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The liberty in Christ is not the liberty to live as one pleases. It is not the liberty to live according to the flesh. That is the life of apostasy (“after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers,” 2 Ti. 4:3-4).
The false liberty that was tempting the churches of Galatia is brazenly taught by the emerging church today. The emerging church demands the liberty to participate in the sensual pop culture, to drink, wear the world’s immodest unisex fashions, listen to the world’s raunchy music, watch raunchy movies, play raunchy video games, get tattoos, gamble, use marijuana, curse, etc.
This is called “cultural liberalism,” “relevant,” and “contextualizing the gospel.”
Mark Driscoll claims to be “theologically conservative and culturally liberal” (“Pastor Provocateur,” Christianity Today, Sept. 21, 2007). He describes Jesus as a party guy who hung out with “the kids in high school who always wear black concert T-shirts, sport greasy male ponytails, and smoke cigarettes just off school property during lunch” (The Radical Reformission, p. 30). He says Jesus started his ministry “as a bartender” and told “knock-knock jokes to miscreants who loved his sense of humor” (p. 30). Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church in Seattle set up a “champagne bar” at its New Year’s Eve parties. The December 2007 party was called “Red Hot Bash2” and featured Bobby Medina and his Red Hot Band, “one of the top dance bands in the Northwest,” which play everything “from Swing to Latin to Motown and beyond.”
Driscoll’s The Radical Reformission contains testimonies of members of his church who proudly work in occupations that are drenched in sin, including a country music radio disc jockey who says, “I don’t think you separate the sacred from the secular (p. 63); an owner of tattoo studios who claims that those who reject the tattoo culture are Pharisees (p. 114); a rock band manager who says that “it isn’t the job of my band to preach the gospel” (p. 137); the owner of a brewery, who says, “I have been unable to find evidence in my own experience or from my friends’ experience that drinking is habit-forming or addictive in and of itself” (p. 156); and a television broadcast analyst who says, “As believers, we need to be involved in Hollywood” (p. 179).
Scott Thomas, director of Acts 29, calls his brand of Christian liberty “contextualizing the gospel” and says, “We won’t attack the culture in the name of Christianity” (www.acts29network.org).
Donald Miller tells how that he rejected the teaching of traditional-type Bible churches. He wanted to drink beer and watch raunchy movies and talk trashy and run around with atheists and other rebels (Blue Like Jazz). He said a group of atheistic, drug-using, fornicating, thieving hippies that he once met were “purely lovely” and they taught him about “goodness, about purity and kindness” (Blue Like Jazz, pp. 208, 209). He said that this taught him that there is light and truth outside of Christianity.
One of the themes of David Foster’s A Renegade’s Guide to God is his rejection of rules, which is evident even from the title. He demands a fun life (p. 9). He says, “We won’t be ‘told’ what to do or ‘commanded’ how to behave” (p. 10). He says, “Sermons on the evils of smoking, drinking, movie-going, the clothes we shouldn’t wear, or the theme parks we should boycott seem insulting” (p. 11). He thinks it’s great that women wear “halter tops and short shorts” to “seeker sensitive” churches (p. 264).
Chris Seay of Ecclesia in Houston, Texas, says, “I am not an ambassador for morality...” (Faith of My Fathers, p. 148). Seay loves to watch the R-rated Soprano television show. He describes the hero of this unclean movie, the mobster Tony Soprano, “cursing up a blue streak, as a throng of naked women with near-perfect bodies crowded around him.”
Donald McCullough says, “The way to God [is] not to deny the flesh, not to suppress our ordinary drives and desires” (If Grace Is So Amazing, Why Don’t We Like It, p. 47). He complains about preachers who say, “[D]on’t do that, curb your appetites, reign in desire, discipline and sacrifice yourself” (p. 104). He claims that the grace of God means “we may relax in our humanity” (p. 141). McCullough’s book contains profanity (pp. 9, 92, 113) and is filled with positive references to drinking.
Dan Kimball is opposed to “people who are always saying negative things about the world” (They Like Jesus but Not the Church, p. 191). He criticizes being judgmental about things such as music, smoking, drinking, and dress (p. 98) and says it is wrong to tell homosexuals that unless they repent they will go to hell (p. 99).
Erwin McManus calls upon Christians to live “the barbarian way” in contrast to the traditional Bible path, which he describes as “civilized.” Those who follow the barbarian way “are not required or expected to keep in step” and “there is no forced conformity” (p. 71). He says, “Not even God will hold us or control us by fear” (pp. 101, 102). A video clip at McManus’ Mosaic web site is a dance sequence set to funky music “where these cool dancers come out on stage and they are beset by these ominous people in suits. In the end the cool people overcome the suit people, who lose their suits and become like the cool people. Message: Don’t be a suit--be cool.” (This is Brian Snider’s description, after watching the video on November 26, 2007.) The meaning of this video, of course, is that professing Christians should “loosen up” and not be so uptight and restrictive about how they dress and how they act. It is an attack against the position of separation from the world.
Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in California is not to be outdone. On April 17, 2005, when Warren announced his P.E.A.C.E. program, he sang Jimi Hendrix’s drug-drenched song “Purple Haze” to the congregation, accompanied by his “praise and worship” band! He said he had wanted to do that for a long time. A Saddleback Worship concert in December 2006 featured teenage girls doing immoral dance moves that included pelvic thrusts. A video containing a slide show from an Argentina missionary trip by Saddleback Church members featured John Lennon’s atheistic song “Imagine.”
This is false Christianity. Paul described the true grace of God as follows: “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Tit. 2:11-12).
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