Al-Qaeda and the Emerging Church Movement
By David J. Jonsson (11/09/07)
One might ask why it is important to understand the relation between the Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance and the Emerging Movement among Churches and Mosques. It is because it indicates the movement of a historically conservative church and other organizations into the fold. These Emerging Church and Mosque Movements are the elephants in the pew. The Radical Islamist Movement has realized that the tactical weapons of terrorism and suicide bombing may not be achieving their goal for world domination, and that seduction, economics and political action are more effective in winning the war. In the letter: A Common Word Between Us and You the strategy is apparent in their conference of September 2007 held under the theme of “Love in the Quran.” In this essay, I address how the Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance is approaching the goal of achieving a one religion and one-world government.
The public failure of the Soviet Union in 1991 interred Lenin’s theory of social causation in his Red Square casket, although, like Dracula, the monster occasionally climbs out of its casket and wanders through American college campuses and churches, seeking whom it may devour.
As I wrote in the article The Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance Aligns Against Jerusalem :
“The West has a worldview based on the analysis and actions influenced by looking through the lenses of politics and economics, whereas the Islamists look at the world through the lens of ideology. It is time for the West to place importance on looking at events happening around the world through the lens of ideologies. In the case of the Muslims, their worldview and subsequent actions are shaped by their vision for world domination, the establishment of Islamic kingdom of God on Earth – the creation of worldwide Caliphate and the End Times.”
In Part 1, we address Al-Qaeda and the Emerging Church Movement, In Part 2 we discuss the role of Arianism/Mormonism in the 2008 Presidential Campaign, In Part 3 we discuss how Post Modernism in the Emerging Church Movement supports the goals of the Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance. In Part 4 we discuss the role of Praxis, Post-evangelical and Politics in the Emerging Church Movement.
An inability to understand the ideology behind the Emerging Church Movement, Arianism, cultural Marxism and political Islam could spell disaster for the West.
Al-Qaeda and the Emerging Church
Frank Pastore in his article for Townhall of July 22, 2007, Why Al Qaeda Supports the Emergent Church, wrote:
“The greatest threat to world peace is radical Islam. If not for the United States, millions more would be suffering under the tyranny of Shariah law all over the world. Our Muslim enemies know post-Christian Europe has already lost the will to fight. Africa, Asia, and South America seem to be already lost. Russia, China, and India would rather trade than fight…for now. And the United Nations continues to be irrelevant.
Only the United States, and more specifically, only the conservative, evangelical Christians of America are who stand between radical Islam and their quest for global domination.
If the world is to be saved from Muslim conquest, it will be America who does it. And if America is to be saved, only conservatism can do it. And if conservatism is to be saved, it will be those Bible-believing patriots who do it–those conservative, evangelical Christians who are the bedrock of the American way of life.
Why? Because only Christianity has the intellectual and spiritual horsepower to defeat radical Islam and prevent the world from returning to the darkness of the 7th century. After all, the story of the birth and growth of Western Civilization is pretty much the story of the birth and growth of Christianity. The divide between East and West today, fundamentally, is the divide between Islam and Christianity. Christians and Muslims know this, it’s the secularists who don’t get it–or at least won’t admit it.
A post-Christian, post-modern, secular-socialist America will be no match for a radical Islam fueled by petro-dollars and threatening the use of nuclear weapons.”
The Emerging Church Movement
The leaders of what is now called Emergent Village are Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Chris Seay, and Tim Keel — along with others like Karen Ward, Ivy Beckwith, Brian McLaren - New Age/Mystic/Contemplative, Mark Oestreicher, John Shelby Spong author of The Sins of Scripture and others such as and Mark Scandrette, author and Spiritual Director of ReImagine ministries.
Mark Scandrette is also a senior fellow with Emergent Village, a growing generative friendship among missional Christian leaders. The Emergent Village is a part of the Emerging Church Movement. Mark Scandrette wrote the book Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus.
To put this in perspective, Brian McLaren calls hell and the cross “False Advertizing for God. The interview on with Brian McLaren by Leif Hansen is available here. http://www.understandthetimes.org/mclarentrans.shtml Interview took place 1/8/2006 and 1/12/2006 Brian McLaren discusses his philosophy in The Last Word and the Word after That: A Tale of Faith, Doubt, and a New Kind of Christianity and A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/ conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist /calvinist, ... anabaptist/anglican, metho (Emergentys)
Mark Scandrette lectures frequently with the U.S. Center for World Missions, leads retreats and workshops and provides life coaching and spiritual direction.
Brian McLaren public speaking covers a broad range of topics including postmodern thought and culture, Biblical studies, evangelism, leadership, global mission, spiritual formation, worship, pastoral survival and burnout, inter-religious dialogue, ecology, and social justice.
He serves as a board chair for Sojourners/Call to Renewal (sojo.net), and is a founding member of Red Letter Christians, a group of communicators seeking to broaden and deepen the dialogue about faith and public life. He is also a board member for “Orientacion Cristiana,” and formerly served on the boards of International Teams (www.iteams.org) in Chicago, Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle (mhgs.edu), and Off The Map (off-the-map.org). He has taught or lectured at several seminaries in the U.S. and abroad.
Giving voice to Sojourners’ intense anti-Americanism, Jim Wallis called the U.S. “… the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs.” Sojourners is a member organization of the Win Without War and United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalitions. Sojourners is supported by the Cawley Family Foundation, Crystal Trust, the Delaware Community Foundation, the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, the Gannett Foundation, the Gill Foundation, the Laffey-McHugh Foundation, the Longwood Foundation, the MBNA Foundation, the Open Society Institute, www.soros.org the Peninsula Community Foundation, and the Philadelphia Foundation.
Richard Foster and others have derived their so-called spiritual formation approach from Catholic “saints” and mystics. Foster created The Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible to biblically support his mystical approach, yet its commentaries libel the Scriptures and demean sound doctrine. Foster introduced Eastern mystical techniques to the church decades ago in Celebration of Discipline. Now his spiritual formation agenda is foundational to the Emerging Church, a widespread movement of 20-to-30-year-old evangelicals who are attracted to the sensual liturgies (candles, incense, chanting, vestments, rituals, statues, icons, etc.) of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy as a supposed means of enhancing their spiritual formation. See: Weaning Evangelicals Off the Word-Part 1 McMahon, T.A. February 1, 2007
What is the Emerging Church?
I reference in the next sections the presentation: What is the Emerging Church? by Scot McKnight given at the Fall Contemporary Issues Conference Westminster Theological Seminary Oct 26-27, 2006. Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois). A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986). McKnight’s award-winning blog, Jesus Creed http://www.jesuscreed.org/ He writes widely on the Emerging Church.
To quote Scot McKnight: “Also constantly misused in the debate today are the terms “emerging” and “emergent.” But, “emerging” is not the same as “emergent.” Please listen. “Emergent” refers to Emergent Village — an official clearinghouse for this conversation where there are cohorts across the world who officially associate themselves with EV. Emergent Village, or emergent, is directed by Tony Jones, a PhD student at Princeton, former youth minister, and now an energetic traveler on behalf of EV.”
McKnight refers often to D.A. Carson’s book, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church.
To quote Scot McKnight: “There is no such thing as the emerging “church.” It is a movement or a conversation — which is Brian McLaren’s and Tony Jones’s favored term, and they after all are the leaders. To call it a “church” on the title of his book is to pretend that it is something like a denomination, which it isn’t. The leaders are determined, right now, to prevent it becoming anything more than a loose association of those who want to explore conversation about the Christian faith and the Christian mission and the Christian praxis in this world of ours, and they want to explore that conversation with freedom and impunity when it comes to doctrine.”
“Emerging,” on the other hand, is bigger, broader, and deeper.”
Dr. McKnight suggests reading Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Baker, 2005). “Why? As I said before, the courteous thing to do is to let the movement speak for itself. Which is exactly what Gibbs-Bolger do? They show the center of the EM movement is about ecclesiology not epistemology.”
“Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses the nine practices. Emerging churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transforms the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities.”
“This definition and delineation is the result of doctoral student research (Bolger) and professor (Gibbs) collaboration. Bolger is now a colleague of Gibbs at Fuller Theological Seminary.”
“It is the only study complete enough to hand on to others and say, “Here, this is what emerging really is.” Tony Jones is doing his own study and others have offered shorter analyses. But, for now, this is the study to which we must refer and I suggest that each of you — if you want to indulge in emerging discussions — buy and read this book.”
There are four rivers flowing into Lake Emerging
Each of these rivers flows with its own integrity into Lake Emerging according to Scot McKnight. The rivers may be named the Four Ps.
· Postmodern,
· Praxis,
· Post-evangelical, and
· Politics
When we explore in subsequent parts of this series, we will see that each river has as its basis is some way relationship to the early development of the Leftist/Marxist agenda for world domination. Following in the path of the Emerging Church Movement as a postmodern, praxis, post-evangelical and political activist movement opens up the opportunity for Islamist takeover.
For example, the promotion of the postmodern worldview is a tactical weapon being used by the Radical Political Center for the control of governments and the Islamic movement in the non-Muslim countries to ultimately establish a global Islamic state. To the causal observer this may seem absurd considering the fact that Islam appears as such a strict code. However, the Muslims realize that before you can impose control you must change a population’s beliefs in the Biblical worldview and belief that absolute moral truths exist. The cultural Marxists are joining forces with the Neo-Nazis and Islamists that are leading the demonstrations in cities worldwide.
Praxis follows in the path of the Hegelian Dialectic. In 1847 the London Communist League--Marx and Engels, used Hegel's theory of the dialectic to back up their economic theory of communism. Now, in the 21st century, Hegelian-Marxist thinking affects our entire social and political structure.
The concept of praxis is important in Marxist thought. In fact, philosophy of praxis was the name given to Marxism by 19th century socialist Antonio Labriola. Marx himself stated in his Theses on Feuerbach that “philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” Simply put, Marx felt that philosophy’s validity was in how it informed action.
The emerging Church Movement has a commitment to the universal church in all its forms. This may lead to the world religion and the on-world government. A an example, Rick Warren and his buy in to UN Millennium goals through his P.E.A.C.E. Plan.
And finally, the Emerging Church Movement is political. It is political in the sense of the support of the writings of Walther Rauschenbusch and Jane Addams of the Fabian Socialists who set up an International Fellowship of Reconciliation to protest the First World War while propagandizing for Socialism.
David J. Jonsson
David J. Jonsson is the author of Clash of Ideologies –The Making of the Christian and Islamic Worlds, Xulon Press 2005. His new book: Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad: The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance (Salem Communications (May 30, 2006). He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics. He worked for major corporations in the United States and Japan and with multilateral agencies that brought him to more that fifteen countries with significant or majority populations who are Muslim. These exposures provided insight into the basic tenants of Islam as a political, economic and religious system. He became proficient in Islamic law (Shariah) through contract negotiation and personal encounter.
1. The Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance Aligns Against Jerusalem by David J. Jonsson October 16, 2007 http://www.salemthesoldier.us/leftistmarxist_islamist_alliance_aligns_against_jerusalem.html
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