Following The Mystical Money

From Lighthouse Research Trails Project:

Roger Oakland documents in his book, Faith Undone, the money trail between The Lilly Foundation, Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project (Mark Yaconelli of Youth Specialties fame) Purpose Driven's Saddleback Church and Emergent church leaders:

"From the Lilly Endowment Foundation to Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project to the Baptist seminary to be built on the Saddleback campus to train church leaders to use the digital data tracking technology needed to meet and monitor community needs around the world. The name keeps popping up - Lilly Endowment . Huge amounts of money being given in the form of grants to proponents of the emerging church. Lilly gave $691,000 to the Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project (Mark Yaconelli) in 2001. Lilly had funded the beginning of that project in 1997 as well. Lilly also funded Project on Congregations of Intentional Practice, another emerging-type project with Diane Butler Bass . New Age sympathizer Parker Palmer (friend and inspiration to emerging leader, Len Sweet) also enjoyed the benefits of Lilly Endowment grants."

"...according to an article by emergent Tony Jones, in a more recent grant called Faithful Practices, Jones reaped benefits. And the money just keeps coming in. While many think that the emerging church must be a move of God because of its success and popularity, big funding could have more to do with it than anything else. Some of the participants of the Faithful Practices project include Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Karen Ward. All four are part of the emergent church and the emerging shift towards the new spirituality that rejects biblical Christianity."

Read the rest of this investigative piece here...