the faithful departed. She has decided to intercede for them to the fullest extent in every Mass and abrogates every special privilege in this matter” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 8, V, Norms, 20, p. 87).

Purgatory Necessary to Purge Sin

“The doctrine of purgatory clearly demonstrates that even when the guilt of sin has been taken away, punishment for it or the consequences of it may remain to be expiated or cleansed. They often are. In fact, in purgatory the souls of those who died in the charity of God and truly repentant, but who had not made satisfaction with adequate penance for their sins and omissions are cleansed after death with punishments designed to purge away their debt” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences, chap. 1, 3, p. 75).

Priests Have Special Powers to Bestow Spiritual Blessing

“However, the Lord also appointed certain men as ministers, in order that they might be united in one body in which ‘all the members have not the same function’ (Rom. 12:4). These men were to hold in the community of the faithful the sacred power of Order, that of offering sacrifice and forgiving sins, and were to exercise the priestly office publicly on behalf of men in the name of Christ” (Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, chap. 1, 2, p. 776).

“Priests, while being taken from amongst men and appointed for men in the things that appertain to God that they may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins, live with the rest of men as with brothers” (Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, chap. 1, 3, p. 778).

“The purpose then for which priests are consecrated by God through the ministry of the bishop is that they should be made sharers in a special way in Christ’s priesthood and, by carrying out sacred functions, act as his ministers who through his Spirit continually exercises his priestly function for our benefit in the liturgy. By Baptism priests introduce men into the People of God; by the sacrament of Penance they reconcile sinners with God and the Church; by the Anointing of the sick they relieve those who are ill; and especially by the celebration of Mass they offer Christ’s sacrifice sacramentally” (Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, chap. 2, I, 5, p. 781).

Catholic Priests Share Christ’s Identical Priesthood

“All priests share with the bishops the one identical priesthood and ministry of Christ” (Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, chap. 2, II, 7, p. 786).

Church Has Power to Grant Indulgences; Those Who Say Church Has no Such Power Are Cursed

“Indulgences are ... the taking away of the temporal punishment due to sins when their guilt has already been forgiven. ... in granting an indulgence the Church uses its power as minister of Christ’s Redemption. ... It teaches and commands that the usage of indulgences—a usage most beneficial to Christians and approved by the authority of the Sacred Councils—should be kept in the Church; and it condemns with anathema those who say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them. ... By means of indulgences those members of the Church who are enduring their purification are united more speedily to the members who are in heaven in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 8, IV, 8, 10, pp. 80-82).

Rituals and Superstitious Practices Encouraged

“The faithful who use with devotion an object of piety (crucifix, cross, Rosary, scapular or medal) after it has been duly blessed by any priest, can gain a partial indulgence. But if this object of piety is blessed by the Pope or any bishop, the faithful who use it with devotion can also gain a plenary indulgence on the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul. ... When one of the faithful is in danger of death and no priest in available to administer the sacraments to him with the apostolic blessing ... holy Mother Church still grants a plenary indulgence to be gained at the moment of death, on condition that they are properly disposed and have been in the habit of reciting some prayers during their lifetime. The practice of using a crucifix or cross while gaining this plenary indulgence is praiseworthy” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, chap. 8, V, Norms, 17,18, p. 86).

Confession and Penance Aid in Conversion

“The sacrament of Penance restores and strengthens in members of the Church who have sinned the fundamental gift of ... conversion to the kingdom of Christ, which is first received in Baptism. ... Those who approach this sacrament receive from God’s mercy the pardon of their offences and at the same time they are reconciled to the Church which they have wounded by their sins. The Religious should likewise hold in high esteem the frequent use of this sacrament ... desiring closer union with God, should endeavour to receive the sacrament of penance frequently, that is, twice a month ... To ensure legitimate liberty, all women religious and novices may make their confession validly and licitly to any priest approved for hearing confessions in the locality” (Decree on Confession for Religious, pp. 611,612).

Celibacy Imposed

“For these reasons, based on the mystery of Christ and his mission, celibacy, which at first was recommended to priests, was afterwards in the Latin Church imposed by law on all who were to be promoted to holy Orders. This sacred Council approves and confirms this legislation so far as it concerns those destined for the priesthood, and feels confident in the Spirit that the gift of celibacy, so appropriate to the priesthood of the New Testament, is liberally granted by the Father” (Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, chap. 3, II, 16, p. 802).

HAS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, THEN, CHANGED?

You have read for yourself the solemn proclamations of Rome’s official Vatican II Council. These are proclamations made by the Pope and the college of bishops, and according to Catholic teaching, there is no higher authority than “the Church’s dogma and interpretation of Scripture.” Of course, we realize there are Catholics do not believe these teachings, but where shall we go to find the official teachings of Catholicism? To the Vatican itself, of course. To say that the Vatican doesn’t know Catholic doctrine is like saying Hitler didn’t know Nazism.

Though some dramatic changes were made during and since the Vatican II Council, the Roman Catholic Church remains the same blasphemous, unscriptural institution it always has been. It is not possible to believe the previously quoted Vatican II pronouncements and think otherwise. Yet, the lie that Catholicism is becoming more evangelical, more biblical, and more spiritual continues to be propagated with blind perseverance. It is this lie that is being used to encourage the ecumenical fellowship between Catholics and Protestants. The same lie is a clever tool for persuading Catholics to stay in the Roman Church when they are converted or when they begin doubting Catholic doctrines.

Since it is plain that the Roman Catholic Church continues to uphold doctrines that are blasphemous and contrary to the Word of God, it is therefore inexcusable for Billy Graham and Ted Haggard and Jack Van Impe and Chuck Colson and other evangelicals to affiliate with it or to speak of it in a positive fashion. The Word of God commands us to separate from those who teach error.

“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).

“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Tim. 3:5).

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14).

“Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:6-8).

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him” (2 Cor. 11:3-4).

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BEWARE OF BRENNAN MANNING

Updated June 26, 2008 (first published April 1, 2008) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

Brennan Manning has a large and growing influence among evangelicals.

His book “The Ragamuffin Gospel,” first came to my attention as I was researching contemporary Christian music in 1998 in preparation for the publication of Contemporary Christian Music under the Spotlight. Some of the most influential CCM musicians are mightily impressed with The Ragamuffin Gospel. Notable among these are Michael W. Smith (who wrote the foreword to The Ragamuffin Gospel), Michael Card (who named his oldest son after the author of The Ragamuffin Gospel), and the late Rich Mullins (who formed the Ragamuffin Band).

The book is published by Multnomah Press, the printing arm of Multnomah College of the Bible, an alleged evangelical institution.

His books have been recommended by Philip Yancey, Eugene Peterson, Larry Crabb, Michael Card, Michael W. Smith, the members of U2, and many others.

He has spoken at Christian & Missionary Alliance conferences, Vineyard conferences, and many similar forums.

In 2005 Christianity Today called “The Ragamuffin Gospel” a “spiritual classic.” Yet after they published the article “A Coward Who Stayed to Help,” which was Manning’s story of his alleged heroics assisting victims during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, they had to publish a retraction five days later stating that Manning had lied. In a voice message to Christianity Today he blithely said, “The essential truth: I lied” (“Brennan Manning, Featured Speaker” James Sundquist, June 24, 2007).

Manning has published a dozen or more popular books in addition to The Ragamuffin Gospel, including Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging (Navpress, 1994), The Signature of Jesus (Multnomah, 1996), The Boy Who Cried Abba: A Parable of Trust and Acceptance (1998, 2001), Reflections for Ragamuffins (1998), A Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin’s Path to God (2000), The Wisdom of Tenderness (2002), The Journey of the Prodigal (2002), The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God’s Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives (2002), The Rabbi’s Heartbeat (Navpress, 2003), Posers, Fakers, and Wannabes: Unmasking the Real You (Navpress, 2003), A Glimpse of Jesus: The Stranger to Self-Hatred (2003), Above All: He Took the Fall and Thought of Me (2003), Lion and Lamb: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus (Revell, 2004).

WHO IS MANNING?

Manning’s (b. 1934) birth name was Richard Francis Xavier Manning. In 1963 he was ordained to the Franciscan priesthood. In the late 1960s he joined the Little Brothers of Jesus of Charles de Foucauld in Spain. This Order spends its days in manual labor serving poor communities and its nights “wrapped in silence and prayer.” He spent six months in solitary contemplation in a remote cave in a desert. In the 1970s he returned to the States and eventually entered a six month treatment program for alcoholism. In 1982 he got married and left the priesthood.

MANNING’S FOUNDATIONAL ERROR IS HIS FALSE GOSPEL

His web site features his biography, and what is glaringly absent is any scriptural testimony of salvation. Instead, we find the following statement:

“In February 1956, while Brennan was meditating on the Stations of the Cross, a powerful experience of the personal love of Jesus Christ sealed the call of God on his life.”

There is no repentance, no scriptural new birth, merely a “sealing” of that which began at his infant baptism. Further, the Jesus of the Stations of the Cross is Rome’s false christ, a christ who was assisted in his suffering by his mother and other women.

Though Manning is no longer a priest, he continues to participate in and promote the blasphemous Catholic mass. When he is in his home in New Orleans he attends the morning daily mass at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church.

Manning preaches a false antinomian, Roman-tinged, psychology-influenced gospel. He believes a person can be saved and continue to live in the grossest sin without repentance. Following Rome’s pattern, Manning’s gospel glosses over the basis for salvation, which is the blood and death of Jesus Christ (even while giving it lip service), and ignores the necessity of the new birth. Manning uses biblical terms but he redefines them, giving them unbiblical meanings. His writings are filled with half truths and statements of truth followed by contradictions to those statements.

Manning continually quotes from and unquestioningly affirms the writings of false teachers such as Paul Tillich (an adulterous neo-orthodox theologian), Carl Jung (who wrote under the guidance of a demon and who considered Christianity a myth), Beatrice Bruteau (a proponent of the New Age “I am god” heresy), Henri Nouwen (who believed men can be saved apart from faith in Christ), Thomas Merton (a Buddhist-Catholic), Teresa of Avila, Pierre Teilhard (pantheistic Jesuit mystic), Thomas Aquinas and “St.” Augustine (doctors of the Catholic Church), and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a father of neo-orthodoxy).

Manning says, “To evangelize a person is to say to him or her: you, too, are loved by God in the Lord Jesus” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, 2nd edition, 2000, p. 120).

This is not the gospel and it is not scriptural evangelism. While it is certainly true that God loves sinners, that is only a part of the story; God is also holy and will judge every infraction of His law. The biblical gospel begins with the bad news of man’s fallen condition and his guilt and only when the sinner acknowledges this and repents and puts his trust exclusively in Jesus Christ can he experience God’s love in a saving manner. In the book of Romans, Paul dwelt on God’s holiness and wrath and man’s lost condition for nearly three chapters before he got to the good news of the offer of salvation in Christ (Romans 1:18- 3:25).

Manning says, “God is a kooky God who can scarcely bear to be without us” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 165).

It is blasphemous to describe God as “kooky.” And if His love means He can “scarcely bear to be without us,” what is eternal Hell all about? Jesus frequently warned about Hell, and stated, in fact, that most sinners will go there. “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mat. 7:13-14).

Writing about the woman in John 8 who was caught in adultery, Manning says that Jesus “didn’t demand a firm purpose of amendment” and “didn’t seem too concerned that she might dash back into the arms of her lover” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, 1990, p. 167).

To the contrary, Jesus commanded her, “Go, and sin no more” (Jn. 8:11). Similarly, after Jesus healed the crippled man in John 5 He instructed him, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (Jn. 5:14).

Manning mentions in particular some people that he has met: a female prostitute, a woman who had an abortion, and a male homosexual (Ragamuffin, pp. 32-33). He claims that all of these are saved even though they justify their sin and have no intention of turning from it. The apostle Paul addressed Manning’s error in 1 Corinthians 6:9-13:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such WERE some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.”

The church members at Corinth had lived in all sorts of wicked lives before they were saved, but after they believed on Christ they were changed, and Paul warned them about going back to the old life. He warned them, in particular, about fornication. The gospel of Christ teaches that sinners are saved by God’s grace without works, but it also teaches that those who are saved are saved “unto good works” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

The apostle John taught: “HE THAT SAITH, I KNOW HIM, AND KEEPETH NOT HIS COMMANDMENTS, IS A LIAR, AND THE TRUTH IS NOT IN HIM” (1 John 2:4).

Manning says:

“Something is radically wrong when the local church rejects a person accepted by Jesus: when a harsh, judgmental and unforgiving sentence is passed on homosexuals; when a divorcee is denied communion; when the child of a prostitute is refused baptism; when an unlaicized priest is forbidden the sacraments” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 30).

There is a world of confusion and doctrinal error in this one statement. First, the Scriptures instruct churches to reject those who claim to be saved but who live in gross sin (1 Corinthians 5). Second, Manning assumes that judging things by God’s Word is “harsh” and “unforgiving” but this certainly does not have to be the case. The Bible instructs believers to “prove all things” (1 Thess. 5:21), commends the Bereans for searching the Scripture daily to see “whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11), and says, “... he that is spiritual judgeth all things” (1 Cor. 2:15). Third, Manning claims that forgiveness should be given whether or not there is repentance on the part of the sinner, but the Bible says there is no forgiveness without repentance (Lk. 13:3, 5; Acts 17:30; 20:21; 26:20; 2 Cor. 7:9-10; 2 Pet. 3:9). Jesus said, “... except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Lk. 13:3). Fourth, the Bible says the saved person is changed. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Fifth, Manning teaches the heresy of infant baptism, whereas the Bible says baptism is for believers only (Mk. 16:15). Sixth, Manning defends the Catholic priesthood, whereas the New Testament says every believer is a priest in Christ (1 Peter 2:5, 9). Seventh, Manning defends the unscriptural Catholic sacraments even though they have no support in the Scripture and they teach a works salvation.

Manning even claims that those who take the mark of the Beast will be saved.

“And he [Christ] will say to us: ‘Vile beings, you who are in the image of the beast and bear his mark, but come all the same, you as well’” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 21).

To the contrary, the book of Revelation plainly states that all who take the mark of the Beast will suffer in Hell.

“And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name” (Rev. 14:9-11).

MANNING PROMOTES EASTERN MYSTICISM

In The Signature of Jesus Manning promotes the dangerous practice of centering prayer, which involves chanting “a sacred word” to empty the mind and allegedly enter into silent experiential communion with God within:

“[T]he first step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer. ... enter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard. ... Choose a single, sacred word ... repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often” (pp. 212, 215, 218).

Manning also encourages the use of mantras and emptying the mind in The Ragamuffin Gospel. He instructs Christians to repeat an eight-word mantra (“The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing”) for 10 minutes. He says:

“The first step toward rejuvenation begins with accepting where you are and exposing your poverty, frailty, and emptiness to the love that is everything. Don’t try to feel anything, think anything, or do anything ... Don’t force prayer. Simply relax in the presence of the God you half believe in and ask for a touch of folly” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 196).

This is as close as Manning comes to describing how to receive the gospel, and it is unscriptural in every aspect. The Bible does not invite the sinner to relax in the presence of God and half believe; it commands him to repent and to believe fully from the heart. The model for our faith is Abraham, who was not weak in faith (Rom. 4:19) and who “staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief” (Rom. 4:20).

Manning suggests that the sinner does not need to think anything. To the contrary, the Bible says he must believe the gospel, which is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for our sins (1 Cor. 15:1-4). Paul said, “By which also ye are saved, IF YE KEEP IN MEMORY what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (1 Cor. 15:2). If one would be saved, there is a lot to think about!

In Romans 6:17 Paul described salvation as obeying from the heart a form of doctrine:

“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”

To obey a form of doctrine in one’s heart involves thinking about it and consciously accepting it and believing it.

Manning promotes the dangerous practice of visualization, instructing people to visualize what Jesus might have looked like (p. 197). This is vain idolatry. No man knows what Jesus looked like, and if I visualize what I THINK He looked like I am creating my own idol. Further, to use one’s imagination in this way is to invite demonic influence.

Manning promotes silent meditation. As noted earlier, he once spent six months in isolation in a cave in Spain. He meditates in silence each day. He spends eight days a year at a Jesuit retreat center in Colorado during which he speaks only 45 minutes each day. His spiritual director is a Dominican nun.

Manning claims to receive visions and special messages from God through his meditative practices.

IT APPEARS THAT MANNING BELIEVES IN UNIVERSALISM AND THE DIVINITY OF MAN

In Abba’s Child, Manning wrote:

“[I]f I find Christ, I will find my true self and if I find my true self, I will find Christ” (Manning, Abba’s Child, p. 125).

This is not the biblical Christ; it is the New Age “christ” who is in (or can be in) every man.

In Abba’s Child, Manning recommends the writings of Beatrice Bruteau. She is the founder of The School for Contemplation and believes that God is within every human being. She says that each person can say, “I AM,” which is a name for Almighty God. She said:

“We have realized ourselves as the Self that says only I AM, with no predicate following, not ‘I am a this’ or ‘I have that quality.’ Only unlimited, absolute I AM’” (Interview with Bruteau, A Song That Goes on Singing, quoted from http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/manning.htm).

I AM, of course, is one of the biblical names of God. Why would Manning recommend Bruteau with no warning if he does not agree with this blasphemy?

In The Signature of Jesus, Manning gives this quote from the mystic Catholic priest William Shannon and the Catholic Buddhist Thomas Merton:

“During a conference on contemplative prayer, the question was put to Thomas Merton: ‘How can we best help people to attain union with God?’ His answer was very clear: WE MUST TELL THEM THAT THEY ARE ALREADY UNITED WITH GOD. CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER IS NOTHING OTHER THAN COMING INTO CONSCIOUSNESS OF WHAT IS ALREADY THERE” (p. 218).

Merton was a Trappist monk who promoted the integration of Zen Buddhism and Christianity. The titles of some of his books are “Zen and the Birds of the Appetite” and “Mystics and the Zen Masters.”

Shannon was very bold in his rejection of the God of the Bible:

“This is a typical patriarchal notion of God. He is the God of Noah who sees people deep in sin, repents that He made them and resolves to destroy them. He is the God of the desert who sends snakes to bite His people because they murmured against Him. He is the God of David who practically decimates a people. ... He is the God who exacts the last drop of blood from His Son, so that His just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased. This God whose moods alternate between graciousness and fierce anger. THIS GOD DOES NOT EXIST” (William Shannon, Silence on Fire, pp. 109, 110).

In The Ragamuffin Gospel Manning says:

“Nevertheless, the central affirmation of the Reformation stands: through no merit of ours, but by his mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of his beloved Son. This is the Good News, the gospel of Grace” (p. 18).

That is not the gospel of grace; that is the gospel of unconditional universalism. The true gospel is that whosever believes in Christ will be saved (John 3:16), but Manning claims that men are already redeemed. He says, “We HAVE BEEN restored.”

Manning quotes David Steindl-Rast approvingly in The Signature of Jesus (pp. 210, 213-214). Steindl-Rast, a contemplative Roman Catholic priest, said: “Envision the great religious traditions arranged on the circumference of a circle. At their mystical core they all say the same thing, but with different emphasis” (“Heroic Virtue,” Gnosis, Summer 1992).

Manning quotes Matthew Fox approvingly in two of his books, Lion and Lamb (p. 135) and A Stranger to Self Hatred (pp. 113, 124). Fox says:

“God is a great underground river, and there are many wells into that river. There’s a Taoist well, a Buddhist well, a Jewish well, a Muslim well, a Christian well, a Goddess well, the Native wells-many wells that humans have dug to get into that river, but friends, there’s only one river; the living waters of wisdom” (quoted from John Caddock, “What Is Contemplative Spirituality,” Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society, Autumn 1997).

Since Manning gives glowing recommendations for these people and offers no warning to his readers about their universalism it appears that he holds the same heresy.

In His books The Signature of God and Gentle Revolutionaries Manning describes a dream he has had about judgment day. He sees Adolf Hitler and Hugh Hefner (founder of Playboy magazine) and himself and others going before God to be judged, but God just takes them by the hand and walks them home. The implication is that everyone is accepted by God through grace, regardless of whether they repent and believe the gospel and have a born again experience.

MANNING MOCKS A STRONG BIBLICAL POSITION

He warns about “the Bible thumper” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 36).

He says:

“I am deeply distressed by what I only can call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer to God but God himself. In a word--bibliolatry ... I develop a nasty rash around people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how God thinks and precisely what God wants” (The Signature of Jesus).

Bible believers don’t worship the Bible, but they do accept it for what it claims to be, the very Word of God, and they know therefore that they will find on its pages precisely how God thinks!

Manning warns about “academicians who would imprison Jesus in the ivory tower of exegesis” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 14). Thus, after the fashion of the theological modernist Manning sets up the authority of Jesus over against that of the Bible, ignoring the fact that we know nothing for certain about Jesus and His doctrine apart from the Bible.

MANNING PROMOTES AN ECUMENICAL, TOLERANT DOCTRINAL POSITION

He says we should “listen to people in other denominations and religions” and we shouldn’t “find demons in those with whom we disagree” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 65).

In emerging church fashion, Manning warns against being “either-or” and opts rather for the mythical “both-and.” He says:

“If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or, either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God’s truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition…. But the open mind realizes that reality, truth, and Jesus Christ are incredibly open-ended” (p. 65).

It is obvious that Manning has a different religion from that of the Lord’s apostles, who were incredibly dogmatic. The apostle John, for example, said: “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). From the perspective of the mushy, can’t-be-pinned-down-on-anything Christianity of Brennan Manning, 1 John 5:19 is incredibly narrow-minded and wrongheaded, but I will gladly take my stand with the Lord’s apostles.

Note, too, Manning’s openness to the most extreme forms of worldliness, as exemplified by his recommendation of Madonna, “The Material Girl.”

MANNING IS SUPPORTIVE OF THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA

As we have seen, Manning believes that homosexuals should be accepted and not required to repent of their sin. He identifies “homophobia” as “among the most serious and vexing moral issues of this generation” (Abba’s Child).

A phobia is an unreasonable fear of something, in this case, homosexuality. Thus, Manning would have us believe that those who reject homosexuality as immoral and who do not want homosexuals to influence society, who oppose their filthy parades and “marriages,” have some sort of psychological illness. In fact, according to Manning, one of the most serious moral issues of our day is the rejection of homosexuality on the part of Bible believers.

To be consistent, Manning must lump Paul into the “homophobic” camp, because he strongly condemned homosexuality. Consider what Paul said about it:

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet” (Rom. 1:26-27).

MANNING DENIES THE SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST

He writes:

“[T]he god whose moods alternate between graciousness and fierce anger ... the god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist” (Brennan Manning, Above All, p. 58-59; the foreword to this book is written by CCM artist Michael W. Smith).

Manning boldly states that the God that required a blood sacrifice is an idol, but throughout the Old Testament we are taught that “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:11) and “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22). Jesus Christ fulfilled all of the Old Testament blood sacrifices when He came and died on Calvary. John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Hebrews says: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:12).

In reality, it is Manning’s god of unconditional love that is the nonexistent idol.

The following is an important observation about Manning by John Caddock:

“There is a seductive quality to his writings. He reports grappling with and overcoming fear, guilt, and psychological hang-ups and difficulties, including alcoholism. He gives the impression that he has a very intimate relationship with God and that he has insight to a superspirituality. He regularly meditates and reports having many visions and encounters with God. He is an extremely gifted writer who is able to tug at the emotions of the reader while at the same time introducing ideas that the reader would immediately reject if they were not cloaked under this emotional blanket.

“He promises readers that if they apply his teaching they too will gain this same intimacy with God as well as freedom from fear, guilt, and psychological hang-ups and difficulties. This is very attractive. Manning’s prescription to achieve this is not by traditional prayer and by the reading and application of the Bible. Rather, the means to this end is a mixture of Eastern mysticism, psychology, the New Age Movement, liberation theology, Catholicism, and Protestantism. This mixture will not deliver intimacy with God. It no doubt will lead to special feelings and experiences. Those practicing Manning’s methods will likely feel closer to God. However, in the process they will actually move away from Him as a result of a counterfeit spirituality” (“What Is Contemplative Spirituality and Why Is It Dangerous?” http://www.faithalone.org/journal/1997ii/Caddock.html).

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