Yesterday we received the following question: “You make mention that LifeWay Christian Resources and/or stores (Southern Baptist) is also behind the emergent church movement. Where are you getting that from?” So we can set the record straight, we are providing the following documentation that shows Lifeway’s promotion of both contemplative and emerging:
Perhaps the most indicting piece of documentation is Lifeway’s “alliance partnership” with Leadership Network (the organization that launched the emergent church movement in the mid-ninties)and to this day promotes the movement. For Lifeway to be partnered with Leadership Network is a bold statement that is louder than words.
In addition, Lifeway Stores is carrying books by emergents Brian McLaren,Rob Bell, Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt as well as New Age sympathizers Ken Blanchard and Laurie Beth Jones. Add to this books by contemplatives Richard Foster and Gary Thomas and pantheists Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington. On their best selling list is Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz and Max Lucado’s Cure for the Common Life Now some may say that they carry all “Christian” books. No, that is not true. A quick check in their database reveals they do not carry Ray Yungen’s A Time of Departing Could that be because this is a book that exposes the very movements Lifeway is so clearly promoting?
Lifeway Christian Resources (which owns Lifeway Stores) is a hub for emerging/contemplative resources with articles by Brian McLaren, and ones speaking favorably about Leonard Sweet (including Lifeway’s recommendation for Sweet’s books) and Rob Bell.
Incidentally, Lifeway is carrying Yoga for Christians
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