March 01, 2011
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 1 Tim 4:1
Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.
Dear brothers and sisters, on February 13, 2011, I had a short dream. I saw President Barack Hussein Obama with a special headdress. When I saw that, I knew he was a Muslim and I said to myself: Basically, he should give up his presidency, because he has deceived the people.
About 2 years ago, a sister asked me: “Catherine, can’t you write a letter about the Emerging Church?” I don’t know what you think when you hear the name, but my reaction was: “What on earth is that?” I had never heard anything about it. She said: “Something very bad, you must read about it.” I then did some research, read D.A. Carson’s book “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church”, found that much too complicated and then gave up. You must understand that most leaders in Switzerland were informed of the Emerging church and still didn’t warn us. Many of you may not know about the Emerging church, but these people’s books are in all of the Christian bookstores and can be found on the book tables of many churches.
I never specifically sought to be against Schuller, Rick Warren and Bill Hybels! With R. Schuller it was clear to me that he preaches a false Gospel. I had never bothered with Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, they never meant anything to me. But now I know why. I started researching the Emerging church a while ago and where did I land? At R. Schuller, Rick Warren and Bill Hybels! They support the Emerging church, they promote books by and on Emerging church, you could actually say that they are the Emerging church!
What is the “Emerging Church”, how did it start, what does it believe? Is it really just a movement by young Christians who want an up-to-date church?
In 2005, a man who is well known in the business world died: Peter Drucker. This man was a businessman and a philosopher. Already in 1957, he found that the world was changing and that as a result, a new philosophy was needed in all areas of society, so, therefore also in the church. But who were his role models and teachers? Aside from the Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard it was also Martin Buber, a pantheist, who was connected to the Kaballah (occult Judaism), etc. Pantheism means: God is in everyone and everything. God is in the grass, in the chair, God is in the tree, so everything is God.
In the 80’s, Peter Drucker then came into contact with Bob Buford, who ran a TV station. Buford was so strongly influenced by Peter Drucker that he says he doesn’t know if what he thinks are his own thoughts or those of Drucker. That would be unimportant for us if these two people hadn’t come into contact with Christians. Around 20 years ago, Bob Buford founded an organization named Leadership Network.
This group organizes conferences for churches, brings innovative pastors together, etc. Peter Drucker and Bob Buford noticed that they could change society if they influenced the mega churches and young, innovative pastors. In 2005, Rick Warren stated in a forum on religion that according to Peter Drucker, the best phenomen in the 20th century is the mega churches. Why did Drucker say that? I can imagine that he thought: if you can influence 1-2 pastors of mega churches, then you eventually influence the entire body of Christ.
Rick Warren also said that Peter Drucker had been his mentor for the last 20 years, and had taught him leadership. How is it possible that so many pastors in America – even TV preachers – have worldly PR people who teach them what they should say and how they should say it in order to have success? You can be sure that Peter Drucker not only taught Rick Warren and Bill Hybels business practices, but also transmitted his pantheistic philosophy. In the 90’s, the Leadership Network gathered several innovative pastors, and today, those pastors are now the leaders of the Emerging Church and spread Peter Drucker’s pantheism in the body of Christ.
Zondervan published The Message, a false Bible translation; Zondervan promotes books by Emergers, Zondervan can now provide as many false Bible translations as it pleases. Rupert Murdoch owns the world’s largest pornographic stations, brings gifts of money to the Pope in Rome, etc. etc. Some brethren advised Rick Warren to give up this unholy alliance. But the way I see him, he won’t do it, or only for a short while, until the criticism dies down. If nobody else wants to publish books by Emergers, Zondervan certainly will.
Rick Warren says that the Emerging church is the church of the future. What do the Emergers teach? They say that the world has changed, so the church must change also. The world doesn’t want to know anything about sin, the Cross, hell, judgment and the like, so we have to take that out of our sermons. The Emergers mock the pastors and street preachers who preach such truths.
In his book A New Kind of Christianity, Brian McLaren speaks scathingly and insultingly about eternal salvation and the goal of true Christians to enter into Heaven. He calls it cynically “to get my ass into heaven”. He says that we are egoists, we must stay here and save the world. That’s what Schuller, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and the Emerging church want. They want God’s kingdom here and now, they want peace now, and not when Jesus comes; they want no poverty now, no suffering, they want a new world order now. McLaren says: “Sometimes I ask myself if hell just means what those in heaven feel who have not learned in this life what this life teaches.”
For Emergers, the Bible is not God’s word but rather a story. To them, the Cross is false advertising for God. It must be a cruel God who sends his son to the cross for something he did not do. If God asks us to forgive, then He should forgive also! Then everyone would be saved. Making disciples does not mean bringing them into the Christian religion, but rather they can follow Jesus but still remain Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus. An Emerger has a Buddhist family in his church. So they all go to the Buddhist temple together and meditate like the Buddhists do. Emergers no longer speak about mission, but of missional. You live with people, you accept their religion. If all religions have the same God, why should you convert people?
The Emergers don’t have any sin. You can be lesbian, homosexual, smoke, drink, live as an unmarried couple, take drugs, have another religion...it makes no difference whatsoever. It’s all about experience and so in Emerging churches, there’s deafening music which they play until the young people fall into trances and experience “God”, or there’s a dark room with candles, icons, incense and mystical music like in the monasteries, also meditation and other things, so that you can experience God. They say: people used to say that if you have the right teaching, you will experience God. Now it’s the other way around: if you have experiences, then you have the right teaching!
Many leaders of the Emerging church have contacts to New Agers and recommend their books, because the New Agers are their models. Rob Bell, a blasphemer, said: “Perhaps it will once be revealed that Jesus did actually have an earthly father and that Christianity took the virgin birth over from other religions, because those gods were born through virgin birth.” Rob Bell is the „Elvis“ of the Emerging church and is very popular with millions of young Christians. He will represent Bill Hybels next May in Düsseldorf at a conference. There are hadly any youth movements or youth conferences where the Emergers aren’t present, too.
For Rob Bell, Jesus is one of many yoga masters and he recommends yoga. They say: we have discovered Christianity as an eastern religion! Erwin McManus says: “My goal is to destroy Christianity and to be a tool for the movement of Jesus Christ. Some people think I am against Christianity. I think they could be right.” Jesus is just a model for them, a master.
Tony Campolo, another Emerger, says that the condition of the world is the Christians’ fault. What does he mean by that? The reason why there are wars, catastrophes, poverty, etc. is because we Christians believe in the Bible and naturally also in Revelation. The Emerging church doesn’t believe in the Apocalypse, they say it already happened 70 years after Jesus. Emerging, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels ... when they talk about the lost or bringing people to Jesus, they don’t mean what we mean. When their organizations get bigger, then they can bring all religions together, bring peace on earth, rule the world. That’s exactly what the New Age wants. When so many people as possible think positively, then there will be no Armagedon, then we can prevent it. And whoever doesn’t play along will have to die. Not only the New Age says that, but also the Emerging church. Leonard Sweet, the most occult of all emergers, already wrote in the year 2001 in his book Quantum Spirituality: Whoever doesn’t participate in the new spirituality must die. Wonderful!
The Emerging church has existed for around 20 years. Why didn’t churchleaders warn us? Why are the Emergers‘ books in almost every church? Last Sunday I was at a FEG (Free evangelical church) in the country. I asked the pastor what he thought about the Emerging church. He stated: “I don’t know enough about to talk about it.” But books by Emergers were on the church’s bookshelves! It seems that almost all denominations are contaminated by the Emerging movement, but that hardly anyone bothers to protest against the Emerging church. The phrase: “You should not judge!“ has made the church dull, there isn’t any spiritual discernment anymore. The Emergers are also sitting in Switzerland in the IGW and ISTL, two Bible colleges in Zürich. The young students, future pastors, must read books by the Emergers. The network of youth ministries of the different Swiss free churches calls itself: young-people.ch. FEG, Chrischona, VFMG (Missions churches), ETG (Baptists), Mennonites, Youth Alliance belong to it. This homepage recommends books by Emergers. When I was at a Pentecostal church last Sunday, I found a book by the Emerger Tobias Faix among the books for young people. I know many of the names now and so I find them. Why didn’t the Evangelical Alliance warn us? Why didn’t the apostles and prophets in Switzerland warn everyone? Because many agree with the Emerging church or are too naive. No spiritual discernment anymore!
A former pastor of the FEG Steffisburg, Reinhold Scharnowski, has been promoting the Emerging church in Switzerland for many years now. In Thun there is the Church of postmodern Christians, a housegroup movement. Emerging church is everywhere, especially among the younger Christians. As long as they were few, they were cautious; now they are getting increasingly brash. In America they have more than 20 million members, in England the church is almost destroyed, according to one brother; And what do the churches do? They continue to provide platforms for them to preach, because they appear to be evangelicals. By the way, you should read the books in the English original, because many crass statements have been altered in the (German) translation.
There are countless Emergers in Germany. One of their books is called “ZeitGeist” (Sign or Spirit of the Times). That’s exactly what they want: the church should become absolutely wordly. A certain Johannes Reimer is promoting this strongly; the Marburg Bible seminary, Christus-Treff, coalition for Evangelisation, the Christival appear to be in the hands of Emergers, as well as the Theological Seminary Tabor, etc.
It is scandalous that only a few brothers from the Evangelicals have done research on the emerging (postmodern) churches and hardly anyone from the Pentecostal movement. The Pentecostal movement says that it has nothing to do with the emerging church, but the books by Emergers are everywhere and someone needs to warn the church.
I recommend you www.lighthousetrails.com and the e-book “A time of departing”
God bless you,
Catherine, a handmaiden of Jesus Christ