In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. (2 Peter 2:3)

The great preachers of old such as an R. A. Torrey weren’t exactly “politically correct” when they would speak of preachers of liberal theology as “women wearing men’s trousers.” Here is a nauseating example of how those who practice contemplative spirituality long enough come away with an effeminate man-centered love. In Reflections for Ragamuffins the daily devotion for May 8 is based on Brennan Manning’s own lovely fantasy concerning Isaiah 53.

First he begins by whining about “how difficult it is to receive anyone who has all the answers.” Of course what is in view here is the of us who would preach a forceful and strong Word from God. Those Manning sees as “invulnerable, needing nothing and no one…in control of every situation.” But in reality no true preacher of the Bible actually feels this way, in fact often it’s just the reverse.

Tell Us A Story “Brother” Manning

Then Manning says that these people he is talking about only make us “feel unnecessary, unneeded and reluctant to receive.” This next part you really have to read for yourself to believe just how backward Manning’s ear-tickling man-centered message actually is:

So Jesus comes in the way of weakness, giving us the chance to love him and making us feel that we have something to give him. Isaiah prophesied that he would be “like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers”(53:7 NAB). Jesus, who understands the human heart, allowed the image of a dumb, helpless animal to be applied to himself. (129)

Can you see now that this kind of trite peaople pleasing pabulum has now begun affecting the Chuck Swindolls and the Charles Stanleys because the level of Biblical discernment today is so low. Popular evangelicals like Max Lucado and Philip Yancey long ago succumbed. Lucado writes of Manning that “he does a masterful job of blowing the dust off shop-worn theology” and Yancey says, “I consider Brennan Manning my spiritual director in the school of grace.” And Dallas Willard, Emergent spiritual formation partner with Living Spiritual Teacher Guru Richard Foster, says that Manning “throws firebrands into your soul and makes you wonder why you are not living stripped, standing in the arctic ‘Sonshine’ of God’s love” (back cover).

It’s obvious these men are reading the Bible and then still thinking only as men think. Yes, Jesus came to give man the chance to love Him alright but the Bible is painfully clear He was roundly rejected. Christ came “making us feel that we have something to give him”? And what pray tell would we give to Him “brother” Manning, filthy rags? You should have read a little further on in Isaiah - All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags (64:6). The Bible teaches very clearly that mankind was helpless on his own to do anything to please God - when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). We have absolutely nothing at all to give Him that is even remotely worthy of His incredible gift.

Sola Christus!

If you are a true Christian the Spirit of God will rejoice within you to read those words. And conversely, this next statement from Manning is so man-centered as to be blasphemous when he says that our Great God and Savior, “allowed the image of a dumb, helpless animal to be applied to himself.” There is one primary reason Jesus Christ of Nazareth was led like a lamb to the slaughter and that was to fulfill the glorious plan of salvation of God the Father - Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when His soul makes an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10).

And how about that, there’s the vicarious penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the Cross that Emergent “evangelicals” are so busy attacking today. If you have been reading this kind of sappy sentimentality through emerging Contemplatives like Brennan Manning, then today I urge you to throw those mystic musings away and meditate for a while on the text of Holy Scripture…you’ll be surprised by just how far away from the historic orthodox Christian faith these mystics have actually drifted through the reimagined Gnostic mysticism of their corrupt contemplative spirituality.