THE ROOT OF THIS NEW DOWNGRADE NO-CONTROVERSY
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jan 8, 2012 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Features
“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?” (Matthew 18:12)
This New Downgrade Today Creates No Controversy
Apprising Ministries has been warning about, and documenting, the sad slide of largely pretending to be Protestant evangelicalism into becoming what I’ve referred to as The Ecumenical Church Of Deceit (ECoD); and much of the current sorry state of the church visible can be traced back through to the semi-pelagian (at best) man-centered Church Growth Movement of Fuller Theological Seminary.
Keep in mind this is coming from one who is not a strict cessationist; the root roughly begins with the charismatic revival as it spreads through the Jesus People/Movement circa early 1970′s out into various denominations and into what became the Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Mission. [1] This is the cesspool from which the new liberalism of the seeker-friendly/sinner-sensitive methodology of letting culture define the church would spring.
As Dr. John MacArthur has said:
And I’ll tell you, how do you know it’s the new liberalism? Because you can’t stop a seeker-friendly movement, because it’s going to be redefined, it’s going to be redefined, it’s going to be redefined… It’s relentlessly being redefined because the culture changes so fast in a media-driven society. It changes so fast!…
You know, Schuller is the architect of this. Robert Schuller is the absolute father. The grandfather of the movement, who was a little bit below the radar, was Norman Vincent Peale. Norman Vincent Peale is a classic liberal. The primary impact that Norman Vincent Peale has had on the world is through his leading disciple, Robert Schuller, who said to me, “I can sign the confession of my denomination and makes the words mean anything I want them to mean.” Well, that’s classic neo-orthodoxy—or liberalism (whichever).
