DOUG PAGITT AND THE CULT OF THE EMERGENT CHURCH
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For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. (Acts 20:27-31)
A Gospel Of Mystical And Wishful Thinking?
With the Emergent Church spreading deeper into the evangelical community recently Apprising Ministries has been receiving quite a few questions concerning its teachings. Truly it is a lot like nailing jello to the wall. MacArthur has pointed out:
The bottom line, I think, in the movement is that it is a denial of the clarity of Scripture. It is a denial that we can know what the Bible really says. And as I said, it’s amorphous because there’s a mish-mash of approaches to this and a mish-mash of styles and things like that. But they have embraced this mystery as if it’s true spirituality. And so, it becomes celebration of mystery, a celebration of ignorance, a celebration that we can’t really know. I think it’s just another form of liberalism. I think it’s just another form of denying the clarity of Scripture. And I think there’s a motive behind it…it’s just another philosophy.
You can read more in Dr. John MacArthur on the Postliberal Cult of the Emerging Church. A while back Emerging Church Pastor Doug Pagitt was very high profile and in a rare instance quite frank about Emergent *ahem* theology.
In The Emergent Cult over at his Fishers of Men Bill Phillips did a good job in bringing us up to speed concerning two important appearances of Doug Pagitt:
a famous emergent church pastor, was interviewed on the Carm.org podcast (October 13) by Matt Slick, and on Way of the Master Radio (October 22, Hour 1) by Todd Friel. Each host asked seemingly simple questions, and Pagitt answered neither because he didn’t like the wording…
When Friel asked his question, Pagitt responded that he didn’t like the question because he doesn’t believe heaven is a real place. After jockeying over the wording of the question for a few minutes, it morphed to, “What happens to the soul of a good Buddhist after they die?” Pagitt decided that he or she would be reconciled to God, ending up in the same place as Christians.
This pastor’s words show a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel. (Online source)
“But I Don’t Wanna Have To Teach Proper Doctrine!”
In Doug Pagitt Speaks…In A Kinda, Sorta Emerging Church Way…On Carm Podcast I shared that back on August 9th of 2007 I received a call from one of my Christian Research Network contributors; my good friend Chris Rosebrough, also of Extreme Theology and A Little Leaven. He told me he was in Las Vegas at the Madalay Bay Hotel and he had just spoken with Doug Pagitt on his cell phone while Pagitt was at the Denver Airport heading on to New Mexico.
Chris told me that during his conversation Doug Pagitt confidently and unblinkingly denied the vicarious penal substitutionary atonement. He also explained how Pagitt told him that he does not teach any doctrine at Solomon’s Porch, which is the emerging church where Pagitt is supposed to be pastor.
Rosebrough informed me that this lead to a very vigorous debate over the Biblical mandate given to pastors in that we — must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it (Titus 1:9) and what the Biblical word for doctrine (didaskalia) means.
And so I will point out again that the question you need to begin asking your local evangelical church leadership right now is: What are men like this, who know not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, doing in the sheep pens of our youth groups?
See also:
DOUG PAGITT OF THE EMERGING CHURCH ON WAY OF THE MASTER RADIO
EMERGENT WOLVES ENTER YOUR SHEEP PENS THROUGH YOUTH GROUPS
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