Anyone familiar with emerging church icon Shane Claiborne knows he was quite taken with Mother Teresa, who took her name out of her respect for so-called “Christian” mystic Teresa of Avila. Here is Mother Teresa from her book Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations and Prayers:

We never try to convert those who receive [aid from Missionaries of Charity] to Christianity but in our work we bear witness to the love of God’s presence and if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, or agnostics become for this better men — simply better — we will be satisfied. It matters to the individual what church he belongs to. If that individual thinks and believes that this is the only way to God for her or him, this is the way God comes into their life — his life. If he does not know any other way and if he has no doubt so that he does not need to search then this is his way to salvation. (Online source, bold mine)

It is an incontestable fact that the view of the false religion of Islam that Shane Claiborne and his mentor Tony Campolo portray below is the result of their own practice of contemplative meditation. First here is Campolo from his book Speaking My Mind:

a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God, which seem at odds with their own spiritual traditions but have much in common with each other. I do not know what to make of the Muslim mystics, especially those who have come to be known as the Sufis. What do they experience in their mystical experience? Could they have encountered the same God we do in our Christian mysticism? (149,150)

Actually Tony yes, they do, but it most definitely is not the God of the Bible. Apprising Ministries used the following quote within Emergent Evangelical Prophet Tony Campolo back in February of 2006. It comes from On Evangelicals And Interfaith Cooperation, which is an interview Claiborne did with Campolo.

It contains the following exchange between Claiborne and Campolo about a third of the way down the page:

SC: Both Muslims and Christians are very evangelical in the sense of desiring others to come to faith in their God. When we talk about inter-religious cooperation, does that mean that we need to stop trying to convert each other?

TC: We don't have to give up trying to convert each other. What we have to do is show respect to one another. And to speak to each other with a sense that even if people don't convert, they are God's people, God loves them, and we do not make the judgment of who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.

I think that what we all have to do is leave judgment up to God. The Muslim community is very evangelistic, however what Muslims will not do is condemn Jews and Christians to Hell if in fact they do not accept Islam.

SC: That seems like a healthy distinction—between converting and condemning. One of the barriers seems to be the assumption that we have the truth and folks who experience things differently will all go to Hell. How do we unashamedly maintain a healthy desire for others to experience the love of God as we have experienced it without condemning others who experience God differently...
(Online source, bold mine)

Men and women, this is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ but it is a primary online source giving you a glimpse at the gospel of goodness that these men personally believe. And this false teaching is completely consistent with the universalism one sees as they study mysticism as I have for the past three years. But if Campolo is right that “even if people don't convert, they are God's people,” then why should they convert in the first place?

Why should we even waste our time and money, not to mention risking our lives, to try and convert “God’s people”…ah, into “God’s people”? It’s time to awaken from your slumber and realize that if this reimagined emerging Christianity where all mankind is the family of God is true then there really is no Gospel left to preach. So I wonder, just who might have come up with that idea?

No, this is more than enough reason for me to tell people to stay away from the Emergent Church. The time has arrived when we must reject these emerging church dreamers and their quasi-Christianity/Universalism with its warped and toxic repainted social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch. And when it is all said and done, in the end, Claiborne is Rob Bell with dreadlocks.