AN EMERGING ECUMENICAL FAIRYTALE

“Ok, now let us all gather ‘round little children and I’ll tell you the story about the seeker sensitive ‘Jesus’ of the man-pleasing purpose driven and emerging word faith church…the Ecumenical Church of Deceit…”

Now once upon a time in an ecumenical emerging postmodern nation far, far in the very fertile imaginations of the Church Growth Movement and a growing number of evangelical Christians, the religious leaders of the day came up with a decidedly dastardly idea driven by purpose. They would actually conspire to take the life of our Lord and Creator of the world; and this is the tragic story of the sweet, and ever so seeker sensitive mystic, poet, and dreamer—founder of the Christian Faith—Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

For at that time our great Lead Pastor and cultural architect Christ Jesus was offering up prayers with loud cries and tears, all the while touring the various popular secular venues and tres cool nightclubs in order to tell people that God is not angry. The Master Teacher also shared His fresh “ground-breaking” message of peace and love, and an abundant life of prosperity, with the huge crowds who followed Him to large arenas all across the Holy Land. As he was telling them over and over again about His concern for global problems, social reform, and unity for all religions, our Lord had to strive valiantly to dare to develop the emerging spirituality of legions of fans who would eventually ride camels and donkeys en masse to hear His really rad conversations about God and other stuff.

And O how Jesus toiled those long hours to try and get these poor people to understand His purpose driven plan of the emergence of “Christian” mysticism interspersed with helpful tips on positive thinking that would then unlock their awesome destinies through faith-filled words. This way they could join in with what God was doing around them so they could then also be a better you while living their best life now. With great patience and careful instruction the Master would so very painstakingly preach to them, time after time again, about the power of their faith. He strove to impress upon them the importance of a positive confession over their critical culturally relevant 40 day plans with which God was bringing the Kingdom to earth.

The crack promotion team that Jesus had assembled worked overtime to scout out all of the best possible areas, whereby using advance publicity and polls concerning felt needs, they might better prepare this stubborn and rebellious generation to finally come to believe that God said it was okay to want to ride the very best camels and to wear the most expensive designer clothes as long as they feed the poor. After all the Master told them, it’s not about you; and everything has changed, because they were now the King’s kids ushering in God’s Kingdom on earth now. Jesus struggled mightily to get these people to experiment with various forms of eastern mysticism and explained to them that God loves you just as you are. “Don’t worry; be happy,” He told them, because no one could really know for sure what God wants anyway.

Well, maybe it was a petty jealousy that caused these stodgy ol’ fundamental religious types to plot the Master’s demise while Jesus was forcing Himself to become the most famous and loved Social Reformer to ever walk His earth. And kids, what an incredible sacrifice this was! Let us never forget that Lord knew He was going to have to work pretty hard to convince this stubborn people to make the difficult sacrifice to come out to His daily performances for a memorable night of merriment, meditation, and miracles. But undaunted, the Master would lovingly “worshiptain” the crowds with His rocking praise band of unschooled ordinary barbarians with the really cool hair whose goal was to destroy the faith of our fathers. And Jesus was also willing to make the supreme effort to faithfully tell the crowds, in each and every one of the uplifting and inspirational messages His Father had given Him to preach, about the awakening of the human potential to unleash soul craving creativity.

Yes, yes, the strain was nearly unbearable as Jesus explained to His followers that in order to follow Him to the bank they must deny themselves of their foolish efforts to please their Maker and to just relax. O how difficult it was having to try and convince this ignorant and foolish people to finally feel good in their sin. It was such a tedious drive, day after day after day, of playing to those sold out stadiums and the writing of new books. Important writings telling them what their itching ears wanted to hear, and which shared the wonderful message of God’s purpose of destiny for their lives; everyone should be happy, healthy, and prosperous. And eventually all of this began to wear heavily upon Him. But yet, the Lord still forced Himself to keep going—despite the hardship of His Own growing wealth—so He could teach His followers that by constantly confessing their faith-filled words they would then be giving God permission to work here in the earth realm.

Jesus always did His best to never, ever offend anyone as He worked together with all these religious and secular leaders to bring about God’s goal for the brotherhood of all mankind to live together in peace, love, and harmony here on earth. But sadly children, even though our Lord taught them that, because all mankind has a spark of the divine within them, any religion they feel comfortable following—as long as they’re sincere—will eventually lead them back to the Sacred, one day these pestiferous “fighting fundys” suddenly called a secret meeting. But one of His Christ-followers overheard them as they plotted our Lord’s demise:

“Hey Caiaphas; c’mere. You know that guy who’s always talking about healing and feeding people in his valient effort to please the unchurched; Jesus of Nazareth? Yeah, that’s the one; the sweet tolerant fellow with the glowing complexion—the halo over his head—and the birds landing on him all the time? Well, I’ve been thinking; Jesus really hasn’t ever criticized us publicly while He has been agreeing to believe God with us for our goal to make sure everyone has a comfortable faith-based life enjoyable to themselves.”

“Huh; yeah Mishael, I know that this a good thing from mankind’s perspective. Work with me here, k. But hmm, you know; come to think of it, I can’t really see where this ‘Jesus’ has actually ever even given us the slightest impression that He actually disagrees with us on anything at all. Anyway, I’m stoked dude about this strak idea I have. Listen. Why don’t we see if we can now totally arrange it so that Jesus gets crucified! Pretty cool plan, huh.”

Of course all of this does seem rather absurd. But all I’ve really done here is to take to its logical conclusion much of this whole trite pouty postmodern seeker sensitive pabulum that slitered out from the various viper dens within the Church Growth Movement and is being taught today in the visible Christian Church—whether it be the pragmatic man-centered methodology of Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren or the new judgmentless Love Wins mythology of the Emerging Church rock star pastor Rob Bell. Such is what is passing for genuine Christianity in our timid and tepid time. However, the absolute Truth is that God the Holy Spirit has already warned us long ago in His inerrant and infallible Word—the Bible:

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough… For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Corinthians 11:4, 13-15).

How much better that, right now, we completely turn our backs on all of these false prophets of this postevangelical postmodern form of “big tent” Progessive Christianity, with it’s repugnant romance of apostate Roman Catholicism, and finally return to our senses:

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
(Joshua 24:14-15).

See also:

JOHN PIPER, RICK WARREN & FOSTER-WILLIARDISM

ROB BELL DEFENDING LOVE WINS MYTHOLOGY

THE EMERGING CHURCH, POSTMODERNISM, & IRRATIONAL PHILOSOPHY