A Handbook for the Apostate Church

On April 28, 2022April 27, 2022 By StraightUp

Image is of my actual copy of this book.

If you have followed the StraightUp blog for any amount of time then you know I have been talking about and warning about the Emergent Missional Church movement and those connected with it. Two of the names I have mentioned over the past couple of years are Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost, the two world wide experts on the missional church and unfortunately they have quite the influence on evangelical churches in the United States. Any church, pastor, leader who is using or promoting anything from these men is a huge red flag!

This is an updated re-published book it was originally published in 2008. There are SO many issues or red flags with this book, however, if you don’t really know your Bible you might be led to think this is really good because for once they actually do say some good things, but the unbiblical ideology out weighs the good, so it is rubbish.

When I saw that they were re-publishing this book due to the things going on socially, culturally and politically over the recent years, I knew I needed to read it…curiosity. Ugh! It is exactly what I figured it to be… from just the fact that Christine Caine wrote the forward (she is apart of the New Apostolic Reformation and a huge social justice activist) and is apparently quite connected with Alan Hirsch and his wife (so if you don’t understand that she is someone to stay away from this should hopefully help with that.) Then I looked over the many names of those who endorsed the book… lets just say it’s a train wreck! A whose who of social justice activist, contemplative prayer practitioners /promoter’s, progressive “Christians”… THIS IS WHAT EMERGENT CHURCH IS!!! It is not dead so open your eyes and wake up Church!

So, after seeing the endorsements I didn’t really need to go any farther, but again curiosity got the best of me. The Preface…wow…or better yet…YIKES. They talk about all the different “movements” that have happened within the Church over the years and basically how they have left a trail of disappointment. I find it a bit funny that they mention the “emergent” as well, when that is EXACTLY WHAT THIS IS! They talk about how this is a time that they feel the need to reground their faith around Jesus and thus call others to do the same. Now, this sounds like a good thing, right? However, you have to understand who their Jesus is…very important! The “missional” Jesus, the Jesus of these two guys, is a social justice, ecumenical Jesus. That is NOT the Jesus of the Bible. They use Eph. 1, Col. 1, Rom. 5 to support their understanding of the “uniting of all things in Christ”… that through the “rejesus affect it will not just involve our celebrating Jesus as our Savior.’ In their thinking this is the “great evangelical reduction of the gospel” and they go on to talk about the need to pattern our lives after Jesus the “holy” human, but again, you have to understand which Jesus they follow…it is not the Jesus of the Bible. I will come back to this. I want to mention some concerning things in the Preface beyond their “Christology” ideology…yes, I’m still on in the Preface! That’s how bad this is. I could have burned the book at this point, but curiosity.

One thing I have been warning about regarding these people and all of those in their camp, is the teaching and practicing of contemplative prayer practices, which is no different than New Age, Eastern mysticism so you have to pay attention to wording and phrases. They quote some questionable people in the Preface like David Bentley Hart who is a promoter of Universalism, The SBC theologian Russell Moore who is a progressive, Sarah Bessey who is a progressive. Then they go on to say that what they are actually doing with this book ReJesus is practicing what Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (who Hirsch seems to love) calls “trinitarian Christology” the idea that the Trinity must start with Jesus because it is he who introduces us to the Trinity… Um, this is heretical and just stupid. Also, why are we trying to get evangelical churches to follow the theology of a Catholic theologian? Wake up Church!!! I beg you.

As you can see this will get rather long so I am going to condense it. As I went on reading through the book there is the continual use of quoting Catholic theologians, contemplative practitioners, and progressives. So, maybe you are wondering what Christology is? Well, it is the doctrine of focusing on the works and nature of Jesus. The entire point of Rejesusing the Church (they are talking Evangelical and Catholic – ecumenism) is to move away from the doctrine of salvation (which is the mission of the NT Church) to Christology. This is not biblical. They follow a social justice Jesus and in order for the Church to be authentic that is what all of us need to follow….um, no thanks! I will stick with the biblical Jesus that called people to repentance, who flipped tables in the synagogues and warned about false teachers.

To be the Church that Hirsch and Frost are longing for is to ignore sound biblical teaching of the whole Bible, to be a Church that is into social justice activism (like them), to be ecumenical (which will lead to universalism), where progressive Christians are not apostates, where we should give all our money away (they actually say this in the book – both of them are worth over a million dollars so maybe they should start)… this is NOT a biblical NT Church, this is what would cause apostasy in the Church – this book truly is the handbook for the apostate church. Wake Up Church. Time is running out. That’s it. StraightUp!

Ecumenical. Social justice is not biblical. We worship God which includes Jesus! These people have no idea how to rightly divide the Word of God.

An Explanation of Contemplative Prayer

On July 29, 2021July 29, 2021 By StraightUp

This summer has been full including studying and researching for future blog posts. Something that is ravaging the NT Church is contemplative spirituality/spiritual formation and it is HUGE in the Emerging Progressive Missional Church movement, so I decided rather than try to break it completely down myself, for now anyway, I am linking to a video teaching by Ray Yungen because it is excellent in the information he is providing. I will add some names to be aware of but he gives a few. This is only a partial teaching at a conference. I will try to remember to post the follow up video as well.

Ray Yungen mentions Brennan Manning, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, others to be aware of are Richard Rohr, Leonard Sweet, Walter Brueggemann, Lesslie Newbiggin. These people have a huge influence on those who lead and promote the Emerging Progressive and Missional Christian movement, this element of Contemplative, New Age Mysticism is what brings so many together who if you were to look at doctrine should actually have nothing to unite around (ecumenism) but this false spirituality will draw the followers in the Emergent movement together because like Ray says, it does away with the biblical gospel. The true gospel of the Bible is a marker of what Truth is and that is not subjective it is absolute.

If you are in a church teaching or promoting contemplative spirituality/ spiritual formation you need to run! This is not biblical, it is occultism. That’s it. StraightUp!

Authority not Deeds

One of the main ideas of the Emerging Missional Progressive church movement is living ‘sent or on mission’ (hence the “missional” element). There are no commands in scripture to “live sent” and no commands to “live on mission” these simply come from the giving context to things in scripture that really are not there or by taking scripture out of context.

Many times in scripture Jesus refers to the Father who sent Me, or makes statements like “this is the will of Him who sent Me”… ‘sent’ is the mark or the finger pointing to the authority by which Jesus was sent or the authority behind what He said/did. It is not a word that teaches some watered down pay it forward, false doctrine like living “sent or on mission”. It speaks to authority– God’s authority in sending Jesus. Biblically the word mission when used in reference to Christianity, refers to the “sending forth” of men with authority to preach or spread the gospel. Jesus wasn’t sent to leave big tips at restaurants, or to surprise people by paying for their coffee in the drive thru, Jesus wasn’t sent just to eat meals with people and He certainly wasn’t sent to drink beer with people, Jesus wasn’t sent to clean up cities, or to create an equal society for all… He was sent by God the Father for one purpose, to redeem sinful people, not a group, not a community but individual people. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world (humanity) that He (God the Father) SENT His only begotten Son that whoever (individual people) believes in Him (Jesus) shall not perish but have everlasting life.” When John the Baptist came as a forerunner to Jesus, the Pharisee’s questioned him asking if he was the Christ, was he Elijah, was he the Prophet… they wanted to know the authority by which he was sent preaching repent and be baptized.

Sent: one that is sent forth. This has nothing to do with how a Believer lives, it has everything to do with the authority by which we live out what God has commanded us to do in His Word. It is a word of “commissioning”… Believer’s are commissioned by God’s authority to preach the gospel (1Corinthians 15:1-4), to make disciples and to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We are not sent (commissioned) to be ‘missional’, to live ‘sent’ or on ‘mission’ doing acts of kindness, social justice activism, paying it forward in the fast food line etc. Sent/Mission biblically speak to authority and commissioning, they do not have anything to do with deeds/works. Living ‘sent, on mission’ as pushed by the Emergent Missional Progressive movement is a false ideology that doesn’t have a basis in scripture.

Like Jesus, who was commissioned by His Father to save humanity from the penalty of sin, we have one purpose preach the gospel… we do this (commissioned) by Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Church, stop looking for easy works based, culture friendly Christianity, stop being deceived, stop listening to ‘thought leaders’ (the use of this title by people should be a red flag) who are teaching a false Christianity and who are rewriting the Bible to fit their narrative. That’s it. StraightUp!

Matthew 18:5-6 is a warning to those who cause others to stumble.

On February 8, 2021February 8, 2021 By StraightUp

Churches Leading Their Sheep Astray

On January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 By StraightUp

There are many things in todays evangelical churches that are actually leading Christians away from Biblical Christianity. Things like the social justice gospel, CRT, the Emerging Churches thinking of being “missional” basically redefining how to be a Christian (which you cannot change without changing the gospel), pursuing ecumenicism, affirmation of LGTBQ and in some denominations welcoming LGTBQ, moving away from teaching the scriptures soundly to telling stories, motivational speeches, and using scripture out of context to fit unbiblical agenda’s for the church, and utilizing spiritual formation or by its truer name, contemplative spirituality (Centering/Listening prayer, Breath prayer, Lectio Divina, spiritual guides etc.) and still so much more. The interesting thing is, all of the above are unbiblical elements being brought into our churches through pastor’s and leader’s who have aligned themselves with the Progressive/Emerging Church movement. This post is going to focus on Contemplative Spirituality.

If you listen to what Progressive/Emerging Church leaders say in regard to going back to the early church or the ancient church, they are not referring to the NT Church found in scripture, the one in Acts. They actually are referring to “Christians” from after the first century, most often they draw from the Early Desert Fathers and even quote Early Desert Mothers. The scriptures, the inspired Word of God, is the manual for the NT Church period, but many pastor’s and leaders are following men who have combined the Bible with the teachings of many who are not Christian influences, but are Catholic theologians, Jewish theologians, Catholic mystics, Jewish mystics, new age influences etc. This is really problematic for the NT Church and these influences are leading Christians away from Biblical Christianity.

Contemplative spirituality comes from the Early Desert Father’s and Mother’s (beginning around the 3rd century. They focused on austerity, prayer/contemplation, works/social justice…not the Great Commission), they were essentially Roman monastics or monks and nuns. Contemplative spirituality is really monastic mysticism which the Desert Father’s and Mother’s took from Eastern Religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, and is essentially the same spirituality used in the New Age/New Thought spirituality. Contemplative or Mystical practices have been a long standing integral part of the Eastern Orthodox Church (Catholic) and Roman Catholic churches, and focuses on “stillness” and “silence”… these practices are not rooted in scripture, nor are they rooted in the early NT church. So, why are our churches introducing us to unbiblical practices? Honestly, the only thing I can come up with is a lack of discernment. These practices are demonic and are dangerous, but more and more churches are introducing them to its people. Not to long ago I saw an event advertising this very thing not to far from where I am located. The thing with contemplative spirituality is it focuses on experience by utilizing pagan religious ways and these open the mind up to spiritual influences that are in opposition to the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches the NT Christian to seek God through prayer and through scripture by setting our minds toward God, conscious minds and hearts not with an empty mind. The NT Christian is filled with the Spirit of God and we don’t have to use false spirituality to gain access to Him, if we are truly seeking Him we will find Him, He will make himself known to us and we do this to grow in the intimacy of a personal relationship with Him! (Jer. 29:13, Ps. 63:1, Matt. 7:7, Ps. 34:4) We are not (or should not be) seeking some higher spiritual plane that we can only get to by being silent and empty minded. This is so dangerous. Matt. 6:7 tells us not to use vain repetitions when we pray because that is what heathens do. This can also mean chants or mantras these are apart of contemplative prayer and are not Biblical.

So, who are some contemplative spirituality influences impacting evangelical churches? Richard Rohr (Catholic Mystic), Richard Foster (Quaker Mystic), Thomas Merton (Catholic Mystic who draws from Buddhism), Brother Lawrence (Carmelite Monk), Henri Nouwen (Catholic Mystic), Leonard Sweet (Emerging Church Leader/New Age), Tilden Edwards (Founder of Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation), Brian McLaren (Progressive/EMC Leader), Dallas Willard (Philosopher/Spiritual Formation), Brennan Manning (author/Laicized priest), Thomas Keating (Catholic Monk). There are many more that can be mentioned and their influence into our churches through the Emerging Missional Church/Progressive Christianity is nuts! The influence of contemplative spirituality is Catholicism and Eastern Religion, it is demonic and not Biblical. I encourage you to watch out for it and to reject it. It has no place in the NT Church or in the practice of NT Christian’s. That’s it. StraightUp!

Missional or Actually Emergent/ Progressive?

On October 24, 2020November 3, 2020 By StraightUpLeave a comment

First, let’s talk about the photo to the right! As you can see the internet label above the photos says, “The Emergent Church leaders” that’s right. These are some of the more prominent leaders of the Emerging Missional Church Movement. The top first two (Brian McLaren and Rob Bell) seem to get a lot of space from those trying to warn the Church to avoid them since they are extremely heretical and in reality probably not even born again Christians. The third one on the top, gets some attention as well, and again he (Doug Pagitt) is extremely heretical and likely not a born again Christian. Some of you might be saying, “you don’t know if they are saved or not..” actually, research them and you will understand the statement. The other two guys on the bottom are Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch…yes! Alan Hirsch is an EMC leader! See one of the things that has made researching the EMC over the past year a challenge, is the reality that there are more than one stream of it, but all of the streams focus on being “missional”. A short background on Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, they are considered to be “Deconstructionist” (or in another term, Progressive Christians) basically, they flat out reject much of scripture, use scripture out of context when they do use it, practice contemplative spirituality, are LGTBQ affirming, all that, Like I said before, you can do your own in depth research.

I’m going to focus on Alan Hirsch for now, since he has a great amount of influence on EFCA pastors and leaders through the group Creo Collective. Alan Hirsch is South African with ties to Australia, and is one of the most prominent teachers of being “missional” and for his teaching of APEST (which would be a whole other post) – he is what is known as a Reconstructionist in the EMC stream. What is the desire of this Reconstructionist? The church is irrelevant in their (Reconstructionist) opinion so the church needs to change to meet the needs of the changing culture (even though the Church was never called to do this), so we have the push and the expertise of Alan Hirsch to be ‘missional’ and incarnational. Include everyone, exclude no one. A bigger picture of what this looks like is having conversations rather than evangelize, do works, social justice, utilize spiritual formation (contemplative spirituality…which is new age/Eastern Orthodox Mysticism) and some Emergent/Progressive Christians like Shane Claiborne promote monastic community (this comes from following the Desert Fathers – Catholic). Here is the thing NONE of this is NT Christianity.

There is a reason these things are not apart of the NT Church, they are actually influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Church which draws from 2nd – 3rd Century ‘Church Father’s’ rather than the Word of God itself, contemplative spiritual practices are common place, as well as many elements of Catholicism (which this stumped me for awhile) but Hirsch has an Orthodox view of scripture and the gospel so these things highly influence this movement. I will say of many other EMC leaders, they also have these same leanings. So, is it ‘missional’, Emergent, or Progressive? Yes! Actually, it is all the same movement. The Emergent and Progressive movements are intertwined, some a little more extreme than others. Those like Alan Hirsch follow and endorse those such as Brian McLaren. There is no separation due to heresy or apostasy as the Bible says there should be. No, these people support each other in the ‘mission’. According to David Fiorazo an author, speaker and radio host who has written on the Emerging Church confirms the Emergent movement has morphed into what we are seeing as the Progressive Christian movement. The Progressive movement reject the authority of literal interpretation of scripture therefore sound teaching of scripture is not important.

Even Creo Collective, the group for missional minded pastors in the EFCA (which is welcoming not affirming of LGTBQ), is following this Progressive movement. In September, they held teaching on the ‘Early Church’ (apostolic teaching, creeds, confessions, catechisms, early church fathers and mothers)… this is CATHOLICISM. All of these things are rooted in the Catholic traditions NOT in NT Christianity. This is ecumenism pure and simple. More clearly, this is turning evangelical churches into heretical churches. Neither the Eastern Orthodox Church nor the Catholic Church are the NT Church. The Bible gives all the information we need to see and know what the NT Church is and how it is to function. You can not bring people to Jesus with a biblical gospel, when the basis of what you believe, teach and promote are not aligned with the Word of God. Might there be some in these movements and the Catholic faith who have heard a biblical gospel and have been born again? Yes, this is possible, however their leadership are compromising with secular culture instead of being faithful to true biblical teaching.

This movement is full of mud puddles of doctrine and heresies. Alan Hirsch and many like him are Dominionist and Amillenial in their end time eschatology. The Bible is clear on the end time events, so even in this, our churches and leaders are being influenced with unbiblical doctrines. These things have to matter or we are going to find ourselves far away from our desired destination. That’s it. StraightUp!

If you know nothing about Progressive Christianity, checkout Alisa Childer’s new book Another Gospel…it will be a starting point.

Another Gospel

On October 10, 2020 By StraightUpLeave a comment

The Tragedy of Apostasy

On July 2, 2020October 8, 2020 By StraightUpLeave a comment

First, you might be asking, “What is apostasy?” For the Church or the Believer in Jesus Christ, apostasy is basically the falling away from the truth; willing rejection of the truth of God which a person once believed.

My previous post talked about influence and that who is influencing each of us matters as well as who is influencing those people matters. On one hand the Believer should realize that the apostasy of the Church (this isn’t talking about the Catholic church, this is in regard to the NT Church) is made known to us in scripture (Matthew 24:10-12) yet so many don’t recognize it or speak up to expose it. (It is happening now and it is happening fast!) Why? I believe it is because we don’t want to offend the other party and that is the tragedy of apostasy. Believer’s today would rather ignore or tolerate false teaching and keep “the peace” or for the sake of “unity” or to keep from losing a friendship, business opportunities, ministry opportunities, or even to keep from losing popularity with the masses. This. Is. Tragic. Influence is a huge part of it. Beth Moore is probably a really good person apart from her now progressive theology, but the fact remains her doctrine, her theology is no longer Biblically sound – how did she get there? Influence. Who is influencing her? Well, look at who she follows on social media and you will find numerous Emerging/Progressive Christians.

Who do you follow on social media? Why do you follow them? Most likely you follow the people you do because you are a “fan” of what they do…music, movies, Christian leader/teacher etc., or you agree with their thinking and/or theology/doctrine. Have you ever looked at who those Christian teachers are following? You should. It is very eye opening! If who you are following are following and being influenced by others who are not Biblically sound, that is going to trickle down to you at some point. Would you recognize it? Would you even care?

Recently I received a message from Creo Collective a group of Emerging “Missional” pastors and leaders within the EFCA (I wrote some about this in my post Just Like Tempering Eggs), this message was to persuade me that it is not Emergent. I had already done enough research to know that isn’t really the case. Who they follow online also shows that they are aligned with the Emerging Missional Movement. Here is a quick list: Ed Stetzer, Scot McKnight, Alan Hirsch (look at who he follows and you will find the Pope, other EMC including apostates Rob Bell and Brian McLaren), Brad Brisco, Dan Kimball, Reggie McNeal, Erwin McManus, Brennan Manning, Jen Hatmaker, Eugene Petersen, Richard Rohr, Caesar Kalinowski (will find him following EMC and progresives like Brandon Hatmaker), Hugh Halter (you will find him following Jen and Brandon Hatmaker, Rachel Held Evans-LGTBQ advocate/ Christian, Gungor – progressive musician, Rob Bell an apostate, other EMC people) Andy Stanley, Matt Chandler, Jeff Vanderstelt… What’s my point? This is a short list of who Creo follows online – it is a list of EMC leaders, contemplative spiritualists, and even progressive Christians (social justice, LGTBQ advocates). Then if you look at who these people follow, it isn’t really encouraging. Another thing you find among this group and those they follow, is ecumenicism – basically anyone who labels themselves a “Christian” is a brother/sister in Christ….um, this is not Biblical. Because in this list you have Jen Hatmaker, and she and her husband have rejected God’s Word regarding homosexuality and are actually apostates of the Christian faith. (Isaiah 5:20) We are to separate ourselves from such people, not embrace them (1 Cor. 5:11). In this group you will find the embracing of the Catholic faith (not a Christian faith based on Biblical doctrine) … all because of unity, tolerance and everyone is made in the image of God etc. One of the main markers of the Emerging Missional (coined by Brian McLaren) is less importance on doctrine or the sound teaching of it and heightened focus on relationships with people and good works, another marker is having conversations rather than share the gospel, another is ecumenicism/universalism (unity of ALL faiths), another is social justice (which is basically Marxism and not Biblical). Creo Collective and the EFCA are very much connected to the EMC and Progressive Christian movements, and they aren’t alone so is the Southern Baptist Convention, the Wesleyan Church, Presbyterian etc. How can pastors and leaders be influenced by such people and maintain sound Biblical teaching? They can’t. Whoever is influencing them, is shaping what they think and believe about ministry, life, society, and God’s Word (1 Cor. 15:33) In these denominations, there are handfuls of pastors who are rejecting these things, but they are the minority and that is tragic.

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” – 2 Corinthians 6:14

The NT Church is falling away at warp speed! I believe the reason why is that there are no longer clear lines as to what is really Biblical Christianity and what is not. If you look at what is happening in society right now, we are seeing scripture leap off its pages, and the Bible says that when these things happen, there will be a great falling away of the Elect…that’s the Church. We have allowed so much unsound teaching into the Church through influence and now the Church is conditioned to it. If our spiritual mentors have taken a turn towards a ditch of false teaching, we need to call them out on it and if they don’t listen, we need to separate from them, but most of us don’t. Why? Most likely we don’t want to admit that the people that have had an impact on our spiritual journey have managed to jump the track into something that is no longer Biblically sound. A year ago or close to it when the Lord started me looking into Caesar Kalinowski, it opened a box of people who I had enjoyed learning from that I would need to step away from (Look into one false teacher and your search will naturally take you into a circle of others who teach the same) – if we missed something that showed the move to an unbiblical direction, we repent, separate from them and warn others about them. The tragedy of apostasy is the Church today would rather appeal to the feelings of men rather than stand for the truth of God’s Word. That’s it. StraightUp!