In the previous articles (parts 1-3) we delved into various aspects of the “Mother of Harlots” that is, the one world religious body as prophesied in REVELATION 17, and how different ecclesial forces are melding together. Two of the primary forces that are acting as catalysts for the emergence of the Mother are the Roman Catholic Church and the Emergent Church Movement.
There is a third force as well, one that has been a part of our society for about thirty years, the New Age Movement (more often today referred to as the New Spirituality).You will find that as you read the writings of New Age leaders and their Emergent Church counterparts, what they have to say on particular matters is virtually identical.
Some therefore conclude that the ECM is simply the New Age Movement dressed in evangelical clothes, while still denying the fundamentals of the faith (The New Age Movement is likewise old ‘Babylon-ish’ occult technique dressed up as well as 'cutting edge' spirituality).
The difference is that New Age dogma used to be a fringe element in our society; today Emergent church beliefs and practices are quickly becoming a majority voice: a kind of spiritual tsunami sweeping over the landscape, and it will wreak ruin and destruction for fundamental, biblical Christianity as far as its overt presence and viability where this nation is concerned.
The term ‘fundamentalist’ has become hugely unpopular in today’s world, which perceives that they ‘hate gays’, promote ‘anti-abortion’ and thump the Bible over everyone’s heads with a message that somehow portrays God as a hateful Deity who yearns to mete out death and judgment; on the other hand there are other evangelicals who present a mealy-mouthed, 'wishy-washy' gospel who want nothing more than to placate the world and show people that all the church wants is to be ‘friends’.
While my beliefs in regards to the Bible are indeed absolutely fundamental, I don’t consider myself a so-called ‘fundamentalist’ for the above reasons; or at the very least I would assert that what these types believe is hardly fundamentalist in its truest sense.
When people ask me if I am religious, I usually respond with “No, I’m just a Christian.” When they then ask me what do I believe, I lift my Bible up and simply say, “This, and nothing else: no church tradition, no dogmas, nor rituals, or lists of do’s and don’ts in order to substantiate earning my salvation. I believe in the fundamentals, that is, the central core beliefs that are essential to Christianity, without which it cannot exist”
A growing number of Christians won’t lift their Bibles up to show the world that this Book, and this Book alone contains the fullness of their beliefs. More professing Christians even question the idea of ‘truth’ in general and even the truth as it pertains to God’s Word, or that the Bible is the exclusive source of absolute truth.
The Modernist scoffers of God’s Holy Word have done their work well in corrupting the younger generations within the education systems in America and elsewhere in so-called Christian seminaries, and primed them to receive gladly the Emergent Dogmas that will comprise the global religion of the Mother of Harlots, the veritable Whore of Babylon.
For this reason, these sort of ‘pseudo-Christians’ (who have had no genuine encounter with God through the LORD Jesus Christ by being born again through His Atonement and His Spirit) are finding Emergent churches far more comfortable than churches that stick to teaching and practicing the Word of God, and nothing else!
To further demonstrate that the Emergent Church Movement is not merely extra-biblical in their beliefs (on that basis alone it should be REJECTED), but downright heretical, and virtually synonymous with the New Age Movement we shall now review information from Greg Reid’s book, Trojan Church.
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Prominently on page “ix” Greg has a quote by Amy Carmichael:
“The truth is a lighted stronghold. We must dwell therein or perish.”I pray that this becomes the uncompromising declaration of the church of the LORD Jesus Christ, those founded on the ROCK of our salvation, in these last days!
“In the not too distant future, the church will undergo a transformation that will change its heart and soul and foundation completely.
“The ‘Futurechurch’ (his term) is the deliberately designed dream of those moving the world toward globalism, “One World – One Religion”.
“Two or three decades ago, the obstacles of such a transformation were so many, as to make the task almost impossible. But, said the tortoise to the hare, slow and steady wins the race. And while the church has run hare-like into trends, mega-church programs and media-driven movements, the New Age tortoise has come into the back door and planted within our walls the tares of deception and illusion that are transforming the church into a New Age apparatus and puppet from within.” P. xiiiFor a brief commentary on the New Age Movement, watch this (9 minute) video with Dave Hunt and Johanna Michaelson on the John Ankerberg Show. For the full length video go here.
Note to readers: We at The TRUTH Under FIRE have some in-depth articles on the Theosophical Society and one of its founding leader, Alice Bailey. You can read the first in this three part series, here.
Any who would discount this organization as a fringe element in society that has little, if any bearing on our world today would be gravely mistaken! As we researched this organization, we found insidious, genuinely diabolical (in the truest sense of the word) practices and objectives that is quite literally shaping the world-view of Earth’s population and is integral to the formation of the one world religion/government.
In regards to the Theosophical Society, Dr. Reid says this:
“Over a century ago, the [P]lan took a written form, most notably through a Russian Occultist named Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891). The foundational theology for the occult and New Age world were written down by her in her two books Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, as well as through the magazine she founded in Sept. of 1887, Lucifer a monthly magazine designed as stated on its title page, ‘to bring to light the hidden things of darkness.’Blavatsky put forth the teaching of the ‘Ascended Masters’ (read that ‘fallen angels and demons’) and the Root Races – races she claimed explained each era of man – the Polarian, Hyperborean, Lemurian, Atlantean and during her time, the Aryan (Alice Bailey, the spiritual heir-apparent to Theosophy, further elucidated the Luciferian doctrines that would later be the grid for the modern New Age movement).” P. 24
“A young man later took these teachings very much to heart. The result was the Third Reich and the slaughter of millions of Jews and others under the demonic hand of a trained occult master named ADOLF HITLER. The ‘Ascended Masters’ (in Christian and Jewish theology, the fallen angels [Satan’s rebel angels that opposed God]) had their first New World taste of world dominance.” P. 25And I might add, having tasted the appetizers in the Third Reich, these Luciferian forces are about to indulge in the main course of 21st century fare!
“Many [New Age] players stepped onto the stage to provide meaning, cohesion and direction to this ‘brave new world’ of mystic spirituality and drug induced occult experiences.”
As has already been discussed, the so-called early Church Fathers practiced mysticism and contemplative spirituality, and this has been emphatically endorsed by much of today’s Emergent Church Movement; it’s no small coincidence that the New Age leaders endorsed these things first!
As far as drug induced occult experiences go, while the likes of Brian McLaren and Rob Bell may not advocate the use of drugs, both look favorably on contemplative spirituality, and this can lead to occult-related oppression, even demonic possession even more powerfully than can drugs!
Dr. Reid continues . . .
“Most notable have been Marilyn Ferguson, author of The Aquarian Conspiracy, Barbara Marx Hubbard, author of The Revelation, Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love and a recent favorite New Age teacher of Oprah Winfrey, Neale Donald Walsh, author of Conversations With God books, which absolves Hitler of guilt for slaughtering millions of Jews. . .” P. 25
“Other big names in the New Age movement are “. . . Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, authors of the wildly successful Chicken Soup for the Soul series; Benjamin Crème, a forerunner for ‘Maitreya’, an entity that claims to be the Christ; Oprah Winfrey, the media central go-to person for all things New Age; Esther Hicks who trans-channels the ‘Abraham Group’ whose ‘message’ became the basis for the book and DVD The Secret by Rhonda Byrne; Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth and many others, too numerous to name.” P. 33For a three part series based on Warren Smith's Book: FALSE CHRIST COMING: Does Anybody Care? This covers three primary movers of the New Spirituality Movement that's permeating our society: Barbara Marx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsh and Mirianne WIlliamson. You can read part one at this link.
Dr. Reid lays out a frame work to more readily identify the decade-old movement known as the Emergent Church Movement, and while defining such a movement as this is somewhat challenging due to its (at times) ambiguous nature, he does a fine job at pointing out its more demonstrable traits:
- Scripture is no longer the ultimate authority for many well known “Emergent Church” leaders. They rely heavily on new and exotic Bible “translations” and “paraphrases” such as The Message.
- Emergent thought leans increasingly, and heavily, on contemplative prayer concepts that closely mirror eastern occult meditation techniques (see previous article in this series The MOTHER of HARLOTS EMERGES - Part Three), as well as labyrinths, guided visualization, etc. The result is a moving away from evangelism and the true work of the Gospel and toward esoteric practices like inner silence, breath prayers and eastern-style meditation.
- The Gospel of Jesus is being replaced with “serving the world” activities and methods that promote church growth and a social gospel at the expense of making true disciples through the teaching and preaching of the Word of God and reaching lost humanity for Jesus (more on this a bit later).
- Emphasis on the “here and now”, fixing your life and little or no emphasis on the return of Jesus and coming judgment.
- Increasing emphasis on “repairing the world” and establishing the “kingdom now” rather than expecting judgment and Jesus’ return, the creating of a new heaven and a new Earth, and the thousand year reign of Christ.
- Experiential, mystical Christianity is promoted to attract the postmodern generation. This includes changing the language of faith – i.e., not sin, but “mistakes” – not repentance, but “changing your mind” – not the Lord Jesus, but “leader and friend.”
- . . . cults, occult groups and Pagan religions . . . are called Sacred tribes, and Emergent leaders seek dialogue with them to see “what we share in common.” Evangelism to them is considered an insult to the “sacred beliefs” of these “sacred tribes” (a common social engineering and dialectic consensus-building technique is commonly implemented. . .). “Let’s see what we have in common, not what makes us different from one another, and let’s find a common ground to dialogue”
Greg comments: “It is spiritually dangerous for the church to adapt this method of ‘dialoguing with the world.’ It always ends in us compromising Biblical truth in order to be acceptable to the world (emphasis mine).- . . . Emergent Thought continually down plays, disregards or reinterprets the Biblical concept of the literal second coming of Jesus in the clouds and appears to be implying that we – corporately- are the coming of Jesus. When they do, they are modeling their new theology after New Age leader Barbara Marx Hubbard, whose book The Revelation is a complete reinterpretation of the book of Revelation and presents the idea that the judgments of Revelation don’t have to happen, if we all come together as one and embrace our divine destiny. I frankly find little or no different between what Hubbbard’s “Christ spirit” laid forth and the re-thinking of the Gospel as presented by Emergent Church leaders such as Brian McLaren.”
To view Mr. McLaren’s views on the gospel, look at this interview he had: He seems to equate the Self-sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as somehow synonymous to those of Gandhi and Martin Luther King’s sacrifices and in no way unique as the substitutionary death of God the Son, the Lamb of God, slain for our sins!
McLaren Defies the Uniqueness of Jesus Christ
To view Mr. McLaren’s views on the kingdom of God and the ‘central, core message of Jesus, click on this link –
Brian McClaren's Everything Must Change Heresies
Mr. McLaren stated that Jesus didn’t give us a straight answer regarding the definition of the Kingdom of God . . . And yet, we read the Gospel accounts concerning the Kingdom, Jesus Himself stated that you must be born again, that is, born of God’s Spirit in order to see, and enter into God’s Kingdom (JOHN 3:3-5). When speaking of the Kingdom, He told us about “a sower” of seed, and when His disciples asked Him about it, He certainly gave them a straight answer (see LUKE 8:5-15)! These parables were given so that those who seek Truth would be granted understanding, and those who would reject Truth, would not understand. The LORD also stated that “My kingdom is not of (from, derivative) this world” JOHN 18:36. Those all seem pretty straight forward answers to me! Mr. McLaren seems intent on obfuscating clear biblical text for his own agenda of muddying up the water of the Word of Truth!
For an excellent rebuttal and refutation of this Emergent philosophy read the following:
Who Defines The Kingdom of God?
And this rebuttal of McLaren's tenets and emergent dogma is handled with great insight, biblical accuracy and compassion by this godly Christian lady we have come to know on youtube as 'KarensFaith':
Exposing Emergent Leader-Brian McLaren
Mr. McLaren claims that Jesus’ mission was NOT to show us the way to heaven after we die, but to show us how we can live the kingdom of heaven right now on this Earth: us, our children, our grandchildren, etc.
Jesus emphatically stated that the way to heaven and our Father who dwells there, is through Him and Him alone (JOHN 14:6); everywhere in the New Testament, which Mr. McLaren claims he’s based his assertions on, we see that the Kingdom of heaven is inaugurated, NOT by His church, or through the actions and plans of Christians, or by a global religious movement, but by the LORD Christ Jesus Himself: MATT 24:30-31; MARK 8:38; LUKE 18:8; 2 THESS 1:7-10.
Here we end the first half of the final segment to this article "The MOTHER of HARLOTS EMERGES". We will conclude this article next week and until then Saints,
Keep your eyes on the skies and don't believe the lies! JESUS CHRIST is RETURNING SOON from on high! Maranatha!
Nikaeo Aionios A.V.R.A.S.!
Brother James FIRE
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