The Kings of the Kingdom Emerging

In Who Defines the Kingdom of God? Berit Kjos connects the dots of the dominion-driven ideologies of the Emerging and Purpose Driven social gospels...

...Yet emerging church movements today are still trying to move the boundaries of His Kingdom. They have redefined God's Word and are fast embracing the latest versions of the old Gnostic quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and self-actualization, whether through mystical experience or collective imagination.

Stamping out faith in Biblical absolutes is central to this transformation. A mind anchored in God's Word won't compromise, but when that anchor is removed, the current of change can carry that mind anywhere. As Jesuit scholastic, Mark Mossa, wrote in his endorsement of Brian McLaren's latest book: "The Secret Message of Jesus challenges us to put aside our sterile certainties about Christ and reconsider the imaginative world of Jesus stories, signs and wonders."[1]

In this imaginative world, church leaders envision a spiritual oneness that must exclude God's "divisive" gospel and the "offensive" certainties that spawned its hope. Deeds, not creeds -- that's what counts! Popularized by Rick Warren, this slogan paves the way for all religions to agree on the new terms.

...Man's finite purpose or God's eternal purpose
In spite of his call to radical inclusiveness, McLaren's earthly kingdom does exclude certain groups. The criteria for inclusion is the "new way of thinking" -- a phrase emphasized in UNESCO's 1995 report, Our Creative Diversity. It tells us that -

"The challenge to humanity is to adopt new ways of thinking, new ways of acting, new ways of organizing itself in society, in short, new ways of living."[2]

Compare that UN goal with McLaren's mission:

"A high fence that excludes everyone won’t do, nor will no fence at all. What we need is a requirement that those who wish to enter actually have a change of heart—that they don’t sneak in to accomplish their own agenda, but rather that they genuinely want to learn a new way of thinking, feeling, living, and being in 'the pastures of God.'” [1 - page 165]

"The kingdom of God, then, seeks a third way: not exclusiveness and rejection... but rather purposeful inclusion. In other words, the kingdom of God seeks to include all who want to participate in and contribute to its purpose, but it cannot include those who oppose its purpose."[1 - page 167]

Whose purpose? God's or man's? Since McLaren's worldly kingdom stands on man's imagination rather than God's unchanging Word, we can't trust his "purpose!" That's why this system must exclude us -- which it does! We see the sad results in Purpose-Driven and other transformational churches around the world. Church members who still treasure God's ways and question the new management strategies and amoral "environment" are either asked to leave or are cruelly excommunicated -- not for actual sin but for refusing to conform to the unbiblical changes! [See Dealing with Resisters"]

McLaren isn't alone. "America's pastor" Rick Warren predicted that "fundamentalism, of all varieties, will be 'one of the big enemies of the 21st century.'"[3] He would probably agree with McLaren's criteria for citizenship:

"...to be truly inclusive, the kingdom must exclude exclusive people, to be truly reconciling, the kingdom must not reconcile with those who refuse reconciliation.... Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela learned what happens when you try to expand the borders of who is considered 'in'...

"So what do you do? If you’re Jesus, you take whatever space you are given and let God’s kingdom be made visible and real there. ... And if critics see you as a transgressor and criticize you for opening the doors and expanding the boundaries, you go pursuing your purpose, making it clear that the kingdom of God is open to all, except those who want to ruin it by dividing it against itself."[1 - page 169-170]

See related articles here.