Posts Tagged ‘Dan Kimball’

by Roger Oakland

It may seem out of place to include a section on sexuality in [Faith Undone] on the postmodern reformation. However, one aspect of the topic cannot be ignored, and it has become an earmark in the emerging church—that aspect is related to homosexuality.

In this section, I am merely going to present certain statements made by those in the emerging church for the purpose of showing you this paradigm shift in attitude toward sexuality. How you interpret these statements is up to you, but it is my prayer you will look at them through the eyes of Scripture. One thing is for sure, after reading this section, I think you will agree that emerging spirituality is attempting to redefine how Christians view and think about sexuality. I begin first with the Word of God:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:1-2)

One example of this new reformation mindset on sexuality can be found in Dan Kimball’s book, They Like Jesus but Not the Church. Kimball devotes an entire chapter (called “The Church is Homophobic”) to homosexuality and says that Christians need to reinterpret what we thought the Bible says about homosexuality. He states:

Because this is such a huge issue in our culture, and because all of the tension and discussion on this issue is over what the Bible says about it, we can no longer just regurgitate what we have been taught about homosexuality.… We cannot do that any longer … We must approach the Bible with humility, prayer, and sensitivity, taking into consideration the original meaning of Greek and Hebrew words and looking into the historical contexts in which passages were written.… we can no longer with integrity merely quote a few isolated verses and say “case closed.”1

Kimball elaborates:

Quite honestly, and some people might get mad at me for saying this, I sometimes wish this [homosexuality] weren’t a sin issue, because I have met gay people who are the most kind, loving, solid, and supportive people I have ever met. As I talk to them and hear their stories and get to know them, I come to understand that their sexual orientation isn’t something they can just turn off. Homosexual attraction is not something people simply choose to have, as is quite often erroneously taught from many pulpits.2

Kimball does not stand alone within the ranks of the emerging church in his permissive, accepting view of homosexuality. Someone else in this camp is Jay Bakker, son of Jim Bakker of the former PTL Club. In an interview with Radar magazine, Bakker says, “I felt like God spoke to my heart and said ‘[homosexuality] is not a sin’”3 (brackets in original). On Bakker’s website, he upholds this view.4 And in a December 15th, 2006, interview with Larry King, the following conversation took place:

KING: Would you say that you’re part of the liberal sect of Christianity?
JAY BAKKER: Well, I definitely say I’m a little bit more liberal than probably most, yes.
KING: You, for example, in your church would you marry gays?
JAY BAKKER: If the laws passed, yes.
KING: You favor there being a law, though?
JAY BAKKER: Yes, I do.5

Brian McLaren expressed his views (or lack of them) over the subject and stated:

Most of the emerging leaders I know share my agony over this question [on homosexuality].… Frankly, many of us don’t know what we should think about homosexuality. We’ve heard all sides but no position has yet won our confidence so that we can say “it seems good to the Holy Spirit and us.” … Perhaps we need a five-year moratorium on making pronouncements.6

One pastor who runs a ministry that helps homosexuals leave the lifestyle, can help us see the extent of these changing attitudes toward homosexuality. He explains:

They call themselves new-evangelicals. Philip Yancey devoted a whole chapter to homosexuality in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace? He thinks we need to extend grace to people who can’t change their homosexuality.… Tony Campolo thinks people who can’t change their homosexuality should live in celibate homosexual partnerships. His wife thinks gays should just get married to each other. Lewis Smedes agrees with Richard Foster. They all seem to agree there are some gay people who cannot change their homosexuality, are not able to live celibately and therefore exceptions should be made for them.7

The pastor, an ex-homosexual, disputes those in the church who publicly embrace homosexuality, and he believes there is an answer to these postmodern views. He states:

Since when are Richard Foster, Philip Yancey, Tony Campolo and Lewis Smedes experts on the changeability of homosexuality? … I have lived this issue for most of my 42 years. For seventeen years I’ve helped hundreds, maybe thousands, of people come out of homosexuality. I’ve never seen two healings alike. And I’ve never seen someone who by the grace of God could not be healed. Now that’s what’s so amazing about grace! It empowers us to live a moral and transformed life in Christ.8

In 2004, Philip Yancey (author and editor for Christianity Today) accepted an interview with Candace Chellew-Hodge for Whosoever, “an online magazine for Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, and Transgendered Christians.” When Chellew-Hodge asked Yancey about his views on gays and lesbians in the church, Yancey answered:

When it gets to particular matters of policy, like ordaining gay and lesbian ministers, I’m confused, like a lot of people. There are a few—not many, but a few—passages of Scripture that give me pause. Frankly, I don’t know the answer to those questions.9

My question to Yancey and other proclaiming Christian leaders is why don’t you know the answer? The Bible is clear on this matter. We may not always understand but part of being a Christian is accepting God’s Word and trusting that it is truly just that. Yancey may not be an emergent leader, but his beliefs certainly fit with emerging spirituality. The following statement he makes shows he shares a similar disregard for biblical doctrine:

Perhaps our day calls for a new kind of ecumenical movement: not of doctrine, nor even of religious unity, but one that builds on what Jews, Christians, and Muslims hold in common.… Indeed, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have much in common.10

(excerpt from Faith Undone, chapter 12)

Related:

The “Kingdom of God” in the Emerging Church: A Theology of Despair and Hopelessness

What’s Sex Got To Do With It?

Notes:

1. Dan Kimball, They Like Jesus but Not the Church, op. cit., p. 137.
2. Ibid., p. 138.
3. Interview with Jay Bakker, “Empire of the Son” (Radar, http://radaronline.com/features/2006/12/empire _of_the _son _par t_ iii.php).
4. Bakker’s website: http://www.revolutionnyc.com/links.htm.
5. Interview by Larry King with Jay Bakker; see transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0612/15/lkl.01.html.
6. Brian McLaren, “Leader’s Insight: No Cowardly Flip-Flop: How should pastors respond to “the Homosexual Question”?(Christianity Today, January 23, 2006, http://www.christianitytoday.com/leadersnewsletter/2006/cln60123.html).
7. Mario Bergner, “Conversations with Jason about Homosexuality” (Redeemed Lives News, Spring/Summer 2001, http://www.redeemedlives.org).
8. Ibid.
9. Interview by Candace Chellew-Hodge with Philip Yancey, “Amazed by Grace” (Whosoever online magazine, http://www.whosoever.org/v8i6/yancey.shtml).
10. Philip Yancey, “Hope for Abraham’s Sons” (Christianity Today,  November 1, 2004).

 

Christian or Christ-follower. It’s a distinction that is being made more and more today, and often the latter term, Christ follower, is replacing the former term, Christian. Even many Christian leaders are making the switch. But just what does it mean? Emerging church leader, Erwin McManus says his “goal is to destroy Christianity as a world religion and be a recatalyst for the movement of Jesus Christ.” In McManus’ book, The Barbarian Way, he talks about being “awakened” to a “primal longing that … waits to be unleashed within everyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ.” McManus says that the “greatest enemy to the movement of Jesus Christ is Christianity [i.e., Christians].” A video series on YouTube.com called “Christian No More” (by Christian Community Church) exemplifies this view by portraying those who call themselves Christians as shallow church-goers who wear suits and ties, have Christian bumper stickers on their cars and prefer the King James Version. This belittling video is evidence that it is increasingly more popular to call oneself a Christ follower rather than a Christian.

Interestingly, most of the leaders who seem to be downplaying the name Christian and promoting the appropriation of the term “Christ follower” are contemplative spirituality proponents. One contemplative advocate, Rick Warren, had the term throughout his former pastors.com website. Lee Strobel refers to it in his book Case for Christ (Student Edition), and Wesleyan pastor David Drury has a Christ-Follower Pop Quiz on his web site to help determine if you are really a “Christ Follower.”

This theme of anti-”Christian” sentiment is not going to disappear any time soon. In emerging church leader and labyrinth promoter Dan Kimball’s book called, “They Like Jesus, But Not the Church,” the idea is that you can go for Jesus, but you don’t have to identify yourself as a Christian or part of the Christian church. This concept spills over into some missionary societies too, where they teach people from other religions that they can keep their religion, just add Jesus to the equation. They don’t have to embrace the term “Christian” (see The New Missiology).

So what’s the problem? So what if you want to be a Christ follower instead of a Christian. Well, the problem, when identified, will show you why the Spiritual Formation movement (which is promoted by Purpose Driven, Willow Creek, the emerging church, etc) is so dangerous and misleading.

Let us explain. If you have researched the teachings of contemplative authors, you may have noticed a common message. That message says: If you want to be like Christ, then practice these certain disciplines and you can be like Him. Chuck Swindoll bought into this when he wrote his book, So You Want to Be Like Christ: Eight Essential Disciplines to Get You There. But Swindoll exalts one particular discipline – the silence. In fact, he goes so far as to say you can’t become a deep, meaningful Christian without it. Beth Moore, in the pro-contemplative film, Be Still, says: “[I]f we are not still before Him [God], we will never truly know to the depths of the marrow of our bones that He is God. There’s got to be a stillness.” And this is what contemplatives teach. The one common thread woven throughout spiritual formation teachings is that the silence and being a Christ follower are practically synonymous. You can’t have one without the other. And of course, this silence is induced through meditative practices such as centering prayer, lectio divina, etc.

So what we are witnessing is countless teachers, authors and leaders telling people they can become like Christ through a method that can be learned. Richard Foster teaches that anyone, not just believers, can practice contemplative prayer and become like Christ.

Now here lies the difference between a Christian and a Christ-follower. A person who is truly born-again has Jesus Christ indwelling him. Jesus lives inside that person. And it is His life in him or her that gives the power to become progressively more like Him (sanctification), as Paul said in his address to Corinthian Christians: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Corinthians 3:18). The believer draws his strength and power from Jesus Christ (who indwells him), and he realizes his salvation and any good thing in him is from Christ; as the Scripture says: “Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:9).

But being born again or having the indwelling of Jesus Christ is not a prerequisite for the Christendom of today. Spiritual formation can be practiced by anyone. Jesus becomes a model or an example who can be followed and mimicked. For example, Ken Blanchard, says Jesus is a perfect model to follow. That’s why he talks so much about leading like Jesus would lead. But Blanchard has shown time and again that he believes meditation is a key factor in becoming like Jesus.

While Jesus was and is a model, that wasn’t His primary mission. And when people refer to Him as a model, it is often because they see Him as a model for higher consciousness rather than the unique Son of God, Emmanuel (God with us) who came to die for us and be our Savior. And that’s what you find across the board in contemplative writings. Contemplative icons Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen saw Jesus in this manner. This is why Nouwen said it disturbed him when he heard people say Jesus was the only way. He said it was his mission to help people find his or her own way to God (see Sabbatical Journey). That’s also why he saw India as a source for many spiritual “treasures” for the Christian. 1 In an eastern religion like Buddhism, Buddha was a model where his followers were imitators of him. But in Christianity the Spirit of Christ indwells us through faith. So Jesus becomes more than a model; He is a living presence in us. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

This is actually the heart of the whole spiritual formation movement. It supposedly teaches you how to be like Christ, but the power to do this doesn’t come from Jesus Christ living in you (in fact that isn’t a requirement, according to Richard Foster) – but the power to change has to come from somewhere. Where? It comes from meditation! So anyone at all, from any walk of life, from any religion, can be a “Christ follower.” But this does not mean they have Jesus Christ in them. The contemplative prayer movement is misguiding millions into believing that if they practice certain disciplines they can be like Christ, thus securing their spiritual well being. They may come to believe that they have a christ consciousness and are Christ like, yet they do not have the actual power of Christ within. That power can only come from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (John 1:12).

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16).

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God (I Corinthians 1:18).

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come … Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (II Timothy 3:1,5).

The man who virtually wrote the book on the subject (Centering Prayer), Basil Pennington, made the point of what we are trying to say when he penned these words:

It is my sense, from having meditated with persons from many different [non-Christian] traditions, that in the silence we experience a deep unity. When we go beyond the portals of the rational mind into the experience, there is only one God to be experienced.

Another major contemplative promoter stated:

The new ecumenism involved here is not between Christian and Christian, but between Christians and the grace of other intuitively deep religious traditions.–Tilden Edwards

These two men have both been leaders of the contemplative prayer movement for decades. And it is important to note that evangelical leader Richard Foster endorsed Edwards’ book, Spiritual Friend, from which this last quote came (see back, Celebration of Discipline). Both Pennington and Edwards would call themselves Christ followers, following in the same spiritual path as Jesus Christ followed. But as you can see, both Pennington and Edwards do not accept the view that believing the gospel is a vital prerequisite for having a relationship with the living God. Otherwise they would not have said the above. With this mindset, the message of the cross is rendered useless. And so the question that we must ask ourselves is this: Will we, who have Jesus Christ living in us, call ourselves Christians? Let those of us who name the name of Christ, stand and say, yes, we will be called Christians.

For a complete analysis and documentation of contemplative spirituality and its infiltration into Christendom, we encourage you to read A Time of Departing.

In a Christianity Today article titled, “Shape-Shifting Leadership,” featuring Dan Kimball, Mark Driscoll, and Leith Anderson, Kimball states:

I’ve read Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership a dozen times. It convicts me to the core about motives and the heart of leadership. But Henri was shepherding and loving a relatively few people. Leading a church that is growing, launching new ministries, and building multi-level leadership teams needs Nouwen, but also [John] Maxwell.1(see also Maxwell/Blanchard book)

Kimball is proposing that in order to be a successful, effective leader in today’s church, we must combine the “heart” of Henri Nouwen with the leadership skills of John Maxwell. What is wrong with that?

We must first understand that Nouwen’s “heart of leadership” is mystical. He says so himself right in the book that Kimball recognizes. In In the Name of Jesus, Nouwen states:

Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to learn to listen to the voice of love … For Christian leadership to be truly fruitful in the future, a movement from the moral to the mystical is required.

Moving “from the moral to mystical” is another way of saying that mystical experience is more important in leadership than doctrine or theology. Interestingly, Leith Anderson who contributed to the Christianity Today article with Kimball and Driscoll has stated virtually the same thing. Roger Oakland explains:

In 1992, Leith Anderson (Doug Pagitt’s former pastor), currently the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, spoke of this new emerging 21st century church. His views eventually
became set in stone as the emerging church has chosen experience over doctrine. Anderson reveals:

The old paradigm taught that if you had the right
teaching, you will experience God. The new paradigm says that if you experience God, you will have the right teaching. This may be disturbing for many who
assume propositional truth must always precede and dictate religious experience. That mindset is the product of systematic theology and has much to contribute … However, biblical theology looks to the Bible for a pattern of experience followed by proposition. The experience of the Exodus from Egypt preceded the recording of Exodus in the Bible. The experience of the crucifixion, the resurrection and Pentecost all predate the propositional declaration of those events in the New Testament. It is not so much that one is right and the other is wrong: it is more of a matter of the perspective one takes on God’s touch and God’s truth.

Anderson is saying that the Word of God is still being written,
and today’s experiences can dictate what that Word is. (Faith Undone, p. 55,56)

Nouwen reveals what he means by “mystical” when he states: “The quiet repetition of a single word can help us to descend with the mind into the heart … This way of simple prayer … opens us to God is active presence” (Way of the Heart, p. 81).

Dan Kimball proposes that leadership must combine Nouwen’s spirituality with John Maxwell’s leadership skills. Someone who emulates such a combination is business guru and meditation promoter, Ken Blanchard. Blanchard sees great value in meditation and has endorsed and promoted avid meditators for over two decades. His current participation in the Hoffman Institute shows that he is still in support of such a philosophy.

This may come as a surprise to some, but Rick Warren (who has won the trust of hundreds of thousands of pastors and church goers around the world) shares Kimball’s views. On his pastors.com website, Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus is a recommended book. (Nouwen devotes an entire chapter of that book to contemplative prayer.) And in a Saddleback training book, Soul Construction: Solitude Tool (p. 12), Nouwen is quoted as saying we need to set aside a “time and space to give God our undivided attention.” Ray Yungen explains Nouwen’s “space”:

When we understand what Nouwen really means by “time and space” given to God we can also see the emptiness and deception of his spirituality. In his recent biography of Nouwen, God’s Beloved, Michael O’ Laughlin says:

Some new elements began to emerge in Nouwen’s thinking when he discovered Thomas Merton. Merton opened up for Henri an enticing vista of the world of contemplation and a way of seeing not only God but also the world through new eyes.… If ever there was a time when Henri Nouwen wished to enter the realm of the spiritual masters or dedicate himself to a higher spiritual path, it was when he fell under the spell of Cistercian monasticism and the writings of Thomas Merton.

In his book, Thomas Merton: Contemplative Critic, Nouwen talks about these “new eyes” that Merton helped to formulate; he praises Merton who “had such an impact” on his life, being the man who “inspired” him greatly. But when we read Nouwen’s very revealing account, something disturbing is unveiled. Nouwen lays out the path of Merton’s spiritual pilgrimage into contemplative spirituality. Those who have studied Merton from a critical point of view, such as myself, have tried to understand what are the roots behind Merton’s spiritual affinities. Nouwen explains that Merton was influenced by LSD mystic Aldous Huxley who “brought him to a deeper level of knowledge” and “was one of Merton’s favorite novelists.” It was Huxley’s book, Ends and Means, that first brought Merton “into contact with mysticism.” … This is why, as Nouwen revealed, Merton’s mystical journey took him right into the arms of Buddhism. (ATOD, 2nd ed., pp. 197)

If Dan Kimball’s hope for the future of Christianity is realized, it will resemble the spirituality of Ken Blanchard (Nouwen’s mysticism and Maxwell’s leadership skills) who said that the Hoffman Quadrinity Process made his “spirituality come alive” (ATOD, p. 165). The Hoffman Institute is:

“… an organization that was founded by a psychic and is based on panentheism (i.e., God is in all) and meditation! In the book, The Hoffman Process, the institute’s mystical perspective is laid out clearly:

I am you and you are me. We are all parts of the whole…. You can use a short meditation to remind yourself of this connection to all others in this world of ours…. As you breathe, feel that breath coming from your core essence … When you are open to life, you start noticing the divine in everything. (ATOD, p. 165)

For more information:

They Like Jesus but Not the Church – A Closer Look at Dan Kimball’s Book

Ken Blanchard: Promoting Buddhism and the New Age

What Did Henri Nouwen Really Believe?