An Emerging Pastoral Assessment
by Rev. Ken Silva, 1/30/06, Apprising Ministries
AN EMERGENT PASTORAL ASSESSMENT
Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
I feel led to present the following pastoral assessment for the edification of the true Body of Christ as evidence of the devastating results that the counterfeit Christian teachings of men like Brian McLaren have already been having on the Christian witness among our youth. You are about to see a living testimony of what has been happening within our Lord’s Church because our leaders failed in recognizing the new liberalism which is now being spread like the black plague of theology throughout Evangelicalism by this Emerging Church movement.
The following comment was posted at the website Emergent What? apparently as a response to my post A Diseased Tree on Slice of Laodicea. It should be noted at the outset that it was Ross Daws who took it upon himself to criticize my work while reimagining a dialogue that might take place between the two of us. I will have to say he did an admirable job for the most part in capturing what I would likely say to him. But since this is not the first time he has made the choice to be publicly critical of my ministry, and because the article in question had nothing whatever to do with Daws, then I feel I am within Christian ethics to use him as an object lesson for the following pastoral assessment.
Evidence Of A Judgmental Spirit Of Pride
DAWS: We all make assumptions, stated or otherwise, that make up and support our world-view, and generally reflect what we believe about how we know things (epistemology). Digging into (or deconstructing) these assumptions is a very instructive exercise, and one that I think would bring a new light to dialogue between the established and emerging churches, if undertaken honestly by both parties. However when folks like Silva refuse to acknowledge that they have a world view and epistemology, that does kind of make the prospect of such a discussion unlikely!!!
Silva: If like me you have actually tried to have a dialogue with young men like Daws who have bought into the above Emergent deceptions then you will know the spiritual pride with which they will inevitably approach your “conversation.” Unfortunately, for the most part rather than being humble–and not unlike talking with Mormons–the Emergent you try and talk with is most often coming from the position which I have seen demonstrated in so much of Brian McLaren’s work. A kind of: “Well, I know just a little bit more about the Bible and theology than you do.”
We notice first that Daws opens with a polemic which is actually quite typical of Emergents in dialogue; a rather condescending statement of the obvious, which apparently passes for wisdom in their circles, as if those of us who hold to the historic orthodox Christian faith do not know these things. This is usually followed by a bit of an intimidation tactic in the use of terms related to the philosophy and theology by which they have been indoctrinated, again as if we would not be familiar with these disciplines. And words I might add that for the most part have simply been redefined by corrupt Emergent Church teachers and pastors often lacking proper training themselves.
Frankly I have grown very weary of this infiltration into positions of leadership within our Lord’s Church by what are too often essentially boys who are still “wet behind the ears” theologically but who now have forums in the Emerging Church where they can parrot to the Christian community at large their Sweet McLarenisms. However the truth is, because timid Evangelical leaders were unwilling to crush this rebellion of neo-orthodox and re-packaged liberal theology (and worse) of the Emergent Church when it first began, we are now seeing the horrific results of this theology poison now that it is being considered as legitimately Christian....
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