Warning: Jennie Allen’s “Gather 25″—Another Effort for “UNITY” Outside the Confines of Truth

Recently, a Lighthouse Trails reader contacted us, concerned that his church is going to be using a book by IF:Gathering founder Jennie Allen. Lighthouse Trails posted a number of articles about IF: Gathering in the past because of its strong emergent influences. Today, Jennie Allen is still involved in bringing dangerous teachings to the church.

In 2025, Jennie Allen is hosting Gather 25, an ecumenical/”progressive”/false teachings event. On the website, it states that Gather 25 is:

25 hours of the Global Church gathered in 2025. . . . The mission is to mobilize our world’s 2.5 billion Jesus followers to share the Gospel with the 5.5 billion people who do not know Him.

When this number, 2.5 billion, is used to identify how many Christians there are in the world, many seeing this number do not realize that over 1.3 billion of that number are members of the Roman Catholic Church. This is reminiscent of Rick Warren’s ecumenical Purpose Driven vision, who also claimed this number of how many Christian believers there are in the world. Allen’s use of this number confirms her own ecumenical vision. Incidentally, the term ecumenical is actually used by the Catholic Church in reference to “winning back the lost brethren” to the “Mother Church.”

Again, from the Gather 25 website:

Gather25 is being organized and led by an alliance of Christian organizations: IF:Gathering, YouVersion, illumiNations, Right Now Media, and many more international ministries and churches. The original vision for Gather25 was cast by Jennie Allen.

All one has to do is take even a brief look at the various organizations involved with Gather 25 to see this is not a biblically sound effort. From IF: Gathering to Right Now Media to 24/7 Prayer to Bible Project to Global 2033 to World Evangelical Alliance to the Alpha Course and to numerous others, it’s clear the objective of Gather 25 is UNITY under the broadest sense possible. From Catholicism to emergent to contemplative to NAR and everything in between, Gather 25 represents a hodgepodge of false teachings that have permeated the church and certainly misrepresent biblical Christianity.

When it comes to the topic of Unity, many Christians (including many pastors) have been deceived into thinking that unity supersedes just about every other spiritual aspect—including truth and biblical integrity. What seems to be massively overlooked in this ecumenical movement is that unity outside the framework of truth is not God-inspired unity. The Lord has always made it very clear, such as in the tower of Babel, that man’s “unity at all costs” is not sanctioned or blessed by Him.

The problem is, much of the church had no problem with Warren’s Purpose Driven ecumenical vision and probably won’t have a problem with Allen’s either or the multitude of other similar “unity” visions. The Bible warns that in the last days, there will be great deception and zealous efforts to unite people, religion, and government. Uniting will be the primary goal, but the leader of this uniting will not be the Lord (who is the living God who divides truth from error, right from wrong, and good from evil) but rather will be the Antichrist (deceiving the whole world in order to accomplish his own goals).

In his book Faith Undone, author and founder of Understand the Times Roger Oakland made the following observations that are even more relevant today than they were when he first wrote them:

Unfortunately, the “global community” so often spoken of in the emerging church camp is disguised language for a world-wide religious body that incorporates all belief systems. As [New Age leader] Neale Donald Walsch said, it’s a “global movement . . . which makes no one else wrong for the way in which they are doing it.”

The rate at which this global unity is developing should tell us that the return of Christ could very well be near. But not everyone who professes the name of Christ is going to be ready. Jesus Himself asked, “[W]hen the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). As in the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13), many will not be ready when the Lord returns. Many will have fallen asleep.

Do you remember what Jesus told the disciples when they asked Him, “what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3) He did not tell them the whole world would be experiencing a spiritual revival, turning to the Gospel. Rather he said:

Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (Matthew 24: 4-5)

Jesus warned that in the days before He came back, there would be such a great falling away that “many” would be deceived. The word many in Greek means a vast amount or multitudes. In fact, the majority of the signs Jesus said to expect dealt with spiritual deception. . . . Many have forgotten the basic warnings found in Scripture regarding the last days when another gospel and another Jesus will be presented to a deceived world. (from Faith Undone, chapter 13)

A few years ago, Lighthouse Trails editors wrote an article titled, “The Cost of Unity at the Price of Truth.” It seems very fitting to conclude this article warning about Gather 25 with it:

Today, church sermons, books, commentaries, and lectures are inundated with the call for unity, and are all pushing for the idea that we must have unity at all costs and do “whatever it takes” to accomplish that goal. Over the years, we’ve heard this “unity” cry from various Christian leaders, such as Rick Warren and Beth Moore, and we are being told by “unity evangelists” that unity is what will bring revival and even save the world. But a study of God’s Word shows that such a concept does not fall within the parameters of biblical Christianity. Nor does it reap the fruit which every born-again believer should be hoping for—the building up of Christ’s body of saints for the work of the ministry (i.e., the furtherance of the Gospel).

We can find a perfect example of biblical unity vs. wrongly devised unity in Ephesians 4. The chapter starts off talking about unity; and to our dismay, this verse is often used out of context to support the views of the unity teachers.

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (vv. 1-3)

But when read in the context of the rest of the chapter, we can see that Paul is not talking about a unity at all costs with all groups and all people. It is specifically talking about those who are born from above (i.e., Christ’s church). Harry Ironside gives some insight on that score in his lecture on Ephesians 4:

People talk about heartless divisions that tear apart the body of Christ, but these divisions do not tear apart the body of Christ. The body of Christ is not composed of all the different sects and denominations. If you were to gather all the different denominations and sects together and unite them all in one big church, that would not be the body of Christ. That would contain a great many people who are in the body of Christ, but it would also include a great many who are not. On the other hand, after you had gathered all these denominations together, there would still be a great many outside them who would be members of the body of Christ. The church, which is His body, and the church, which some call the visible body of Christ, are not the same thing. The body of Christ consists only of those who are regenerated and born again by the Holy Spirit and joined to Christ in glory by the Spirit’s baptism. All the divisions in Christendom cannot split that body. . . . The apostle would have us recognize this unity that God Himself established, and so he said, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Again to the Ephesians, after the apostle Paul describes the “one body” (v. 4) and “one faith” (v. 5), he comes back to the subject of unity:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith. . . . (vv. 11-13)

This hoped-for result, “the unity of the faith,” is coupled in verse 13 with our also having “the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

But here is where many of today’s Christian leaders are misleading their followers. They say we need to have unity, in a broad sense, so that the world will be healed and the Kingdom of God can be established. But in Ephesians 4:14, it gives a very different reason for “unity of the faith”:

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

This discussion on unity in the faith in Ephesians 4 is not about being unified for the sake of unity and to heal the world, but it is about the body of Christ not falling into deception and grabbing hold of all kinds of false doctrines.

Misguided leaders of today’s Christian church have bullied and silenced many discerning Christians by convincing them that to challenge emergent unity leaders and their false teachings is to destroy unity and, in their estimation, destroy any chance for there to be revival or for the world to be helped.

Francis Chan is a perfect example of this when he said that God would destroy (even kill) those who challenge Christian leaders and that God wants unity so bad that “it’s an abomination [to God] when there’s some stirring up among the brothers.”

Beth Moore, who has set the stage for this unity without borders, warns her followers to look out for “scoffers” who will thwart plans for a major worldwide revival. She believes these scoffers will stand in the way of a unified church’s revival (one that will include the Catholic Church).

Rick Warren has for years, through his global P.E.A.C.E. Plan, taught that there needs to be a “crossing [of] all barriers, religious, political and other, so that the world’s people will be unified to fight the giants of poverty, corruption, ignorance and sickness.” He says revival will not come without unity (his definition of unity).

But in the midst of this focus on unity, what Christian leaders fail to do is warn about the reality of spiritual deception and how we have an adversary who is lying in wait to deceive us. They don’t talk about testing the spirits. They don’t warn about New Age teachings and practices that have entered the church. They don’t identify the works of the one of whom the Bible so often warns us and calls “an angel of light” and his ministers “ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). They so often twist and manipulate Scripture to fit it into their own molds. And, thus, they allow multitudes of church goers to be “tossed to and fro” with “every wind of doctrine.”

Romans 16:17 is another verse that associates unity with true biblical doctrine:

Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. (emphasis added)

This verse is often erroneously used to condemn those who “name names” and call out false teachings, saying that it is they who are causing divisions, when in actuality, the ones bringing in the false teachings are the ones causing division and a break in the unity of the faith.

In closing, remember the exhortation of Ephesians 4:15 that tells us to always be “speaking the truth in love.” In a loving manner, yes, but always speaking the truth, that we “may grow up into [Christ] in all things.”

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Related Information:

“Together 2022” Joins Doctrinally Mixed-Up Nick Hall, Dallas Jenkins, and Francis Chan While “Sacrificing Truth on the Altar of Unity”

Global Ecumenism: The High Road to Trampling Truth Underfoot by Chris Lawson

(photo from istockphoto.com; used with permission)