(first published via FBIS September 30, 2009) (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) -

The following is excerpted from the book The Modern Bible Version Hall of Shame, which is available from Way of Life Literature in both book and ebook formats.

Having looked at the late 18th and the 19th centuries and seen the apostasy that swept into Christian churches in the same era that produced modern textual criticism, we will now show a timeline of 20th century apostasy to document what has happened within Christianity at large as the modern critical texts and modern English versions have become dominant. We will begin at the very end of the 19th century after the publication of the English Revised Version and the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament and move through the 20th. We will see that the unbelief that had begun as a stream in the late 18th century and had become a river in the 19th century became “a veritable ocean of unbelief” in the 20th. Like ivy, the modernism that had slept in the late 18th century and crept in the 19th, leapt in the 20th.

1900--As a predecessor of the Pentecostal movement, John Alexander Dowie proclaimed that he was “Elijah the Restorer” who was to precede the Lord’s coming and that he was the first apostle of the renewed end time church. Dowie established Zion City north of Chicago, “where doctors, drugs, and devils were not allowed.” His own daughter died of serious burns when he refused medical assistance.
1901--The modern tongues movement was launched when on New Year’s day Agnes Ozman, a student at Charles Parham’s Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, allegedly began to speak in a language she had never learned.
1904--Sigmund Freud published his Psychopathology of Everyday Life, launching the movement of psychoanalysis that has brought such untold moral, spiritual, and psychological injury to modern society and that has permeated Christianity since the latter half of the century.

One of the greatest dangers in Christian bookstores is not dealt with in this book, since we have already dealt with them in other books. This is the Contemporary Christian Music that is promoted by the vast majority of bookstores today. (See the video series Music for Good or Evil and the new free eBook The Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, which are available from Way of Life Literature -- www.wayoflife.org.)

Here we are going to deal with 14 other dangers in Christian bookstores.

Heaven Is For Real, a book about a four-year-old boy’s supposed visit to heaven, has sold over 1.5 million copies and is currently the # 6 best seller on Amazon. It has broken Thomas Nelson’s sales records and is popular with Independent Baptists. One pastor told me that it is “circulating around many of our IBaptist camps; many are recommending it.” The book is the true story of Colton Burpo, a Methodist pastor’s son who allegedly visits heaven during emergency surgery. There he meets a dead sister and great grandfather, sees Jesus and God the Father and the Holy Spirit and Satan, and learns things not revealed in Scripture. We don’t doubt that the little boy is convinced that he visited heaven, but we don’t believe for a minute that it actually happened.

First, the book is contrary to the testimony of Scripture that the apostles were the last to see the resurrected Christ. This was one of the evidences of apostleship (Acts 1:22; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:7). Paul said that he was the last of the apostles to see Christ, meaning that he saw Christ some time after the other apostles had seen him (1 Cor. 15:8). This occurred on more than one occasion in his life as described in the book of Acts. Paul gave this testimony in the context of giving the eyewitness evidence for Christ’s resurrection. We also know that the apostle John saw Christ on the island of Patmos as described in Revelation 1. All of the evidence we need for our faith is found in the testimony of Scripture and in these particular eyewitnesses.

Since the nineteenth century, multitudes of people have assumed that the Bible has been discredited by modern science and by the “higher criticism” of theological modernism.

In his biography of Charles Darwin, Jacques Barzun repeats this myth,

“The cosmogony of Genesis was swamped under an avalanche of contrary geological facts” (Darwin, Marx, Wagner, p. 66).

In fact, it was not an avalanche of scientific facts that swamped the Bible; it was an avalanche of myths based upon evolutionary assumptions.

Yet countless people have given up their faith in the Bible because they ASSUMED that it was discredited.

Charles Templeton is an example. He was once the preaching partner of Billy Graham, but he became an atheist after being convinced that science had discredited the Bible. He wrote the following to Graham,

“Billy, it's simply not possible any longer to believe, for instance, the biblical account of creation.  The world wasn't created over a period of days a few thousand years ago; it has evolved over millions of years. It's not a matter of speculation; it's demonstrable fact” (Templeton, Farewell to God).

Many New Testament prophecies describe a turning away from the New Testament faith and the creation of false churches that follow man-made tradition and heresies instead of the pure doctrine of God’s Word. This is called apostasy, and the Bible says it will increase as the time of Christ’s return draws nearer. See, for example, Matthew 7:15-22; 1 Timothy 4:1-6; 2 Timothy 3:1, 5, 12-13; 4:3-4; 2 Peter 2:1-2; 2 John 7-11; Jude 3-4.

On a trip to Israel in April of this year, we saw the fulfillment of these prophecies throughout Israel.

Practically every important geographical site is owned by some apostate church that enriches itself by this means. There is the Church of the Nativity with its Chapel of the Milk Grotto; the Church of St. Peter at Capernaum; the Basilica of the Annunciation at Nazareth; the Church of the Beatitudes on the Sea of Galilee; the Church of the Loaves and Fishes at Tabgha; the Church of the Miracle at Cana; Elisha’s Church at Jericho; St. Peter’s Church at Jaffa; and the Church of John the Baptist in Samaria, to mention a few.

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We have to come to grips today with the claims that Gail Riplinger is making.

I want to read to you one of her claims from Hazardous Materials, page 42, in which she says, “No knowledge of Greek or Hebrew is required to read this book. ... I have done all of the Greek work for the reader.”

You don’t need to do your own work. She will tell you what it says.

But she had to admit in a May 1994 interview with Dr. Wayne House that she can’t read Greek or Hebrew. But she will tell you what it says. What kind of role would that give her in your life?

September 9, 2009 (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) -

The following report is by Pastor Ralph Ovadal, Pilgrims Covenant Church, Monroe, Wisconsin, http://www.pccmonroe.org/neo-evangelicalism/2009.08.14.htm.

"And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." 1 Kings 18:28

Less than a week ago, as I am writing this article, I, and members of our Pilgrims Covenant Church, spent over five hours "without the camp" preaching the gospel of Christ and bearing biblical witness against a carnal monstrosity called "Rock the River." This event was one of four staged in Mississippi River cities by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. As of now, approximately 90,000 young people have been "ministered" to at the three Rock the River events that have already taken place.

“Some people thought there was something odd about Jesus’ birth... It may be that Jesus was an illegitimate son” (Desmond Tutu, Cape Times, October 24, 1980).

“The Holy Spirit is not limited to the Christian Church. For example, Mahatma Gandhi, who is a Hindu ... The Holy Spirit shines through him” (Desmond Tutu, St. Alban’s Cathedral, Pretoria, South Africa, November 23, 1978).

By associating with the Baptist World Alliance, the Southern Baptist Convention is associating with heretics like Desmond Tutu, and the Bible warns severely against such fellowship: “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 10-11).

In 1999, Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Denton Lotz urged Baptists to accept the Charismatic Movement. He said, “We need to get over our hang-up of the use of the word ‘charismatic’...” He praised the Charismatic Movement for rediscovering “the power and work of the Holy Spirit.” In reality, the Charismatic Movement preaches a false spirit that is not the Spirit of Truth of the Bible.

Also in 1999, Nilson Fanini, past president of the Baptist World Alliance, and Denton Lotz, general secretary, met with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity to discuss ecumenical relations with the Roman Catholic Church. The parties agreed to meet again in 2001 to continue the dialogue.

In September 2000, the Baptist World Alliance opened official dialogue with the Anglican Consultative Council to “foster common understanding between the two religious groups” and to see if they “could find common ground to work together in various aspects of the ministry.” Evangelist Don Jasmin observes: “This is the same Anglican Church which is seeking reunion with the Roman Catholic Church and whose leadership has already agreed to accept the primacy of the Pope” (Fundamentalist Digest, March-April 2001, p. 12).

Brutal Marxist dictator Fidel Castro, who has persecuted and restricted the churches of Jesus Christ in Cuba for decades, was a speaker at the Baptist World Alliance meeting in July 2000.

In January 2001, a delegation from the Baptist World Alliance met at the Vatican with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity to continue their dialogue. The Roman Catholic Church assured the delegates that Pope John Paul II desires to proceed with official conversations with Baptists.

On January 24, 2002, Denton Lotz, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, joined hands with Pope John Paul II and the leaders of many other denominations and 11 pagan religions at the third Day of Prayer for Peace at Assisi, Italy. The ecumenical pagan prayer gathering featured some 200 religious leaders, including representatives of such “Christian” denominations as Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Reformed, Baptist, Lutheran, Mormon, Methodist, Quaker, Pentecostal, Mennonite, as well as representatives of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Bahai, Confucianism, Shintoism, Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Tenrikyo (Japan), and members of African and North American “traditional religions.” The religious leaders traveled to Assisi with the Pope by train from Rome, arriving at the blasphemously named Railway Station of St. Mary of the Angels. The Pope said, “Violence never again! War never again! Terrorism never again! In the name of God, may every religion bring upon the earth justice and peace, forgiveness and life, love!” The Pope’s prayers aren’t answered, and neither are those of the other false religious leaders gathered with him, for the simple reason that they worship false gods and preach false gospels and blatantly disobey God’s Word. That the general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance would participate in such a thing is irrefutable evidence of his apostasy.

Among the denominations that are united under the BWA umbrella are the American Baptist Convention and the Baptist Union of Great Britain, both of which are permeated with the most blasphemous and heretical modernism under the sun.

BAPTIST UNION OF BRITAIN

The Baptist Union was already becoming apostate at the end of the 19th century when Charles Haddon Spurgeon separated from it in protest in 1888. Today that apostasy is complete. In the early 1970s, for example, Michael Taylor, principal of the Baptist Union’s Northern Baptist College, addressed the London Baptist Assembly on the theme, “How much of a man was Jesus?” He denied that Jesus Christ is God. Though many protested the man’s heresy, the Baptist Union refused to discipline him or remove him from office. In 1986, the Australian Beacon made the following observation about the Baptist Union: “It is a Union which harbours apostates and succors infidels while ostracizing faithful servants of Christ. It is a friend of Rome, a bed-fellow of idolaters and spiritists in its membership of the World Council of Churches. No true man of God could remain within it in good conscience” (Australian Beacon, No. 240, July 1986).

In 1989, the Baptist Union yoked together with the Roman Catholic Church in the newly formed ecumenical union in Britain.

In 1995, the New South Wales Baptist, the official paper of the Baptist Union of NSW, endorsed the Laughing Revival, otherwise known as the Toronto Blessing. The article was written by David Coffey, General Secretary of the Baptist Union. Many Baptist Union congregations have welcomed the Laughing Revival. These include Randwick Baptist Church. Secular newspapers printed photos of Randwick Baptist church members lying on the floor and acting like drunks. Coffey begins his article with the statement, “We have now had the opportunity to receive reports from a wide range of opinions across the country and there is no doubt in our minds that God has been at work” (David Coffey, “When the Spirit Comes, a British Baptist Prospective,” The New South Wales Baptist, Autumn 1995).

In November 1997, the Baptist Union of Great Britain appointed a woman as area superintendent for London. A Baptist Union spokeswoman said area superintendents are “pastors to the pastors” and their families, promote the union and represent Baptists ecumenically (Ecumenical News International, November 18, 1997). The woman, Pat Took, is also a pastor at the Can Hall Baptist Church in Leytonstone, London.

In May 1998, Catholic Cardinal Basil Hume was invited to participate in the Baptist Union’s assembly. He “led their spiritual reflections and was present when newly-accredited ministers met the Baptist Union president” (Australian Beacon, August 1998). The Union’s General Secretary, David Coffey, praised the cardinal and said the Union recognizes “the deep spirituality which undergirds his ministry.”

AMERICAN BAPTIST CONVENTION

The Baptist World Alliance-affiliated American Baptist Convention (formerly the Northern Baptist Convention) is also liberal through and through. As early as 1910 Baptist leader William B. Riley admitted that the denomination had been “surrendered into the hands of the Higher Critics” (George Dollar, A History of Fundamentalism). Between 1920 and 1932 a group of fundamentalist Baptist pastors unsuccessfully attempted to root the modernism out of the convention. They formed the National Federation of Fundamentalists of Northern Baptists. In 1932, many of these pastors left the Northern Baptist Convention and formed the General Association of Regular Baptists. In 1947, the Conservative Baptist Association of America was formed by another group of pastors who departed from the modernistic Northern Baptist Convention.

The leaven of theological heresy has since permeated the Convention. The schools and pulpits of the American Baptist Convention are filled with men who deny the infallible inspiration of Holy Scripture and who question or deny Christ’s virgin birth, Godhead, vicarious atonement, and resurrection from the dead. The apostate American Baptist Convention has produced some of the most notorious, blasphemous heretics of the 20th century.

Consider just a few examples of this apostasy:

In 1926, the Northern Baptist annual convention debated for almost five hours whether to retain in its fellowship the Riverside Baptist Church of New York City, pastored by the modernist Harry Emerson Fosdick, who denied practically every doctrine of the Word of God. This should have been a simple decision, since the Bible commands that God’s people mark, avoid, and reject doctrinal heresy (Rom. 16:17; Titus 3:10-11), but by a vote of three to one the Northern Baptist Convention refused to exercise discipline. In 1945, Fosdick wrote the following to an individual who inquired about his beliefs: “Of course I do not believe in the virgin birth or in that old-fashioned substitutionary doctrine of the atonement, and I know of no intelligent person who does.”

In the first half of this century Dr. Robert H. Beaven, president of the Chicago Baptist Missionary Training School (Northern Baptist), denied that Jesus Christ is God: “Christ’s uniqueness lay not in his divine substance but in the relationship which existed between him and God. God chose Jesus, the human Galilean carpenter, nurtured in the cradle of Jewish religion, to whom he came with his living fellowship, and through whom he introduced such to men. Jesus was divine because God ‘raised’ him to a new level of life. But this was not a oneness of substance. Christ’s life is an example, revealing the kind of life God wills for, and from, man; it is not a supernatural act set before us as a miraculous means of salvation” (Beaven, In Him Is Life). This was the man chiefly responsible for the education of Northern Baptist missionaries in those days.

In 1924, missionary M.R. Hartley of India represented the views of many Northern Baptist preachers when he stated: “We have no assurance that we have a trustworthy record of anything that Jesus Christ either said or did. ... I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God but I must interpret that in my own way. I can conceive of myself coming to a position where I could sincerely say that I believe in the deity of Jesus. I could almost say it now, but it would mean something different from orthodoxy, but orthodoxy seems like an impossible view. I do not see the necessity of the death of Christ. I do not believe in the second coming.”

Dr. Frederick Anderson, secretary of the Foreign Board of the Northern Baptist Convention in the late 1920s, questioned the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. “My mind is still open on this subject, which I do not consider of the first importance. I am rather inclined to believe in the virgin birth, but it is not essential to Christian faith, and should not be made a condition of church membership or ordination” (Anderson, The Life of Jesus). This is a false and wicked statement because if Jesus Christ was not virgin born the Bible is a pack of lies and our faith is built upon a fable. Further, if Christ was not virgin born He could not have been the sinless Son of God and could not, therefore, have died for our sins.

In the 1940s Andover-Newton Baptist Theological Seminary (American Baptist) graduate Myron J. Hertel gave the following reply when asked about the blood of Christ: “The blood of Jesus Christ is of no more value in the salvation of a soul than the water in which Pilate washed his hands.” Yet the American Baptist Home Mission Society called this young blasphemer to the position of the superintendent of the Boston Baptist City Mission (Robert T. Ketcham, The Answer, Sword of the Lord, pp. 10-16).

The 1948 meeting of the Northern Baptist Convention featured the influential modernist heretic George Buttrick. On page 284 of his book Christian Fact and Modern Doubt he stated: “The future is hidden. We must be faithful to our ignorance ... Jesus apparently conquered death ... But we do not know, why pretend we do ... We covet the chance to say to God hereafter, if God there be; Lord, they told us to grab the present gain, but there was more gain in staking life on a grand Perhaps.” The Apostle Paul said, “I KNOW whom I have believed, and am PERSUADED that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). The American Baptist-supported Buttrick said the Christian faith is merely a grand PERHAPS.

The 1950 Northern Baptist Convention meeting featured blasphemous modernist G. Bromley Oxnam, who called the God of the Old Testament a “dirty bully” (Oxnam, Preaching in a Revolutionary Age, p. 72), because his unregenerate, rebellious mind would not accept the righteous judgment of God upon sin.

Dr. A.S. Hobart, professor at the American Baptist Crozer Seminary, denied the substitutionary blood atonement of Jesus Christ: “I cannot see anything understandable or acceptable in theory that my guilt and my penalty were placed upon Christ, or that Christ’s holiness is imparted to me, in any way that involves a substitution of his holiness for mine, or his suffering for what was due me, that view of the theory of the atonement finds no foothold in my consciousness or my reason” (A.S. Hobart, Transplanted Truths from Romans, p. 29).

Another Crozer professor, Henry Vedder, concurred with Hobart in denying Christ’s salvation: “Of all the slanders men have perpetrated against the Most High, this doctrine of his substitutionary atonement is positively the most impudent and the most insulting. Jesus never taught and never authorized anybody to teach in his name that he suffered in our stead and bore the penalty of our sins” (Vedder, cited by R.T. Ketcham, The Answer, pp. 10-16).

Norris L. Tibbets, former pastor of the American Baptist Riverside Church in New York City, denied Christ’s bodily resurrection: “Then the third day came. A stone was rolled away and an imprisoned spirit was set free” (Tibbets, Secret Place, April-June 1950, published by the Northern Baptist Convention).

Duncan Littlefair was pastor of the Fountain Street Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was also a leader in the Northern Baptist Convention. As host pastor of the 1946 annual convention he said: “The Resurrection was not a physical event in history. If the body of Jesus had been raised physically it would only have been required to die again. We have made the physical aspect of the Resurrection the important thing. ... It is a shame and disgrace, really, that after all these centuries we should be living and thinking about the glory of the Resurrection on such levels as these” (Littlefair, The Nature of God).

Littlefair also denied that Jesus Christ is God: “Was Jesus God? There are two major approaches to this question. One of them seeks to make Jesus God. That seems to be the traditional notion of Christianity or at least the popular understanding of it, but I want to say here this morning, once and for all, if I haven’t said it before, and if I don’t say it again -- That is idolatry. Jesus is not and cannot be God. He was God in the same way that you and I may be God, by being an expression of him, and allowing him to express himself in us” (Littlefair, cited by R.T. Ketcham, The Answer, pp. 25-31).

American Baptist minister Jitsuo Morikawa, former pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, said in 1964: “God has already won a mighty redemption ... for the entire world ... The task of the church is to tell all men ... that they already belong to Christ ... Men are no longer lost ... There cannot be individual salvation” (Jitsuo Morikawa, Riverside Church, New York City, Christianity Today, March 13, 1964, p. 26).

American Baptist missionary D.T. Niles of India made the following statement espousing universalism before the American Baptist Convention: “...everybody is within the ministry of Jesus Christ whether or not he accepts it ... The only question [is] ‘Do you know that Jesus Christ is your Saviour?’ Jesus is Lord whether man knows it or not -- believes it or not” (J.O. Sanders, What of the Unevangelized, p. 21).

Nels F.S. Ferre, professor at the Northern Baptist Andover-Newton Theological School, was a modernist and a blasphemer of the highest caliber. He denied the virgin birth, deity, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He claimed that the Old Testament taught an “outworn morality” (Ferre, Pillars of Faith, p. 95). He stated that “God differs from all men, including Jesus, in that His personality alone is eternal and the Creator of all other personalities” (Ferre, The Christian Faith, 1942, p. 102). He conjectured that Jesus might have been the son of a Roman soldier (Ferre, Christian Understanding of God, p. 186). He claimed that accepting the Bible as the infallible Word of God is idolatry (Ferre, The Sun and the Umbrella, p. 39).

In the 1960s, Professor William Hamilton of Colgate Rochester Divinity School (American Baptist) taught that God is dead. Hamilton was defended in 1966 by Colgate president Gene Bartlett who refused to remove Hamilton from the faculty because he “was within the allowable measure of dissent.”

The American Baptist Convention in 1968 stated that abortion “should be a matter of responsible personal decision.”

In the early 1970s Dr. L. McBain, former president of the American Baptist Convention and president of the American Baptist Seminary of the West, argued that Jesus Christ is not referred to as God in the Scriptures (F.E.A. News & Views, Fundamental Evangelistic Association, Nov-Dec. 1976).

In an article in the December 1979 issue of the American Baptist magazine, Dr. L. Howard McBain, president of the American Baptist Seminary of the West. McBain, stated that the Bible does not teach that Jesus was God.

In 1980, American Baptist Dr. Ralph Wendell Burhoe received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion for his “revolutionary hypothesis that finds religion central to the evolutionary emergence of civilized humanity” (EP News Service, May 31, 1980).

The American Baptist Biennial Convention in 1981 featured Rosemary Radford Reuther, a Roman Catholic feminist whose “language often sounds more like it belongs in the gutter than in the church” (Foundation, Fundamental Evangelistic Association, January-February 1981, p. 18).

American Baptist (Harvard) professor Harvey Cox is a notorious modernist. In his book The Secular City he claimed that “the world, not the church, is the proper focus of Christian life” and “the world of politics is a primary sphere of God’s liberating work today” (Richard Quebedeaux, The Worldly Evangelicals, Harper and Row, 1978, p. 19). In his book The Feast of Fools, Cox refers to Jesus Christ as a harlequin and a clown. Cox does not believe that followers of pagan religions are on their way to Hell. He was a speaker at the World Congress for the Synthesis of Science and Religion in India in 1986. The conference was arranged by a Hindu organization.

The June 1991 issue of WATCHword, a women’s ministry paper of the ABC, stated: “What I have come to love about Scripture is the fact that it is not inerrant. That it is not perfect. That it is not complete. That it does contradict itself...”

Former American Baptist president James Scott stated in the March 1992 issue of American Baptist magazine that the issue of homosexuality should be re-examined and that there might be various legitimate points of view about it other than the traditional biblical one that it is an abomination before God.

In August 1993, American Baptist deputy general secretary for cooperative Christianity, Joan S. Parrott, sat with 386 cardinals and bishops surrounding Pope John Paul II at the Roman Catholic Church’s World Youth Day in Denver. She was part of a nine-member ecumenical team including Protestant and Jewish leaders who were given a special banquet before the prayer vigil and met with the pope after his sermon. She had lavish praise for the ecumenical event (Calvary Contender, Jan. 1, 1994).

The American Baptist Convention sent representatives to the Re-imagining conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in November 1993. Speakers included Chung Hyung Kyung, a Korean “theologian” who equates the Holy Spirit with ancient Asian deities and who prays to trees and deceased spirits. At the conference Delores Williams said: “I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all. I think Jesus came for life and to show us something about life. I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff.” Virginia Mollenkott said that Jesus was “first born only in the sense that he was the first to show us that it is possible to live in oneness with the divine source while we are here on this planet.” Chung Hyung Kyung said: “My bowel is Buddhist bowel, my heart is Buddhist heart, my right brain is Confucian brain, and my left brain is Christian brain.” During the conference, a group of roughly 100 “lesbian, bi-sexual, and transsexual women” gathered on the platform and were given a standing ovation by many in the crowd. They were “celebrating the miracle of being lesbian, out, and Christian.” In a workshop called ‘Prophetic Voices of Lesbians in the Church,’ Nadean Bishop, the first ‘out’ lesbian minister called to an American Baptist church, claimed that Mary and Martha in the Bible were lesbian ‘fore-sisters.’ She said they were not sisters, but lesbian lovers.

The unscriptural ecumenical philosophy of the Baptist World Alliance is illustrated by that of its member body the American Baptist Convention. An ABC publication entitled “Oneness in Christ: American Baptists Are Ecumenical” leaves no doubt about their position. This publication was compiled and edited by the “Reverend” Martha Barr, former Assistant General Secretary and Ecumenical Officer of the ABC. “We American Baptists run the whole theological range -- fundamentalists, conservative orthodox, liberal ... Maybe it is partly because American Baptists are so inclusive that we affirm that we are ecumenical. ... We do not have creedal statements. We can worship and work with Episcopalian and Pentecostal, with Roman Catholic and Orthodox.”

The fact that the Southern Baptist Convention participates with and funds the Baptist World Alliance leaves no doubt about its rebellion to the Word of God. As a member of the Baptist World Alliance, the SBC is yoking together with and supporting heresy and blasphemy around the world. The Bible commands:

“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).

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

“Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 9-11).

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EMERGING CHURCH HYPOCRISY

September 10, 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) -

The following is excerpted from What Is the Emerging Church? which is available from Way of Life Literature.
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There is a great hypocrisy that permeates emerging church writings.

They denounce dogmatism in the most dogmatic terms!

They reject judgmentalism in the most judgmental terms, having nothing to say of fundamentalist Christianity except ridicule and denunciation.

They reject traditional patterns of Bible “spirituality,” such as daily devotions, as dull and legalistically obligatory, but they accept the most stringent forms of Catholic “spirituality,” such as lectio divina and keeping “the hours” and monasticism, as exciting and life-giving.

And they claim to be “Red Letter Christians,” when in reality they don’t keep the commands Christ gave in the Gospels.

Tony Campolo says:

“By calling ourselves Red-Letter Christians, we are alluding to the fact that in several versions of the New Testament, the words of Jesus are printed in red. In adopting this name, we are saying that we are committed to living out the things that He said. Of course, the message in those red-lettered verses is radical, to say the least. If you don’t believe me, read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). ... Figuring out just how to relate those radical red letters in the Bible to the complex issues in the modern world will be difficult, but that’s what we’ll try to do” (“Red Letter Christian,” Oct. 25, 2007, http://livingintentionally.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/red-letter-christian/).

Jim Wallis of Sojourners says the same thing.

“In Matthew 5, 6, and 7, Jesus offers his Sermon on the Mount, which serves as the manifesto of his new order, the Magna Carta of the new age, the constitution of the kingdom” (The Great Awakening, p. 62).

But Campolo, Wallis, and other emergents are very selective in their obedience to the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, the Sermon on the Mount clearly refutes emerging church theology.

Christ warned against breaking even the least of God’s commandments (Mat. 5:19). This is in contrast to the emerging church’s position that only the “cardinal” doctrines are of great significance.

Christ frequently warned about hell fire (Mat. 5:22, 29-30), but this is a subject that emergents grossly neglect and even blatantly deny.

Christ warned about imprisonment for disobedience to God’s Word (Mat. 5:25-26), but emergents do not take this literally.

Christ warned strongly against divorce and remarriage (Mat. 5:31-32). In contrast we have the emerging church’s tendency to downplay the importance of strict morality. The emerging church is even hesitant to condemn homosexuality, but if it is adultery in God’s eyes for a man to divorce his wife and marry another woman, except for fornication, how much more is it immoral for a man to sleep with a man or a woman with a woman?

Christ taught against laying up treasures on earth (Mat. 6:19-21), yet Campolo and most other emergents and their churches and organizations have a great many treasures on earth. In an interview with Campolo in February 2008 at the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta, Georgia, I asked him if he obeys the Lord’s command in the Sermon on the Mount to sell what you have and give alms. He admitted that he is something of a hypocrite in that area. He drives a nice car, lives in a nice house, has nice clothes, heaps of possessions, a retirement fund, etc. There are exceptions, but in general the emergents really don’t take this part of Christ’s Sermon all that seriously!

Christ taught the people to be heavenly-minded (Mat. 6:19-21), but the emerging church ridicules this mindset and instructs us to be earthly-minded.

Christ said to take no thought about food or clothing (Mat. 6:25, 31), but the emerging church typically takes plenty of thought about this.

Christ said to take no thought for tomorrow (Mat. 6:34), but the emerging church makes detailed plans.

Christ said not to give holy things to dogs (Mat. 7:6), but the emerging church doesn’t want to believe that there is a great difference between holy and unholy and does not believe in dividing people into groups and calling some dogs, disliking “judgmentalism” and “labeling.”

Christ taught that men are evil (Mat. 7:11), but the emerging church thinks that this is not necessarily true.

Christ taught that the way of salvation is narrow and few are saved (Mat. 7:13-14), but the emerging church claims that the way of salvation is broad and many might be saved, even if they don’t have personal faith in Jesus.

Christ taught that we should be on the outlook for false teachers (Mat. 7:15), but the emerging church claims that we should relax and not be uptight about doctrine and error.

Prominently in His teaching on the kingdom of God, Christ commanded men to repent of their sin. “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat. 4:17). Yet the emerging church is exceedingly weak about the business of repentance and is not even certain that homosexuals have anything to repent of!

Further, the Sermon on the Mount reminds us that Christ was a bold and dogmatic preacher, whereas the emerging church doesn’t like such preaching, preferring story-telling and “sharing.”

Thus, this idea that we should be Red Letter Christians is not consistently followed even by its own proponents. The Gospels do not present a Christ that looks anything like the emerging church.

The hypocrisy within the emerging church is amazing to behold.
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This is excerpted from What Is the Emerging Church? which is available from Way of Life Literature.

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICES ARE A BRIDGE TO PAGANISM

August 26, 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) -

The following is derived from our new book Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond. This is available from Way of Life Literature. If it is not yet available through the online catalog, it can be ordered by phone or e-mail with a credit card.
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The Catholic contemplative practices (e.g., centering prayer, lectio divina, the Jesus prayer, Breath prayer, visualization prayer) that are flooding into evangelicalism are an interfaith bridge to eastern religions.

Many are openly promoting the integration of pagan practices such as Zen Buddhism and Hindu yoga.

In the book Spiritual Friend (which is highly recommended by the “evangelical” Richard Foster), Tilden Edwards says:

“This mystical stream is THE WESTERN BRIDGE TO FAR EASTERN SPIRITUALITY” (Spiritual Friend, 1980, pp. 18, 19).

Since Eastern “spirituality” is idol worship and the worship of self and thus is communion with devils, what Edwards is unwittingly saying is that contemplative practices are a bridge to demonic realms.

The Roman Catholic contemplative gurus that the evangelicals are following have, in recent decades, developed intimate relationships with pagan mystics.

Jesuit priest Thomas Clarke admits that the Catholic contemplative movement has “BEEN INFLUENCED BY ZEN BUDDHISM, TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION, OR OTHER CURRENTS OF EASTERN SPIRITUALITY” (Finding Grace at the Center, pp. 79, 80).

Consider just a few of the many examples we could give.

THOMAS MERTON, the most influential Roman Catholic contemplative of this generation, was “a strong builder of bridges between East and West” (Twentieth-Century Mystics, p. 39). The Yoga Journal makes the following observation:

“Merton had encountered Zen Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism and Vedanta many years prior to his Asian journey. MERTON WAS ABLE TO UNCOVER THE STREAM WHERE THE WISDOM OF EAST AND WEST MERGE AND FLOW TOGETHER, BEYOND DOGMA, IN THE DEPTHS OF INNER EXPERIENCE. ... Merton embraced the spiritual philosophies of the East and integrated this wisdom into (his) own life through direct practice” (Yoga Journal, Jan.-Feb. 1999, quoted from Lighthouse Trails web site).

Merton was a student of Zen master Daisetsu Suzuki and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. In fact, he claimed to be both a Buddhist and a Christian. The titles of his books include Zen and the Birds of the Appetite and Mystics and the Zen Masters. He said: “I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity. The future of Zen is in the West. I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can” (David Steindl-Rast, “Recollection of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West,” Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969, http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/dsr_merton_recol2.htm).

Merton defined mysticism as an experience with wisdom and God beyond words. In a speech to monks of eastern religions in Calcutta in October 1968 he said: “... the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. IT IS WORDLESS. IT IS BEYOND WORDS, AND IT IS BEYOND SPEECH, and it is BEYOND CONCEPT” (The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, 1975 edition, p. 308).

In 1969 Merton took the trip of his dreams, to visit India, Ceylon, Singapore, and Thailand, to experience the places where his beloved eastern religions were born. He said he was “going home.”

In Sri Lanka he visited a Buddhist shrine by the ocean. Approaching the Buddha idols barefoot he was struck with the “great smiles,” their countenance signifying that they were “questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace ... that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything--without refutation--without establishing some other argument” (The Asian Journal, p. 233).

This alleged wisdom is a complete denial of the Bible, which teaches us that there is truth and there is error, light and darkness, God and Satan, and they are not one. The apostle John said, “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). True wisdom lies in testing all things by God’s infallible Revelation and rejecting that which is false. Proverbs says, “The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going” (Prov. 14:15).

Merton described his visit to the Buddhas as an experience of great illumination, a vision of “inner clearness.” He said, “I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination” (The Asian Journal, p. 235). Actually it was a demonic delusion.

Six days later Merton was electrocuted in a cottage in Bangkok by a faulty fan switch. He was fifty-four years old.

Merton has many disciples in the Roman Catholic Church, including David Steindle-Rast, William Johnston, Henri Nouwen, Philip St. Romain, William Shannon, and James Finley.

Benedictine monk JOHN MAIN, who is a pioneer in the field of contemplative spirituality, studied under a Hindu guru. Main combined Catholic contemplative practices with yoga and in 1975 began founding meditation groups in Catholic monasteries on this principle. These spread outside of the Catholic Church and grew into an ecumenical network called the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM). He taught the following method:

“Sit still and upright, close your eyes and repeat your prayer-phrase (mantra). Recite your prayer-phrase and gently listen to it as you say it. DO NOT THINK ABOUT ANYTHING. As thoughts come, simply keep returning to your prayer-phrase. In this way, one places everything aside: INSTEAD OF TALKING TO GOD, ONE IS JUST BEING WITH GOD, allowing God’s presence to fill his heart, thus transforming his inner being” (The Teaching of Dom John Main: How to Meditate, Meditation Group of Saint Patrick’s Basilica, Ottawa, Canada).

THOMAS KEATING is heavily involved in interfaith dialogue and promotes the use of contemplative practices as a tool for creating interfaith unity. He says, “It is important for us to appreciate the values that are present in the genuine teachings of the great religions of the world” (Finding Grace at the Center, 2002, p. 76).

Keating is past president of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (MID), which is sponsored by the Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries of North America. Founded in 1977, it is “committed to fostering interreligious and intermonastic dialogue AT THE LEVEL OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE.” This means that they are using contemplative practices and yoga as the glue for interfaith unity to help create world peace. MID works in association with the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Consider one of the objectives of the MID:

“The methods of concentration used in other religious traditions can be useful for removing obstacles to a deep contact with God. THEY CAN GIVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE ONENESS OF CHRIST AS EXPRESSED IN THE VARIOUS TRADITIONS and CONTRIBUTE TO THE FORMATION OF A NEW WORLD RELIGIOUS CULTURE. They can also be helpful in the development of certain potencies in the individual, for THERE ARE SOME ZEN-HINDU-SUFI-ETC. DIMENSIONS IN EACH HEART” (Mary L. O’Hara, “Report on Monastic Meeting at Petersham,” MID Bulletin 1, October 1977).

Keating and Richard Foster are involved in the Living Spiritual Teachers Project, a group that associates together Zen Buddhist monks and nuns, universalists, occultists, and New Agers. Members include the Dalai Lama, who claims to be the reincarnation of an advanced spiritual person; Marianne Williamson, promoter of the occultic A Course in Miracles; Marcus Borg, who believes that Jesus was not virgin born and did not rise from the grave; Catholic nun Joan Chittister, who says we must become “in tune with the cosmic voice of God”; Andrew Harvey, who says that men need to “claim their divine humanity”; Matthew Fox, who believes there are many paths to God; Alan Jones, who calls the doctrine of the cross a vile doctrine; and Desmond Tutu, who says “because everybody is a God-carrier, all are brothers and sisters.”

M. BASIL PENNINGTON, a Roman Catholic Trappist monk and co-author of the influential contemplative book Finding Grace at the Center, calls Hindu swamis “our wise friends from the East” and says, “Many Christians who take their prayer life seriously have been greatly helped by Yoga, Zen, TM, and similar practices...” (25th anniversary edition, p. 23).

In his foreword to THOMAS RYAN’S book Disciplines for Christian Living, Henri Nouwen says: “[T]he author shows A WONDERFUL OPENNESS TO THE GIFTS OF BUDDHISM, HINDUISM, AND MOSLEM RELIGION. He discovers their great wisdom for the spiritual life of the Christian and does not hesitate to bring that wisdom home.”

ANTHONY DE MELLO readily admitted to borrowing from Buddhist Zen masters and Hindu gurus. He even taught that God is everything: “Think of the air as of an immense ocean that surrounds you ... an ocean heavily colored with God’s presence and God’s bring. ... While you draw the air into your lungs you are drawing God in” (Sadhana: A Way to God, p. 36).

De Mello suggested chanting the Hindu word “om” (p. 49) and even instructed his students to communicate with inanimate objects:

“Choose some object that you use frequently: a pen, a cup ... Now gently place the object in front of you or on your lap and speak to it. Begin by asking it questions about itself, its life, its origins, its future. And listen while it unfolds to you the secret of its being and of its destiny. Listen while it explains to you what existence means to it. Your object has some hidden wisdom to reveal to you about yourself. Ask for this and listen to what it has to say. There is something that you can give this object. What is it? What does it want from you?” (p. 55).

Paulist priest THOMAS RYAN took a sabbatical in India in 1991 and was initiated in yoga and Buddhist meditation. Today he is a certified teacher of Kripalu yoga. In his book Prayer of Heart and Body: Meditation and Yoga as Christian Spiritual Practice (1995) and his DVD Yoga Prayer (2004) he combines Catholic contemplative practices with Hindu yoga.

All of these are influential voices in the contemplative movement, and those who dabble in the movement will eventually associate with them and with others like them. This the Bible forbids in the strongest terms.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).

SOME OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTEMPLATIVE PRIESTS HAVE PURSUED THEIR INTERFAITH VENTURE SO FAR THAT THEY HAVE BECOME HINDU AND ZEN BUDDHIST MONKS. FOLLOWING ARE A FEW EXAMPLES:

JULES MONCHANIN and HENRI LE SAUX, Benedictine priests, founded a Hindu-Christian ashram in India called Shantivanam (Forest of Peace). They took the names of Hindu holy men, with le Saux calling himself Swami Abhishiktananda (bliss of the anointed one). He stayed in Hindu ashrams and learned from Hindu gurus, going barefoot, wearing an orange robe, and practicing vegetarianism. In 1968 le Saux became a hermit in the Himalayas, living there until his death in 1973.

The Shantivanam Ashram was subsequently led by ALAN GRIFFITHS (1906-93). He called himself Swami Dayananda (bliss of compassion). Through his books and lecture tours Griffiths had a large influence in promoting the interfaith philosophy in Roman Catholic monasteries in America, England, Australia, and Germany. He eventually came to believe in the reality of goddess worship.

WAYNE TEASDALE (1945-2004) was a Roman Catholic lay monk whose writings are influential in the contemplative movement. As a student in a Catholic college in Massachusetts, he began visiting St. Joseph’s Abbey near Spencer and came under the direction of Thomas Keating. This led him into an intimate association with pagan religions and the adoption of Hinduism. Teasdale visited Shantivanam Ashram and lived in a nearby Hindu ashram for two years, following in Bede Griffiths’ footsteps. In 1989 he became a “Christian” sanyassa or a Hindu monk. Teasdale was deeply involved in interfaith activities, believing that what the religions hold in common can be the basis for creating a new world, which he called the “Interspiritual Age” -- a “global culture based on common spiritual values.” He believed that mystics of all religions are in touch with the same God. He helped found the Interspiritual Dialogue in Action (ISDnA), one of the many New Age organizations affiliated with the United Nations. (Its NGO sponsor is the National Service Conference of the American Ethical Union.) It is committed “to actively serve in the evolution of human consciousness and global transformation.”

WILLIGIS JAGER, a well-known German Benedictine priest who has published contemplative books in German and English, spent six years studying Zen Buddhism under Yamada Koun Roshi. (Roshi is the title of a Zen master.) In 1981 he was authorized as a Zen teacher and took the name Ko-un Roshi. He moved back to Germany and began teaching Zen at the Munsterschwarzach Abbey, drawing as many as 150 people a day.

In February 2002 he was ordered by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (currently Pope Benedict XVI) to cease all public activities. He was “faulted for playing down the Christian concept of God as a person and for stressing mystical experience above doctrinal truths” (“Two More Scholars Censured by Rome,” National Catholic Reporter, March 1, 2002).

Thus, Ratzinger tried to stem the tide of eastern mysticism that is flooding into the Catholic monastic communities, but he was extremely inconsistent and ultimately ineffectual.

Jager kept quiet for a little while, but soon he was speaking and writing again. In 2003 Liguori Press published Search for the Meaning of Life: Essays and Reflections on the Mystical Experience, and in 2006 Liguori published Mysticism for Modern Times: Conversations with Willigis Jager

Jager denies the creation and fall of man as taught in the Bible. He denies the unique divinity of Christ, as well as His substitutionary atonement and bodily resurrection. He believes that the universe is evolving and that evolving universe is God. He believes that man has reached a major milestone in evolution, that he is entering an era in which his consciousness will be transformed. Jager believes in the divinity of man, that what Christ is every man can become. He believes that all religions point to the same God and promotes interfaith dialogue as the key to unifying mankind.

Jager learned these heretical pagan doctrines from his close association with Zen Buddhism and his mindless mysticism. He says that the aim of Christian prayer is transcendental contemplation in which the practitioner enters a deeper level of consciousness. This requires emptying the mind, which is achieved by focusing on the breathing and repeating a mantra. This “quiets the rational mind,” “empties the mind,” and “frustrates our ordinary discursive thinking” (James Conner, “Contemplative Retreat for Monastics,” Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin, Oct. 1985).

This is the same practice that is taught in the 14th century Catholic writing The Cloud of Unknowing, which is very influential in modern contemplative circles.

Jager says that as the rational thinking is emptied and transformed, one “seems to lose orientation” and must “go on in blind faith and trust.” He says that there is “nothing to do but surrender” to “THIS PURE BLACKNESS” where “NO IMAGE OR THOUGHT OF GOD REMAINS.”

This is idolatry. To reject the Revelation God has given of Himself and to attempt to find Him beyond this Revelation through blind mysticism is to trade the true and living God for an idol.

THERE IS ALSO AN INTIMATE AND GROWING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CATHOLIC CONTEMPLATIVE MOVEMENT AND THE NEW AGE.

The aforementioned Thomas Keating is past president of the Temple of Understanding, a New Age organization founded in 1960 by Juliet Hollister. The mission of this organization is to “create a more just and peaceful world.” The tools for reaching this objective include interfaith education, dialogue, and experiential knowledge (mystical practices).

Shambhala Publications, a publisher that specializes in Occultic, Jungian, New Age, Buddhist, and Hindu writings, also publishes the writings of Catholic mystics, including The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton, The Writings of Hildegard of Bingen, and The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.

Sue Monk Kidd, who believes in the divinity of mankind and considers herself a goddess, was asked to write recommendations to two Catholic contemplative books. She wrote the foreword to the 2006 edition of Henri Nouwen’s With Open Hands and the introduction to the 2007 edition of Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation.

New Ager Caroline Myss (pronounced mace) has written a book based on Teresa of Avila’s visions. It is entitled Entering the Castle: Finding the Inner Path to God and Your Soul’s Purpose. Myss says, “For me, the spirit is the vessel of divinity” (“Caroline Myss’ Journey,” Conscious Choice, September 2003).

On April 15, 2008, emerging church leaders Rob Bell and Doug Pagitt joined the Dalai Lama for the New Age Seeds of Compassion InterSpiritual Event in Seattle. It brought together Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Buddhists, Sikhs, Muslims, and others. The event featured a dialogue on “the themes common to all spiritual traditions.” The Dalai Lama said, “I think everyone, ultimately, deep inside [has] some kind of goodness” (“Emergent Church Leaders’ InterSpirituality,” Christian Post, April 17, 2008).

In his book Velvet Jesus, Bell gives a glowing recommendation of the New Age philosopher Ken Wilber. Bell recommends that his readers sit at Wilber’s feet for three months!

“For a mind-blowing introduction to emergence theory and divine creativity, set aside three months and read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything” (Velvet Elvis, p. 192).

The aforementioned Catholic contemplative monk Wayne Teasdale conducted a Mystic Heart seminar series with Wilber. In the first seminar in this series Teasdale said, “You are God; I am God; they are God; it is God” (“The Mystic Heart: The Supreme Identity,” http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7652038071112490301&q=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).

Wilber says that this perennial philosophy “forms the esoteric core of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, AND CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM” (p. 5).

Thus, this New Ager recognizes that Roman Catholic mysticism, which spawned the contemplative movement within Protestantism, has the same esoteric core faith as pagan idolatry!
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This article is derived from our new book Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond. This is available from Way of Life Literature. If it is not yet available through the online catalog, it can be ordered by phone or e-mail with a credit card.

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

FROM FUNDAMENTALISM TO ECUMENISM: A WARNING ABOUT THE EMERGING CHURCH FROM THE LIFE OF ROBERT WEBBER

July 2, 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) -

The following is from the new book we are finishing up entitled What about the Emerging Church?
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Robert Webber (1933-2007) was a professor at Wheaton College for about 30 years and taught at Northern Seminary in Chicago the last seven years of his life.

He is one of the fathers of the contemplative movement and a very influential voice in the emerging church. In his book Common Roots (1978) he argued that the early church era of A.D. 100-500 has “insights which evangelicals need to recover.” Those “insights” include monastic “contemplative spirituality.”

Webber continued this line of thinking in Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals Are Attracted to the Liturgical Church (1985), Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World (1999), Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World (2002), and The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (2006).

Webber promoted a very broad ecumenism:

“Paradigm thinking sets us free to affirm the whole church in all its previous manifestations. ...This search for a common heritage allows for the emergence of a new understanding of unity and diversity. ... So while we are all Christians, some of us are Roman Catholic Christians, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Reformation Christians, twentieth-century Christians, or some other form of modern or postmodern Christians” (Ancient-Future Faith, pp. 16, 17).

“A goal for evangelicals in the postmodern world is to accept diversity as a historical reality, but to seek unity in the midst of it. This perspective will allow us to see Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches as various forms of the one true church...” (Ancient-Future Faith, p. 85).

“We evangelicals need to turn our backs on the old separatist model” (Ancient-Future Faith, p. 86).

“Today evangelicals and Catholics are enjoying spiritual camaraderie that was nonexistent a few years ago. ... Evangelicals in a postmodern world will increasingly feel at home with Catholics, Orthodox, and other Protestant bodies...” (Ancient-Future Faith, p. 87).

“... evangelicals need to go beyond talk about the unity of the church to experience it through an attitude of acceptance of the whole church and an entrance into dialogue with the Orthodox, Catholic, and other Protestant bodies” (Ancient-Future Faith, p. 89).

Before he died Webber organized “A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future,” an effort to challenge evangelicals “to strengthen their witness through a recovery of the faith articulated by the consensus of the ancient Church and its guardians in the traditions of EASTERN ORTHODOXY, ROMAN CATHOLICISM, the Protestant Reformation and the Evangelical awakenings.”

To arrive at this radical ecumenical position, Webber traveled far from his roots. In the books Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail and The Divine Embrace he described the move away from a strict biblicist position.

Webber grew up in a fundamental Baptist home. His father, who was born in 1900, was involved in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and was a separatist. He left the liberal American Baptist Convention and joined the Conservative Baptists. Webber’s parents were missionaries in Africa for the first seven years of his life. The family moved back to the States when one of their children became seriously ill and the father pastored the Montgomeryville Baptist Church, located about 25 miles west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After high school Webber attended Bob Jones University.

Describing his childhood he says:

“I went to Christian schools and palled around with Christian friends from my youth group. The boundaries of home, church, and school were very tight” (The Divine Embrace, p. 150).

“I was the kid who couldn’t go to the movies, the kid who had to keep Sunday as a holy day (no sports), the kid who had to watch everything I did and said. But I wasn’t just a preacher’s kid. I was also a fundamentalist Baptist. From an early age, it was thoroughly ingrained within me that I was both a fundamentalist and a Baptist. Being Christian wasn’t enough. ... Catholics were pagan. Episcopalianism was a social club. Lutherans had departed from the faith. Presbyterians were formalistic. And Pentecostals were off-center” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 13).

“One central conviction of my parents was that our fundamentalist way was the only faith that stood in continuity with the New Testament. All other viewpoints were distorted at best and some, especially Roman Catholicism, contained no connection with New Testament Christianity whatsoever” (The Divine Embrace, p. 199).

What he was taught about Rome was true. How did he get from there to the point where he considered the Roman Catholic Church a genuine church and the Protestant Reformation “a tragedy”? He describes the steps in his books.

Lack of Clarity about Personal Salvation

One thing that is missing in the biographical account of his youth is a biblical testimony of salvation. Never does he give a biblical, life-changing testimony of being born again and walking with Christ in sweet fellowship through faith in God’s Word. The closest he comes is a description of an event that occurred when he was 13. His father talked to him about the need to be baptized. He did not seek out baptism because he had experienced a born again conversion; rather, his father talked him into it.

“I remember going out on the back porch that night, looking up into the stars, and asking myself whether or not I really believed, whether or not I was willing to take up my cross and follow after Christ. The prospect of my own baptism caused me to choose Christ again in a more intense way, to determine once more to follow him” (pp. 45, 46).

This is a works orientation to salvation. A determination to follow Christ is not the same as acknowledging one’s utter sinfulness and surrendering oneself into His care and trusting Him exclusively as one’s Saviour.

Webber argued that salvation does not have to be a dramatic conversion experience and he admitted that he didn’t have such an experience. He said that repentance “can have a dramatic beginning or can come as a result of a process over time” (The Divine Embrace, p. 149). He saw salvation is a sacramental process that begins at baptism, and this is one reason why he left the Baptist church and joined the Episcopalian and was perfectly comfortable with Roman Catholicism.

Webber described many experiences he had with his students, but he doesn’t give any examples of counseling them about personal salvation. Consider something that happened to him in 1968, during his first year of teaching at Wheaton College. As Webber was giving proofs for the existence of God, a student raised his hand and said that he didn’t believe that God exists and that the proofs didn’t mean anything to him (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 27). When Webber asked the class if anyone else agreed, “several other hands slipped into the air.” What is even more amazing than the fact that several Bible college students were atheists or agnostics was Webber’s response. He asked them what they wanted him to teach and allowed them to guide him in a “search for a more profound and deeper meaning in life” by “tuning into the questions of meaning asked by the artists of our generation.” Pathetically, he even says, “I can’t say we came to adequate conclusions” (p. 28).

What he did not do is question these students’ salvation and try to lead them to Christ, which should have been the very first thing he did.

Once-for-all personal regeneration is absolutely foundational to “experiencing God,” but it is glaring in its absence in Webber’s writings. What we have instead is an emphasis on sacramental terminology.

“... the sacrament ... is a means through which Christ encounters us savingly” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, pp. 50, 51).

“He who saved me at the cross continues to extend his salvation to me through the simple and concrete signs of bread and wine” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 51).

“In the Eucharist I feel both saved again and compelled to live in the Eucharistic way. Both justification and sanctification are communicated to me” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 84).

“Baptism is the spiritual rite of conscious and intentional union with Jesus ... and reception of the Holy Spirit ...” (The Divine Embrace, p. 67).

“When baptism is enacted in faith, the spirit of God performs, ascribes, and accomplishes the very meaning of baptism--a forgiveness of our old identity is made real, and a new identity with Jesus is actualized” (The Divine Embrace, p. 152).

Webber even warns that it is possible to “overstress conversion.” He describes how that in 1983 Jon Braun of the Evangelical Orthodox Church spoke to Webber’s class at Wheaton about his pilgrimage into Orthodoxy.

“He was speaking about his upbringing in a Christian home and the fact that as a young person he had always believed but had had no dramatic experience of salvation. His parents, anxious for him to have a dramatic conversion experience, began to push him toward a decision. ‘This,’ he said soberly, ‘actually pushed me out of the church and made me think for a temporary period of time that I was an unbeliever.’ He then went on to say that placing too much emphasis on a dateable experience of salvation can be dangerous if we do not take into account that many who grow up in Christian homes grow into faith without such an experience” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 76).

Jesus said that salvation is something you are supernaturally born into, not something you grow into. Webber should have encouraged parents who want their children to have a clear new birth experience, but instead he casts aspersion on such a thing and even says that it might be dangerous. To say that “I have always believed” is an unscriptural testimony. You might not know the exact date, but you certainly should know when and where it happened and how that it clearly changed your life (2 Corinthians 5:17). You should be able to testify how that you acknowledged your sin against God and repented of it and put your faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the gospel, and called upon Him for salvation (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 10:12-13; Acts 20:21). That is the only type of “conversion” that is described in the New Testament.

Webber says that “a dramatic experience of the saving reality of Christ is not to be denied or minimized” (p. 76), but he does deny and minimize it by indicating that there are other ways of salvation such as growing into faith and sacramentalism and by confusing justification with sanctification.

Lack of clarity about personal salvation is a foundational error of the emerging church.

Rejection of Separatism

Webber’s first step to ecumenism was in rejecting the biblical doctrine of separation. He describes how that at Bob Jones University he heard the accusation that “Billy Graham is the greatest tool of the devil in the twentieth century” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 70). They warned that Graham was flirting with modernism and compromising the gospel through cooperative evangelism, which is absolutely true, but Webber rejected that argument in his heart.

He mislabels the call for separation from disobedient compromisers like Graham as “second degree separation.” In fact, it is not second degree but first! The Bible warns God’s people to “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17). That is exactly what Billy Graham has done throughout his ecumenical career. He has taught a generation of evangelicals to downplay doctrine and to fellowship with heretics, and that is directly contrary to the doctrine that we learned from the apostles. Paul exalted doctrine and taught us to be very strict about it (1 Timothy 1:3) and he condemned heretics in the boldest, plainest manner (e.g., 1 Timothy 1:18-20; 2 Timothy 2:16-18).

Rejection of a Pure Church

Another thing that occurred when Webber was at Bible College was his rejection of the doctrine of a pure church.

“Why, I wondered, were we always so busy defining the perimeters in which truth and a right relationship to God were accurately defined? Was it really possible, I wondered, to have a pure church? The more I thought about this the more I felt that to be truly pure was an impossibility. ... How can anyone except God himself be pure and uncontaminated from false belief, ethical error, and incomplete judgment? For me the so-called concept of the purity of the church was a strait-jacket that made me increasingly uncomfortable” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 71).

His question is answered plainly and simply in Scripture. Paul wrote to the church of Corinth and reproved and corrected them for their sins and errors. He urged them to be pure. He instructed them put the fornicator out of their midst (1 Corinthians 5) and to deal with the false teachers (2 Corinthians 11). Paul said:

“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 Corinthians 5:7-8).

It is God’s will that the churches be pure, and even though we don’t live up to this in a perfect manner in this present world, that must always be the goal. We are to continually purge out the old leaven.

The doctrine of a pure church is not a strait-jacket for those who love Christ and want to please Him. Christ addressed seven of the churches in Asia in Revelation 2-3 and He reproved them for their sin and errors and called upon them to repent. He warned that He would reject those that did not repent (Revelation 2:5). This is the standard for the entire church age. It is not the will of Christ that we ever grow complacent about sin and error in the churches.

The doctrine of a pure church is only a strait-jacket to those who want to be careless about doctrine for the sake of pursuing an ecumenical agenda.

Attending the Wrong Schools

Though he was raised in fundamental Baptist doctrine, Webber pursued theological graduate training in non-fundamentalist and non-Baptist schools (Reformed, Lutheran, Episcopal). This is a perfect recipe for going out of the right way. While attending Protestant seminaries he rejected the Baptist faith and became a Protestant. That is not a surprise!

And it was at these seminaries, as we shall see, that Webber was taught about ecumenism and sacramentalism.

It was at these seminaries, too, where he also learned to think and write and speak in a complicated, philosophical manner. He writes far over the head of the ordinary Christian. His books could not help the simple village people in Africa that his parents helped by preaching simple Bible truth. He has complicated the simplicity of the faith (2 Corinthians 11:3). He forgot that God has revealed His truth to babes (Mat. 11:25), that God has chosen to confound the wise of the world through the simple preaching of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:17-29).

Falling in Love with Calvin

First Webber fell in love with John Calvin.

“I was particularly attracted to John Calvin. ... At the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. I studied under Robert K. Rudolf, a master teacher and a walking encyclopedia of Calvinist theology. By his magnetic personality and his deep devotion to logically consistent truths I was soon drawn into the teaching of John Calvin” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 60).

Calvin came out of Rome, but he clung to many of Rome’s errors, including infant baptism, sacramentalism, the priesthood, church statism, and amillennialism. He did not understand properly the doctrine of salvation or the church or Bible prophecy, among others. Calvin did not have a personal testimony of salvation other than his infant baptism and he was an avowed enemy of Baptists. He imprisoned them and put them to death, burning one of them at the stake. Calvin’s allegorical interpretation of prophecy does away with the imminency of the return of Christ, which is a very important doctrine and has a great impact on Christian living.

To fall in love with Calvin is a definite step away from the simple New Testament Christian faith and church and a definite step toward Rome.

Studying the Church Fathers

Another stepping stone toward ecumenism was the study of the Church Fathers. Many of those who have converted to Rome have testified that the Church Fathers helped them in this venture. In reality, most of the so-called church fathers of the early centuries were tainted with heresies such as sacramentalism, sanctification through ascetism, infant baptism, sacerdotalism (priestcraft), hierarchicalism, inquisitionalism, and Mariolatry. They represent a gradual falling away from the apostolic faith and a preparation for the formation of the Roman Catholic Church. (See the article “Who Are the Church Fathers” at the Way of Life web site.)

Webber said that he stopped looking back on church history in a “judgmental manner” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, pp. 61, 62). That was a great error, because the Bible says we are to “prove all things” (1 Thess. 5:21).

Attending an Ecumenical Prayer Fellowship

Another turning point in Webber’s life occurred in 1965 when he attended an ecumenical prayer community, invited by one of his seminary professors. Benedictine monks formed half of the group. Instead of obeying Romans 16:17 and 1 Corinthians 15:33 and many other Scriptures, Webber agreed to attend. He says, “As time went on my prejudices against the Roman Catholics began to fall by the wayside. I had encountered real people who were deeply committed to Christ and his church” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 64). Dedicated Roman Catholics are obviously real people who are committed to Christ, but what Christ? Rome teaches that the consecrated wafer is Christ. And they are obviously committed to the “church,” but not the church that we see in the Bible.

Over the course of the next two years Webber’s thinking completely changed (The Divine Embrace, pp. 199, 200).

In October 1972, he preached a sermon at Wheaton College entitled “The Tragedy of the Reformation.”

The Mystical Mass

Having become sympathetic to Roman Catholicism, he disobeyed God’s Word to separate from heresy and attended a Catholic Mass where he had a life-changing mystical experience. This occurred at a Catholic retreat center. He said he was “surprised by joy” and “never had an experience like that in my life” and “was surely the richer for it” (Signs and Wonders, 1992, p. 5). At another Mass at St. Michael’s Church in Wheaton, Webber said he experienced “something deeper than anything else I had been through” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 39).

The Mass is at the heart of Rome’s occultic mysticism, and many converts to and sympathizers with Rome have testified that the Mass had a part in breaking down their resistance.

Lou Ann Elwell, counselor of students at Wheaton College, is quoted by Webber as saying, “In the sacrament of the Eucharist I feel close to the Lord, almost like he’s saying, ‘I’m here’” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 43).

David DuPlessis, who was instrumental in breaking down the wall of separation between Pentecostals and Rome, described an experience he had during Mass at the Vatican. He said that his heart broke and he literally wept during the performance of the Mass at a session of the Second Vatican Council. By this mystical experience he was purged entirely from suspicion about Catholic doctrine and thereafter he could readily accept Catholic priests as brothers in Christ without any judgmentalism (A Man Called Mr. Pentecost, pp. 215, 216). It was certainly not the Spirit of Truth that met DuPlessis in the Mass and taught him not to judge doctrine and practice.

Webber developed a craving for sacramentalism. He says: “I felt a need for visible and tangible symbols that I could touch, feel, and experience with my senses. This need is met in the reality of Christ presented to me through the sacraments” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 15).

Instead of being satisfied with faith in God’s Word, Webber wanted signs and symbols. He wanted a physical experience. But the Bible says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith comes by God’s Word (Romans 10:17). It is the “evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Webber joined the Anglican Church, but some of his former students have followed the sacramental path he blazed all the way to Mother Rome.

Contemplative Practices

Another thing that brought Webber into a radical ecumenical philosophy was his involvement with the Catholic contemplative practices, such as centering prayer and the Jesus Prayer. He recommends resting the chin on the chest and gazing at the area of the heart and repeating the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”) “again and again.” He says, “I feel the presence of Christ through this prayer” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 83). Mysticism is an attempt to experience God, and it is never satisfied with a faith walk based on God’s Word. Further, Christ forbade repetitious prayers (Matthew 6:7-8). When we go beyond the Bible and get involved in practices that are forbidden in Scripture, the devil is always ready to meet us in his guise as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

Anointing with Oil by a Charismatic Female Preacher

Another turning point for Webber was in 1974 when a charismatic Episcopal deaconess named Leanne Payne anointed him with oil and prayed over him and healed his memories. This occurred when he was deeply troubled over his future church affiliation.

“Starting in my pre-school years through high school, college, and seminary, we prayed through my spiritual journey, asking God for a sense of direction. I began to feel a sense of release from the past. To this day the effects of that prayer are still with me. For the confusion about my spiritual identity was laid to rest, and my feeling of being drawn into the Episcopal church was confirmed. ... For more than an hour Leanne prayed for me as I brought back to mind the wounds I had received by those who attempted to malign my faith pilgrimage and by those who sought to impede my journey into a wider, more inclusive sense of the Christian faith. After prayer, I felt free, even delivered” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, pp. 44, 45, 65).

Observe that he considered himself “wounded” by fundamentalist types who had tried to warn him about the ecumenical, sacramental direction he was going, and this Episcopal deaconess healed him of the “wounds” inflicted by those mean-spirited Biblicists. In fact, it was not wounds that they had given him but treasures. When someone cares enough to reprove us for sin and error, that is a great gift, but he rejected their kindnesses and sought healing from them through an occultic ritual that has no support in Scripture.

There is nothing like the “healing of memories” in the Bible. Christ and the apostles and prophets of the early churches taught nothing about this, and if it were as necessary as its proponents say it is, the Bible would not be silent about it.

Webber describes how that his ecumenical activities broadened his thinking and made him more tolerant and accepting of all the denominations.

Rejecting the Bible as the Sole Authority for Faith and Practice

Eventually Webber came to the place where he was no longer satisfied with the doctrine that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice. He was no longer satisfied with a faith walk with Christ based on Scripture. He wanted an experience that went beyond this. He had been led astray through ecumenism and sacramentalism and contemplative spirituality.

The following is a very frightful thing and is a warning for those who are tempted to flirt with ecumenism.

He said that in 1969 he was preparing a sermon for Wheaton College chapel. He decided on a two-part message. The first part would be an evaluation of contemporary culture, and the second would be the biblical answer. In the second part he wanted to answer the question, “What can we tell a world of despairing people?” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 28). His outline began with the fact that God created the world and that the world, therefore, is meaningful, that God made man in His own image, that man fell away from God, and that Christ came to redeem men from their sins. That is precisely the answer given in the first three chapters of the epistle of Romans, but suddenly Webber became dissatisfied with these foundational Bible truths.

As I continued to redefine the answers, I asked myself, ‘Webber, why don’t these answers do anything for you?’...

The next morning I dragged my tired and weary body, mind, and soul to my office. I sat there at my desk and looked at those yellow, legal-sized pages of notes. ... I said to myself, ‘Webber, you’ve got to be honest about those answers. You can’t preach that with integrity.’

I stretched my arm across the desk, picked up the sermon manuscript and separated the two parts of the sermon. ... Then, in a moment of conviction, I stood to my feet, grabbed the answer part of my sermon in both hands, and vigorously crumpled the papers. Raising my right hand and arm high above my head, I tossed those answers with all my power into the wastebasket. I dropped back into my chair and sobbed for several hours. I had thrown away my answers. I had rid myself of a system in which God was comfortably contained. ... ‘God,’ I cried, ‘where are you? Show yourself to me. Let me know that you are.’ I was met by an awful silence. But it was not an empty silence. It was the silence of mystery--a silence that closed the door on my answers and broke the system in which I had enslaved God. I wept and I wept. ...

The next day I stood before the student body and delivered the first part of my sermon. Then I closed my notebook, looked at them directly, and told them what had happened to me. I told them that the answers don’t work, that what we need is not answers about God, but God himself. And I told them how God was more real to me in his silence than he had been in my textbook answers. My God was no longer the God you could put on the blackboard or the God that was contained in a textbook, but a maverick who breaks the boxes we build for him (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, pp. 28, 29, 30).

This is one of the saddest, most frightful testimonies I have ever read.

How unwise to say that what we need is not answers about God, but God himself. How can we possibly know God apart from the revelation He has given in Scripture? Anything beyond that is blind mysticism rather than biblical faith. We need sound doctrine based on the Bible, and we need a living walk with God through Christ based on that doctrine. Countless Bible believers have found deep satisfaction and a fruitful spirituality in this. To set the one against the other is heresy.

God has not revealed Himself in silence; He has revealed Himself in the Bible. And the Bible never exhorts us to try to experience God in silence. We are to meditate on His Word day and night (Psalm 1:3). We are to walk in fellowship with Him by praying without ceasing. Christ taught His disciples to pray by saying words, not by sitting in silence. In his epistles Paul described many of his prayers for an example to us, and they were always prayers of words. God is known by His own infallible revelation, and biblical faith is believing that revelation and knowing God through that revelation.

God is not contained in the Bible, but God is revealed in the Bible. God cannot be put on a blackboard, but God’s Word can be written on a blackboard and believed in the heart.

To accept the Bible as the sole authority for faith and practice is not enslavement; it is freedom from deception. It is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

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