Shalom Pastor …..,

I’ve debated whether to write about my concerns about the direction y’all are going for a long time. I write only because I really love you all and was so exceedingly blessed by my association with all of you. I bless your memory, and will always pray for you all. The congregation is a wonderful mix of people, warmhearted, God-loving, kind. You, … and the rest of the leadership are the salt of the earth and the characteristics of the congregation are a reflection of the quality of your ministry to them.

Having received your e-missives re: your dreams, I was alarmed. So I prayed that the Lord would guide me about whether or not I should write you. Your third email pushed me. When the above quote was brought to my attention and the above scripture addressing the duties and penalties of the watchman (not that I consider myself more than any other believer is to be a watchman) has been rattling around in my head for the past few days. Please be assured that I don’t regard you as wicked. It is the culpability if no warning is given, that stuck me. So I’m going to dive in, please be assured that I am speaking truth in love. I’m sorry this is so long. Unfortunately, every time I tried to make it shorter, it got longer.

What you do is between you and our King. However, your dreams raised the hair on the back of my neck, especially when your interpretation didn’t align with what seemed to be an obvious one. An alternative to your analysis maybe that the savage beasts in your dream are warnings about "fishing" in a dangerous or wrong spot. A move that might cost you more than you want to pay (the imagery of danger to your daughter). "Fishing" is a metaphor for seeking Yeshua (icthus). The fishing spot seems to be to be dipping into the emerging church movement, because it is something different from what you were doing previously. The slaughtered dogs signal that you’ve already lost some of the safeguards or guardians that warn of encroaching jeopardy (remember Genesis 4:7 - sin is crouching at your door). I’m not saying you should get out of the movement - I’m saying you need to practice extreme caution if this is still the route you choose.

To that point, let me tell you why I’m not going to your services anymore. A large part of it is the impracticality of having a barely functioning vehicle and going to a church that is on the other side of the mountains. The other reason is that life experience has taught me theology is important. Everyone from atheists to polytheists have theology. Whether one has no god or 10 or 1,000,000 it is at the core of everyone and how they conduct themselves. We all want people to think correctly about us. I know it’s important to me, and although we will forgive and bless those who slander us, we would rather not have to do so. The same for God - He cares how we think about Him because it deeply effects how we relate to Him and each other. It sounds very loving not to require correct theology but this as loving as a doctor, not wanting to disturb my equilibrium by not telling me that the lump I’m concerned about is cancerous. I’d rather he not worry about hurting my feelings and tell me the truth. And, if necessary - hurt my body and cut the cancer out. Truth is important

The church I went to in my teens, twenties and thirties was an emerging church before anyone else was emerging. We studied Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (I still have it in my library), Waging Peace (also in my library), and Sojourners magazine was a staple to our believer’s walk. Names like Tony Campolo, Ronald Sider, and especially Jim Wallis were more highly exalted among us than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. (We had to keep reminding ourselves that they were our brothers in spite of our ambivalence to them.) We studied the Richard Foster books on discipline and simplicity. We went into mourning when Ronald Reagan was elected (still not one of my favorite people). [I came by my liberalism honestly, though. In high school when I read Marx, I thought - this is what mom says. Having never read Marx, my mom was a socialist all on her own.] We practiced guided imagery and had Brennan Manning speak a number of times. Richard Rohr was also admired. His community was founded in my childhood parish and I visited it a couple times. We practiced syncretism (the mixing of other religions into biblical religion) of every sort, with the assumption that "all truth is God’s truth." All this is to establish my credentials on the subject.

The emerging church movement is not automatically wrong. There are good aspects to it. They don’t accept tradition for tradition’s sake, but tradition is a neutral thing. (It only took me about 25 years of rebelling against it to learn that.) And rebelling against it for the sake of rebellion is - well, rebellious, and not healthy for the Body. Only if there is real oppression or harm being done, is rebellion a healthy thing. Mere embarrassment of people is not a reason to rebel. Admittedly, people are embarrassing and yet be doing a great deal to advance the kingdom. I am horrified when some people‘s theology crosses into heresy entirely too often, yet I know I’m not winning thousands of people to Messiah either. While I refuse to participate in their shenanigans, Romans 14:4 informs my attitude about them (who am I to judge another man‘s servant?).

Their theology, however, is to be scrutinized. My aim here is to address the emerging church. There is plenty in emerging church theology to cause discomfort. To be red-letter about it, let’s talk about Matthew chapter 7. After the initial verses in Matthew 7 instructing us not to judge (more about them later), Yeshua is telling people to have discernment about handling sacred and valuable (pearls) things (v. 6). In v. 13 we are informed that straight is the way and narrow the gate leading to life - and not popular - only a few find it. In v. 15 we must watch for false prophets (!) - we are to discern fruit - every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down (from John 15:2 it is God who does this, not us). He calls false prophets ferocious wolves. He warns not everyone saying ‘Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven. The chapter ends with His exhortation to be careful about the type of ground upon which to build our ‘house,’ our faith. "He taught as one who had authority, and not their teachers of the law" v. 29. He consulted neither the traditions of the elders (especially when they diverged from scripture) nor the culture of His time.

I’ll not discern emerging movement teacher’s walks - that’s between them and the Master. Nevertheless, we see from Yeshua’s own instructions, their teachings must be discerned. Let me speak to this premise the only part of scripture that has validity is what Yeshua said: the "red letter." In Matthew 4:4 Yeshua answers the evil one’s temptation, saying, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the Mouth of God." When confronting the error Yeshua repeatedly asked, "Have you not read…?" It sounds like He puts a high premium on the only scripture available at the time: the Tanakh or the Old Testament. Later, Yeshua Himself exalts the role of the Holy Spirit in John 14:26: But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. That pretty much covers the rest of the New Covenant. Our use of only the red letter establishes the legitimacy of the rest of the scripture. The emerging church’s leaders attempt to use only "red letter" scripture is simply a masked effort to escape the embarrassment of the full gospel. And an attempt to avoid the inconvenient parts telling us we are to be pure even if it means going against our propensities to lie, cheat, steal, gossip or have illicit sexual liaisons whatever their bent.

As for judging others, it is very true that to the measure we judge others, so shall we be judged (v. 1ff). Having gone into sin myself, I have to tell you, that there is this shining moment in my memory when a believing friend addressed my sin by simply saying, "We don’t do that." No tirades about how terrible I was, just a simple reminder that what I was doing was wrong. It was the beginning of my return to the Lord, the conviction drove into my heart like a lance into an abscess draining the poison of sin - bringing the health of repentance. She and that reminder glow like gold to me ever since. Throwing stones is different from addressing sin. It is quite true that we are to first attend to our own propensities (the log in our own eye), before attending to the speck of others - but we are not exempt from attending to the other’s specks. Yeshua tells us to first take out the log in our own eye, then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (v. 5). Yeshua, our model, also addressed people’s sin over and over when He proclaimed people’s sins to be forgiven, or exhorted them to go and sin no more - all red letter. Sin kills, and conviction is uncomfortable, but repentance is health. There is plenty in the "red letters" to make us have to sit up and take notice. It’s distressing that God’s love letter is being dissected and made into a smorgasbord for us to pick and choose what is "worthy" of our obedience or attention so that we don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of sin.

The fruit of emerging church movement leaders is not for me to say - I’m not familiar enough with it to do so, nor do I want to invest much more time in something that is not a primary concern for me at this time. I do know that Brian McLaren’s writings sound more like Pilate, asking "what is Truth?" (John 18:38) than like Yeshua, our measure, who "came into the world, to testify to the Truth" (v. 37). As for me, I’d rather follow the example of Yeshua testifying to the truth, rather than the relativistic, postmodern hell of Pilate questioning what truth is by not holding to the integrity and veracity of scripture.

Emerging church teachers are right that the embracing of any cultural way of thinking is not what we are called to do in our walk as believers. I, too, question the evangelical embracing of the overall culture (one of the reasons your church appealed to me). This, however, also applies to the emerging church’s embracing of a subculture (post-modernism). I do not take the doctrines of Judaism without deep questioning, because Yeshua questioned them. He rejected the way the overall culture (Rome) did things, as well as the way the entho-religious-culture (Sadducees), and its subculture (Pharisees) did things. He wanted to reintroduce truth that, no matter how you cut it, the Good News is not easy, mushy or soft. Take up your cross daily, He demanded - then set the example Himself by dying on one. Our acceptance by the sinner, is not our goal - it is their acceptance of the Savior that is important. If they think we are hicks, or naïve, or ignorant it is not our concern. There is truth to be had - and we are to apprehend it.

Another disturbing thing about this movement, another that my old, exploded church had in common with them: mysticism is exalted over the Word, over truth. Mysticism is something in common with other religions. I tend to be mystical, myself. But this drawing of my heart to the Lord must NEVER be greater than my experience of His love letter to me. In His Word He always stresses that syncretism is not acceptable. Taking on the practices of the unbelievers (those who do not believe in Messiah Yeshua, Christ Jesus) is not only discouraged but outright condemned. It is idolatry - spiritual adultery. What I find bizarre is that they are so willing to seek ‘truth’ in every impure place but where untainted truth is to be found. They find a myriad of reasons not to take scripture seriously while taking on the soiled practices of pagans. My research into the movement has revealed that one of the prime sources is a man named Ken Wilber who is a practicing Buddhist and his orientation in clearly not Christian (and recommended as an author to read by Rob Bell). Brilliance is not a recommendation for a resource of knowing God. Satan is brilliant, but he is clearly evil and a not worthy teacher.

Here’s the thing about things that are not doctrinally sound, and it has proven true in my own life: it is said we can eat the meat and spit out the bones - but if the meat is poisoned - you die. So many films I watched, so many books I read, so many conversations about fruitless things I had that I wish I could take back because they still effect my walk in negative ways. I wanted to be so sophisticated, so worldly, so knowledgeable that I wouldn’t listen to good advice. My father once warned me to be careful what I put in my mind. Another friend asked, "Why would you want to put that in your mind?" when I told her I was going to go see a particular film. But it was the "cool" thing to do - now I cringe to think about so many of these unprofitable choices I made. Now I have the duty of having to take more things captive to the obedience of Messiah than I should have. Had I listened to good advice, I wouldn‘t have.

The fruit of the church from which I emerged, I can attest, however. Tragically it crashed and burned. Of the five elders (one with whom I still have contact, went back to Australia before the church "emerged"), 3 had affairs, their families broke up and their children are not walking with the Lord. In the congregation in general, many of us strayed - myself after 20 years of walking with the Lord, lost faith in scripture and though I still believed, I would joke, "God and I are still speaking, we’re just living separate apartments." Not as funny now, as I thought it was then. Of the other people in the congregation, many went through similar things. Some are wandering still. Many of their children wandered as well; some are not walking with the Lord citing the church break up as a reason.

He finally grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and got my attention a little over eleven years ago, through a mystical experience - I had a vision of Messiah on the Cross and the universe revolving around Him and the words: "This is the single most important event of all time or history." Ever since, every day with Him now is as thrilling as my first day with Him. However, if this vision hadn’t lined up with scripture, I would have been obligated to discard it as a temptation of the evil one. It was only in finding my bearings in scripture and its integrity that restored me to Messiah. By integrity, I mean using scripture in context, not twisting it to mean what I want it mean. By inerrancy I mean the whole of scripture being true, not just the part that makes me feel warm and cozy.

Now, my prayer is from the hymn, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, "Lord, let me never, never outlive my love for You." I’d rather die than desert Him again. He gave me a new love for scripture and an interest in apologetics. It would have been a lot harder to fool me had I been more aware of the intellectuality of my faith and not just devotion and piety. This vision came after 6 years of wandering and sin which I blush to think about now

These terrible things happened because we didn’t take scripture seriously. The doubting higher criticism invites crept in, as it has into that of postmodernists. These were some of the smartest people I will ever know. We were too smart to be ruled by scripture. We wanted to excuse sin, particularly our own. We focused on the "social" gospel as more important than the rest of it. The physical needs of people overshadowed and superseded their spiritual needs. Bit by bit we deconstructed the Good News until even "red letter" was meaningless. This put us in a position where the evil one could pick us off at our weakest points because we weren’t being accountable about our sin or wicked thoughts. We made excuses - "you’re only human" - "whatever gets you through." We were more interested in therapy than repentance. We were more interested in sounding wise and sympathetic than being truthful and humble before the Lord and each other.

Does it not strike you as odd that we in the West are not being persecuted for our faith? I think it is because the evil one saw how strong the remnant of believers were in faith, so he chose a different tactic to destroy the Western church: seduction. He chose to seduce us away from the truth. With that accomplished we won’t have the will to resist any on coming persecution that comes against us. We won’t even know what we believe, how can we resist?

….., I don’t think you are not like them, yet. You have a powerful gift and have been pretty much a faithful teacher. Everyone says things that aren’t exactly "orthodox" if they are thinking creatively. You are a creative person, so you may occasionally say things that don‘t line up with scripture. Please always go back to scripture as your standard. The trouble with the emerging church movement is that it doesn’t seem to have a standard except the worldly postmodernist philosophy. We know the world’s philosophy will not save them, only Messiah can do that. Please don’t put yourself or your congregation in a position to be held accountable for other people’s error. It is possible to be in this movement without going into error, I think (or rather hope). But it’s also possible to be a Mormon and saved. It’s better for the Mormon to come out of the Mormon church, where error is rampant, however and go where the truth is more prevalent so that they won‘t be lured into gross error. As teachers you and ….. are held to a higher standard because of the damage teachers can inflict. Please be careful. Philippians 1:3-7 is my prayer for you all: I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

I say all this because I love your church. My experience of your fellowship is that you have biblical integrity and respect for the scripture. I love the challenge and strength of the people and the teaching. But I’ve done the emerging church thing - got the tee shirt and have the scars to prove it. I don’t want to be in an emerging church again. The anxiety it would cause to be in your church now wouldn’t be productive. Yet I wish you well, and hope you keep your eyes open for poisoned meat and wolves in sheep’s clothing, as well as bears and lions.

All my love, respect and blessings to you at…..,

Dolores Márquez

I’m ending with the beginning to remind you what motivated me to write: