Emerging Church: A Move of God

or a Well-Funded Enterprise?

By Deborah Dombrowski

The name keeps popping up - Lilly Endowment . Huge amounts of money being given in the form of grants to proponents of the emerging church. As Roger Oakland documents in his book, Faith Undone, 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.

In an article titled Social Change and Communitarian Systems, it explains: “The Lilly Endowment ‘a private foundation...that supports community development, education and religion,’ has also helped fund the [Peter] Drucker Foundation. But more recently, it has shown its support for Baptist leadership and pastoral training. Strangely enough, the two -- Drucker’s communitarian vision for the “social sector” and seminary training in community-building -- fit together....”

This grant ($300,000 makes all the more sense in light of a new partnership between Golden Gate Seminary and Saddleback Church. The Baptist seminary will build a new branch 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.

In 1999, the now emerging/contemplative-promoting Bethel Seminary received $1.5 million from Lilly Endowment in a project created to identify “the next generation of Christian leaders.” Now, according to an article by emergent Tony Jones, in a more recent grant called Faithful Practices, Jones reaped benefits from Lilly.

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 a lot to do with it. 
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 shift toward the ‘new spirituality’ that rejects biblical Christianity. Pagitt and Jones are the editors of the new release, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope; McLaren and Ward are contributing writers for the book. That book is reviewed in “Emergent Manifesto: Emerging Church Coming Out of the Closet” and also in Faith Undone. The Manifesto clearly shows the pantheistic/universalist/New Age element of the emerging church. But while the message of the emerging church is anything but biblical, with a little financial help from its ‘friends’, it doesn’t look like the emerging church is going to disappear anytime soon.
Lately, some emergent leaders have been posting articles on the Internet, complaining about their critics. Erwin McManus wrote a recent article titled, Emerging Angle where he referred to critics’ analyses as “violent attacks” and likens them to war violence. Dan Kimball, in a recent blog posting, calls emerging critics “little barking poodles” (showing a photo of a growling poodle with sharp fangs). And it is no secret that Rick Warren has done everything from accuse Lighthouse Trails of breaking into Saddleback’s server (telling us Federal agents are investigating us) to calling fundamentalist Christians a big enemy of the 21st century and likening them to Islamic terrorists.
What is ironic is that most of the critics of the emerging church are small, obscure ministries that have virtually no extra funding and operate on their mere love for the truth and the Gospel message. What’s more, emerging leaders outnumber their critics, have the support of mass media (both Christian and secular), and are published by the biggest Christian (and secular) publishing companies.
But in spite of the contrast between emergents (and their funding and support) and Bible-believing critics (and their lack of funding and support), critics have become a sore spot to emerging leaders to the point where they refer to us as “barking poodles,” enemies of society, and violent. Is it possible God is using the foolish things of the world to confound the wise? Is it possible that things are not always as they seem?

The critics of the emerging church are no great thing - we could be gone tomorrow, but that does not matter because what is a great thing is the God who has sent His Son as an atonement for sin (something often rejected by the emerging church), and offers salvation freely to those who receive Christ by faith through His grace. ‘That’ is a great thing, and ‘that’ is worth defending...and it is a message that can never be snuffed out. No amount of funding can destroy God’s truth.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, ‘Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.’ For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For ‘whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? as it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!’ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah saith, ‘Lord, who hath believed our report?’ So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:9-17)

Deborah Dombrowski is the co-founder, along with her husband Dave, of Lighthouse Trails Research located in Silverton, OR. Their website, LighthouseTrailsResearch.com, is a huge site devoted to exposing the various satanically inspired variations of New Age mystical spirituality, its supporters and promoters, and how these movements have infiltrated the Church. A wide variety of well documented books and articles on the Emerging Church, contemplative prayer, mystical spirituality, and related topics are available on there website. I highly recommend visiting their website www.LightHouseTrailsResearch.com. The Dombrowski’s can be contacted by writing them at Lighthouse Trails Research, P.O. Box 958, Silverton, OR 97381 or calling them at (503) 873-9092.