I found out that Jesus loves pagans. He’s not offended by their beliefs of many deities or their outright rejection of him as the Son of God. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it, of the Gospel, to reconcile people to friendship with God? (Online source)

At least so says Pam Hodgeweide and other man-centered semi-pelagians in the emerging church. If the Lord allows I’ll get to Hodgewide another time, but for now I point out that she happens to a contributing writer for the very appropriately named Off The Map (OTM) whose co-founder and Executive Director is Jim Henderson:

OTM seeks to make evangelism (helping people to connect with God) doable, practical and fun for ordinary Christians … what we call reinventing evangelism. We see this as part of a larger movement that we call otherliness — the spiritual practice of noticing and serving others in non-dramatic, ordinary ways. OTM advocates that Christians ought to be known for a way of living that is generous and intentionally otherly at its core. (Online source, emphasis mine)

Biblical evangelism is about much more than simply “helping people to connect with God” as if they just happened to simply miss a bus to Heaven. Note the word doable highlighted above because OTM itself has another emerging church outreach called Doable Evangelism: What If Evangelism Meant Just Being Yourself? (DE), which is now beginning to make further inroads into the unsuspecting and largely undiscerning evangelical community. In AboutDoable Evangelism we read:

DoableEvangelism is a ministry of Off The Map (OTM) which is a non-profit organization founded in 2000. OTM seeks to make evangelism (helping people to connect with God) doable, practical and fun for ordinary Christians … what we call reinventing evangelism. We see this as part of a larger movement that we call otherliness — the spiritual practice of noticing and serving others in non-dramatic, ordinary ways. OTM advocates that Christians ought to be known for a way of living that is generous and intentionally otherly at its core. (Online source, emphasis mine)

If you look carefully at the highlighted words above you’ll notice this DE program is concerned with “otherliness” and being “otherly” as they are “reinventing evangelism. Our first clue this part of the neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church is the standard EC practice of “re”-everything because for any cult to survive it has to first create a need in people’s minds for their particular slant. In this case we in the culturally clueless Christian Church apparently need them reinventing evangelism for us as “otherliness.” And wouldn’t you know, on OTM’s advisory board is one Brian McLaren.

We’ll come back to this briefly, but also of note is the upcoming OTM sponsored Hear, Listen, Connect conference in November featuring Emergent Guru Brian McLaren, Diana Butler Bass, a Progressive Christian and member of the national board of directors for Emergent Village, as well as OTM’s own Jim Henderson. A quick check of the “partners” for this event dispels any doubts OTM is hooked into the emerging church scene as we see the Quaker school George Fox University, “training emerging leaders for the church” and Mars Hill Graduate School, “developing emerging theologians and counselors,” among schools which will “present.” (Online source)

You’ll see in moment why it’s actually quite fitting that George Fox University would be involved in this upcoming conference. If you didn’t know, you might find it interesting to find out that George Fox University (GFU) is indeed named after the mystic Quaker founder George Fox. As a matter of fact, GFU also happens to be where emerging church spokesman and emerging leader Dan Kimball is pursuing his doctorate. And what do you know, it seems in addition that both Kimball and OTM’s own Jim Henderson are “visiting faculty” at good ol’ mystic GFU.

Then as we look at the adjunct faculty and staff at GFU, why one will also find a couple of names which will be quite familiar in emerging church circles. We discover Futurist–ala Cultural Architect Erwin McManus–and Emergent theologian Leonard Sweet of the Quantum Panentheism. O, and what emerging church program would ever be complete in its apostasy without Brian McLaren. Of course EC advocates still tell me and insist that Brian is not a major factor in this Emergent rebellion against the Bible. O sure; what next? They offer me a large bridge in London for purchase?

Now according to the Speaker’s Page for this upcoming OTM conference we’re informed that Guru McLaren is a “Social-spiritual activist, movement planter”; and why look-ee here, a “leader in the emerging church.” Like I said in, Brian McLaren Has Now Left The Building you just don’t get to go merrily on your way emerging withour your McLaren baggage. The other speaker of significance here as well is Diana Butler Bass. Whew, mighty impressive stuff here, as Bass is billed as, “Historian, expert on state of Christianity in America, Futurist.” You gotta love those with the spiritual gift of “Futurist”; um, even if you can’t actually find it in Scripture.

Looking For God In All The Wrong Places

And finally, we return quickly to the idea that this OTM emerging church outreach, “advocates that Christians ought to be known for a way of living that is generous and intentionally otherly at its core.” However, this is not all that “otherly” means in emerging church circles. As the Devil always does, he has mixed in a partial truth here. Of course the Christian is to love their neighbor, i.e. fellow man, and live a life of selflessness. However this selflessness is directed toward God first through our relationship to the Master when we’re in Christ. It is after this when His agape love flows through willing and obedient bond-slaves and then out to those around us as God wills.

But this is what has been lost in this whole semi-pelagian man-centered seeker sensitive pseudo-Christianity passing for the Church today. O and don’t kid yourself, the emerging church began as Leadership Network’s seeker friendly church growth strategy for the alleged postmodern “emerging generation.” It has repainted, i.e. reimagined, the old social gospel from the original Cult of Liberal Theology and is actually a very close parallel to the new evangelical gospel e.g. spread by Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren. However, one of the main differences is not so much the watered down non-gospel itself, but the idea that the emerging church is also seeking to find God in “the other.” This is the lie which is mixed in with the earlier concept of “otherliness.”

Doug Pagitt, the man Leadership Network approached to help begin the emerging church movement circa 1997, put it this way in a debate with my friend Bob DeWaay a couple of years ago:

there’s an openness to the “other”. To the other thinker, to the foreigner, to the outsider; it’s this call to love, not only God and neighbor–but to love enemy and to not be “freaked out,” and not to be so concerned about when “the other” is in our midst.

I cover this a bit further in my article The Emerging Church Hoping for a Generous Orthodoxy While Seeking to Discover God in “The Other” Religions. For now suffice to say that through the meandering and mystic musings derived from contemplative spirituality gleaned from apostate Roman Catholicism the emerging church is right now drifting toward thinking they will find God is in other religions as well. Remember, “I found out that Jesus loves pagans. He’s not offended by their beliefs of many deities or their outright rejection of him as the Son of God”?

Well, I find the follwoing from God absolutely applicable here for these egregious ecumenical dreamers in the Emergent Church – You have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob. They are full of superstitions from the East; they practice divination like the Philistines and clasp hands with pagans. (Isaiah 2:6) I close with this from the above referenced article from Apprising Ministries:

Dr. Samir Selmanovic who serves on the Coordinating Group for Emergent Village contributes a chapter called “The Sweet Problem of Inclusiveness: Finding Our God in the Other” in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope a recent book edited by Doug Pagitt and his friend Emergent anti-theologian Tony Jones. Selmanovic gives further indication where we are headed with this inclusivism when he tells us:

Can it be that the teachings of the gospel are embedded and can be found in reality itself rather than being exclusively isolated in sacred texts and our interpretations of those texts? If the answer is yes, can it be that they are embedded in other stories, other peoples’ histories, and even other religions?…

God’s table is welcoming all who seek, and if any religion is to win, may it be the one that produces people who are the most loving, the most humble, the most Christlike. Whatever the meaning of “salvation” and “judgement,” we Christians are going to be saved by grace, like everyone else, and judged by our works, like everyone else…

For most critics of such open Christianity, the problem with inclusiveness is that it allows for truth to be found in other religions. To emerging Christians, that problem is sweet… Moreover, if non-Christians can know our God, then we want to benefit from their contribution to our faith.
(192, 195,196, emphasis mine)

See also:

EMERGENT CHURCH: AN EMERGENT MANIFESTO OF HOPING FOR A NEW EVANGELICAL INCLUSIVE “GOSPEL”

EMERGENT CHURCH: SAY GOODBYE TO BAKER PUBLISHING GROUP WITH “AN EMERGENT MANIFESTO OF HOPE”