Where Is All This Going?

As we begin the next two parts of this series we are going to attempt to focus attention back onto the most important issue here in our discussion of Brian McLaren And Evangelical Panentheism. This would be the nullifying effect that such a doctrine would unquestionably have on the vicarious penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ–our great God and Savior. I felt led to use “Evangelical Panentheism” in the title for this section of our examination into the vague and almost eerie doctrine taught by McLaren because in my mind such a thing is an oxymoron.

At this point I’m willing to venture there’s some pretty devout Christians with a fair amount of Biblical knowledge following this issue as it unfolds who have been scratching their heads and asking: What in the world does panentheism have to do with Evangelicalism? Ah, the truth is…absolutely nothing! I admit even with my background in Comparative Religions and a firm grasp of Church history, I have been a bit taken back myself when I sensed the Lord leading me to the nearly bizarre conclusions I have been sharing with you here. Especially so when one considers that I am actually much like the fictional “Joe Friday” of the old TV Show Dragnet who was known for the phrase: “Just the facts, m’am.”

Please know that the Biblical ramifications of this peculiar approach to preaching the Gospel being currently employed by pastor McLaren will be forthcoming. However at this point it seems appropriate to first show you where all of his teaching is leading us, and from where it actually comes. Then we will be in a good position to go into the Bible itself and to work our way back from there. By the time we are finished the reader will understand that even while McLaren would appear to me to be a very personable man, the facts will show that he is not leading people (whether he knows it or not) to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The truth will be told; it is actually quite the contrary.

Here I would ask the reader to keep in mind that I am also a pastor-teacher in addition to laboring in apologetics, so I will no doubt cover these issues a bit differently than some others would, which we pray will in addition be of some value. But where we are going with this investigation of the doctrine of Brian McLaren, some within Emergent-US, Leonard Sweet, Alan Jones, and Marcus Borg will take us into the void of a bankrupt New Age spirituality. In truth a neo-paganism that is mixed up with Christianity until it eventually leads us to the common thread within all eastern religions like Zen and Hinduism that within mankind is the indwelling spark of the divine; i.e. that on some level man is also God.

And these men know exactly what they are doing. For example from Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic we have Leonard Sweet who tells us:

A surprisingly central feature of all the world’s religions is the language of light in communicating the divine and symbolizing the union of the human with the divine: Muhammed’s light-filled cave, Moses’ burning bush, Paul’s blinding light, Fox’s “inner light,” Krishna’s Lord of Light, Böhme’s light-filled cobbler shop, Plotinus’ fire experiences, Bodhisattvas with the flow of Kundalini’s fire erupting from their fontanelles, and so on.53 (236)

It is exactly this “inner light” and the “union of the human with the divine” that we will be turning our focus toward as this examination of Brian McLaren’s “new kind” of Christian faith moves forward. By the time we are through with this series you will be able to see that this emergent neo-paganism surfacing in most sections of the EC is actually a return to the single oldest lie in the Book. Their father Lucifer once said: “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). Sadly through the work of men like McLaren and Sweet the Devil is doing just that. And as I will be showing you these seducing spirits with their doctrines of devils have penetrated much deeper into the Evangelical church than you may think.

We will be covering this infiltration in more depth as we go along. In fact Richard Bennett and I have a forthcoming paper which further exposes this rotten root. For now though we do catch a glimpse of where this “Christian” mysticism is going to lead us on page 221 of The Sacred Way by Tony Jones, the National Coordinator of the Emergent Church, where in his A short List of Christian spiritual classics (sic) we find the Collected Works of Meister Eckhart. Jones then informs us that Eckhart’s work is:

a mystical treatise on the intersection between Greek philosophy and Christian theology with an emphasis on God’s indwelling of humanity (emphasis added).

So this patent denial of the work of God the Holy Spirit in the true born again believer in Christ is how it begins, and where this deception leads is summed up in the statement that will follow. These Christ-denying and man-pleasing words actually come from a document produced by the Second Vatican Council of the Church of Rome called Gaudium et Spes:

Therefore, this sacred synod, proclaiming the noble destiny of man and championing the Godlike seed which has been sown in him, offers to mankind the honest assitance of the Church in fostering that the brotherhood of all men. which corresponds to this destiny of theirs (http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html)

Opposition Does Not Imply Disrespect

In moving away from this topic for now, let me inform the reader that we will set up the definition of the term panentheism as it is defined by those with whom Brian McLaren is at least somewhat influenced by for the purpose of our discussion here. But before we do I wish to bring to your attention that combined as it is with the tangential issues of the whole Emergent-Us organization and the Emerging Church (EC) movement itself, here we have one of the clearest cases in the long and sordid history of the Christian Church for the fulfillment of the following Scriptures:

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

I have personally been answering the call to study this issue for months now and I have read books from men in the Emergent Church as well from some sympathetic to the EC as a whole. As I have, and as I monitor websites within this movement itself, it has become very apparent that their doctrines cannot be supported by the text of the Bible, nor by accepted Christian sources. As such these people were left with no other choice but to turn to outside influences and existential experience instead. What to my mind is a classic case of “don’t confuse me with the facts, I’ve already made up my mind.”

And since this expose is primarily directed toward Brian McLaren we will look first at what the people he has chosen to surround himself with have to say on the issues we are covering. The main point here being that just because we can find neo-orthodox and liberal scholars to deny the same things we also wish to deny, and just because we can find some rather obscure “Desert Fathers and Mothers” who attempted to practice eastern mysticism within a Christian context, doesn’t really change the actual witness of history concerning these critical matters.

Permit me to quote Brian McLaren from his forthcoming book The Secret Message of Jesus at this point upon an issue where he and I are agreed:

A lot of people say, "It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere." I'd like to challenge that belief. Believing untrue things puts you at odds with reality and can prove downright destructive. For example, try believing--however sincerely-- that you have an exemption from gravity that allows you to step off tall buildings or that traffic signals don't apply to you... and reality will quite forcefully come smashing in, contrary to your beliefs with reality during a long hospital stay. But what I want to say--clearly--that it is tragic for anyone, especially anyone affiliated with the religion named after Jesus, not to be clear about what Jesus's message actually was (6,7, emphasis added).

If only McLaren would have followed his own advice not to believe “untrue things” instead of turning to those who would simply reinforce what he had apparently already chosen to believe. The more I have studied these issues surrounding McLaren, the Emergent Church he leads as well as the EC, the more the following Scripture come to mind – always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth (2 Timothy 3:7). I have never said that the scholars who are becoming more and more prominent in our discussion here are not first rate in their respective fields because many of them are indeed quite formidable.

People like Leonard Sweet, Sallie McFague, N.T. Wright, Marcus Boyd, and even McLaren himself are obviously very gifted theologians and teachers. This has never been the issue, and in our sappy sentimental effeminized culture we have forgotten that to oppose someone does not imply disrespect for their skills at all. As a matter of fact, my final year as a high school varsity football coach my boys won the award for the team that best exemplified sportsmanship on the field because I had always taught them to have the utmost respect for those they should come up against.

No, what we are dealing with here is simply an opposition to what these people are trying to teach in the Name of My Master and then to pass off to the world as Christian. As a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ I have a duty to vehemently oppose anything that sets itself up in opposition to the Glory that is due to Him alone. And this I will do unashamedly with all the power at work within me for as long as Christ chooses to sustain me. For those who know me will often hear me say: “This is to the end; for today is as good a day as any other to die in battle for our great God and King.”

So This Is “Evangelical” Panentheism

We’ll finish up part two by beginning to look at the doctrine of panentheism as it is defined by McLaren’s “good friend” Len Sweet, of whom he has told us “I am a better pastor and a better Christian” because of his “brilliant and stimulating work.” I’m not going too much in depth here on Sweet’s views on panentheism as I covered it previously in Emergent Church: Quantum Shift To Panentheism. However, it is important to note that what you will see here is gleaned in large part from the “creation spirituality” of New Ager Matthew Fox, which has about as much affinity with historic Christianity as the comic section of a Sunday Morning newspaper.

By way of preparing the reader we note that in Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic Sweet tells us that the “New Light apologetic chronicled in this book is devoted to enfranchising and energizing Christians to connect their faith with the indigenous historical place in which God has chosen them to live” (1). Before we get to what Sweet will tells us about the nature of this “God” and His creation, his quote on page 2 of “looking-glass physicist/philosopher David Bohm” certainly fits what you are about to read, “you have to be ready to consider some strange ideas.”

Sweet has a bit more background for us as to where his Quantum Spirituality of “New Light” originates:

I am calling the New Light apologetic. It is already present in bits and pieces, here and there in this discipline and that discipline, in this denomination and that denomination, in this thinker and that thinker. The New Light apologetic represents a Christian alternative to the largely Old Light “New Age” movement.

The emergence of this New Light apologetic is a harbinger and hope that anew, age-old world is aborning in the church, even that the church may now be on the edge of another awakening. Amidst all the cliffhanging circumstances and conditions of the church, the Spirit is at work. All around there is evidence that the church is learning to dance to a new rhythm, to adapt the metaphor of Harvard Business School professor/economist Rosabeth Moss Kanter. The New Light movement is characterized by bizarre, sometimes anxious alliances of a ragbag assortment of preachers, theologians, pastors, professors, artists, scientists, business leaders, and scholars. What ties their creative piracy together is a radical faith commitment that is willing to dance to a new rhythm. (7)

As we set up our definition of panentheism there is no doubt this emerging “Christian alternative” to the New Age movement is bizarre all right. And especially so when we now listen to our postmodern apologist of New Light Leonard Sweet explains to us what panentheism is when he tells us that God created this universe as a literal and living part of Himself:

Quantum spirituality bonds us to all creation as well as to other members of the human family. New Light pastors are what Arthur Peacocke calls “priests of creation”70--earth ministers who can relate the realm of nature to God, who can help nurture a brother-sister relationship with the living organism called Planet Earth. This entails a radical doctrine of embodiment of God in the very substance of creation.

The OxfordDictionary of the Chnctian Church (1974) (sic) identifies the difference between pantheism and pan-entheism: Pantheism is “the belief or theory that God and the universe are identical”; panentheism is “the belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part of it exists in Him, but. . . that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the Universe.”77 New Light spirituality does more than settle for the created order, as many forms of New Age pantheism do. But a spirituality that is not in some way entheistic (whether pan- or trans-), that does not extend to the spirit-matter of the cosmos, is not Christian. A quantum spirituality can in no way define God out of existence (124).

This is quite true, it does not define God out of existence but it does follow suit with the Emerging Church movement’s chief theme and just simply redefines Him. As I have mentioned a few times now, you will constantly see the prefix “re” in EC literature. As we continue our look at the oxymoron that is Evangelical panenetheism in part three we will see this doctrine in the writings of both Sallie McFague and Marcus Borg as well. We will also reexamine some of Brian McLaren’s work, and most particularly A Generous Orthodoxy, now that we have idea of what we’re looking for.

You see what we need to remember here is that with a panentheistic world view we would understand mankind to already share God’s divinity because he would literally be a part of God. Then when we understand this we would also believe that God already dwells within all men because they are actually a part of His Own Body by creation. And this is why Brian McLaren, Alan Jones, Steve Chalke and others within Emergent-US deny the vicarious penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Because as you will come to see these men are sucuuming to the New Age or New Light spirituality that all mankind is divine and all we need to do to have peace on this planet is to get people to understand their at-one-ment with each other as children of God.