A Good Article by Roger Oakland

Roger Oakland of www.discerning the times.org has written an excellent article on postmodernism coming into the church, especially in the forms of the emergent conversation, current spiritual formation-contemplation-meditation teachings and many Roman Catholic mystical teachings.

My rule, which has served me well throughout the years, is to always look at what things were taught and how churches were organized in the first and early second century churches. The reason for my rule with this time frame is because I feel it is important to take seriously WHAT the apostles taught and HOW they organized the church. When I see stuff that doesn't quite "fit" into that, I get suspicious and skeptical. In fact, as a skeptic, it's a miracle I became a Christian at all....
But I did through the power of the Holy Spirit, not through the "power" of social justice or goodism; or through self-esteem/psychobabble teaching. I had to hear the gospel of substitutionary atonement and repentence.

Here are some snippets from the Oakland article. I do hope you will read the entire thing - the link is at the end of this post.

Oakland says, among other good things,

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


As I've said here many times before, the last sentence above really rings with me as when I grew up as in the liberal Protestant church, this kind of "social do-goodism" without conversion is what I heard all day long.

"Help the poor through social programs. Conversion is either secondary or not necessary. Man is good and he will do the right thing if he is given the chance." This is called epicurean humanism and guess what? It hasn't worked very well, but these types of do-gooder Christians don't either get it. I would think they would be honest enought to see historically that this method and phiolosphy doesn't work very well. But they don't. First we had the Deists and the Unitarians in the 18th century, then the Liberal Protestants in the late 19th and all through the early-middle 20th century, and now we have the Emergents who say now they want to be called Progressives in the early 21st century. Their "theology" and practice all came from the same playbook.

Oakland continues,

this purpose-driven view of establishing global utopia may be a plan, but it is “driven” by humanistic reasoning and not led by the Holy Spirit. While it is of course good to do good unto others, all the goodness that we can do will not be good enough. Pastors and church leaders who get involved in such man-driven programs can usually be identified by certain characteristics.

Then he gives many characteristics. I will list a few here but I won't list them all since I want you to read his article.

*Sound biblical doctrine is dangerous and divisive, and the experiential (i.e.,mystical) is given a greater role than doctrine.

*Bible study is replaced by studying someone’s book and his methods

*God’s Word, especially concepts like hell, sin and repentance, is eventually downplayed so the unbeliever is not offended.


I really like that last one becasue it's so true. The last part of the article tells us what to look for when churches change into contemplative/emergent/seeker types.


Oakland's article is entitled, How to Know When the Emerging Church Shows Signs of Emerging in Your Church

That is the link. I do hope you will read it.