Kimball and McManus’ New Emerging Network

As Lighthouse Trails reported
last week in our article,
“Some Say the Emerging Church is Dead – the Truth Behind the Story,” a new emerging network/alliance is
forming among several disgruntled emerging church
leaders such as Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus, and Scot
McKnight.1

According to McKnight, the new network/alliance will be
“committed to the Lausanne Covenant.”

One blog posting said that the Lausanne Covenant is
“more typically evangelical than Emergent Village is
presumed to be.” However, documentation shows that
Lausanne is currently on the same theological path that
the emerging church has been on all along with respect
to ecumenism, global peace, eschatology, and mysticism.
The fact is, Lausanne has had plans for some time to
work together with emerging church leaders.

A 2005 Lausanne Committee report titled “The New People
Next Door” states that they hope to bring together
“younger emerging leaders” from around the world and
that “[t]ransformation was a theme,” adding: “We pray
for peace and reconciliation and God’s guidance in how
to bring about peace through our work of
evangelization.”(2
This 64-page report by Lausanne claims it is “heavily
drawn” from the book, The Next Christendom: The
Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins (p.
57), a book strongly pro-ecumenical and pro-Roman
Catholic. Jenkins is also author of The New
Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice.

To reach its objectives, Lausanne has turned to

Rick Warren, who will be at The Third Lausanne
Congress on World Evangelization in South Africa in
2010. Warren, one of the emerging church’s strongest
supporters and also a major proponent of the
contemplative prayer movement, has shown an affinity to
both Dan Kimball and

Erwin McManus as well as other emerging leaders. To
see where Rick Warren stands on the contemplative issue,
one only needs to look as far as Warren’s list of
recommended spiritual resources. One of the books that
Warren resonates with is Adele Ahlberg Calhoun’s
Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, which openly
promotes eastern-style meditation.3

Leighton Ford, Honorary Life Chairman for Lausanne, is
also helping to bring about the goals of Lausanne. Ford
came out of the contemplative closet with his recent
book, The Attentive Life: Discerning God’s Presence
in All Things. The book offers a collection of
quotes by and references to some of the most prolific
eastern-style meditation teachers, including Thomas
Keating, David Steindl-Rast, Gerald May,

Kathleen Norris, and atonement rejector and
Episcopal priest Alan Jones (Reimagining Christianity).
It is Steindl-Rast who suggested that the Gospel “gets
in the way” between Christian and Buddhist dialogue (see

A Time of Departing.

The fact that Lausanne is working with two highly
influential contemplative proponents, Ford and Warren,
reveals the organization’s affinity toward mysticism, an
affinity which is shared by the emerging church,
including Kimball and McManus.

As Lighthouse Trails and its authors have stated on
numerous occasions, the “fruit” of contemplative prayer
is interspirituality and panentheism.
While the seemingly heart cry of the emerging church
(and Lausanne) has been missions and global unity, the
underlying force is mysticism, which we believe will be
Satan’s instrument to deceive the whole world
(Revelation 12:9). Mysticism (i.e., the occult) is
overtaking all segments of society, and this means that
the world is falling under the spell of sorceries
(magical arts) that according to the book of
Revelation will deceive all nations (Revelation
18:23 – see last chapter in

FMSC).

It is ironic that Kimball, McManus, and McKnight are
suggesting that they must leave emergent behind (at
least in name) because certain segments of the movement
are not theologically conservative enough. Translated:
Brian McLaren and others deny the atonement, and that is
just too radical, they say. But the apple may fall quite
close to the tree in this case–

A few years ago, former New Age follower Warren Smith
wrote an article titled “Evangelicals and New Agers
Together.” In the article, he identified a man named

Jay Gary. Gary served as a conference planner on
Lausanne for three years in the 1980s. Smith points out
in his article Gary’s endorsement of New Age leader and
former assistant Secretary-General of the United
Nations, Robert Muller. What’s more, as Smith points
out, in Muller’s book New Genesis: Shaping a Global
Spirituality:

Muller said he often heard himself being described
as a “Teilhardian.” He admitted that “…now after a
third of a century of service with the UN I can say
unequivocally that much of what I have observed in
the world bears out the all encompassing, global,
forward-looking philosophy of

Teilhard de Chardin [a staunch mystic and
panentheist].”

Muller’s unabashed identification with Chardin
should have put Gary on immediate alert. Instead he
seems oblivious to the dangers of Muller’s doctrine.
Perhaps because of his contact with Muller and
others, even his own writing seems to have an
underlying Teilhardian quality.

Gary had apparently so imbibed Muller’s fondness for
Teilhard’s writings that one of Gary’s chapter
subtitles, “Hymns of the Universe” is the actual
title of one of Teilhard de Chardin’s most mystical
books about the Cosmic Christ! And wouldn’t Gary
find it curious that in Chardin’s book this mystical
godfather of the New Age also talks about a star
that the world is waiting for – a star that heralds
the coming of the Cosmic New Age Christ.

Jay Gary is a link in this emerging shift that should
not be ignored. Today, he is a member of and a speaker
for the World Future Society where New Age leader

Barbara Marx Hubbard is on the “Global Advisory
Council.” Interestingly, the man who Kimball and McManus
wish to distance themselves from (Brian McLaren) talks
about Jay Gary in McLaren’s own book,

The Secret Message of Jesus (p. 179). In
referring to “eschatological [end-time] intentions,”
McLaren says Gary writes “brilliantly” in his
explanation of the future of the world where Gary
describes a “creative future” that is much different
than the future that is described by those who believe
the book of Revelation.

The Lausanne that Kimball, McKnight, and McManus are
“committed to” is an organization that while appearing
to be more evangelical than the “emergent church,” gives
ample reason to believe they are on the same track as
McLaren and other radical, Bible rejecting emergents.
The break-away emergents (Kimball, McManus, etc.)
see themselves as more conservative orthodox members of
the emergent movement, but in reality they embrace the
same mysticism and the same eschatology beliefs that
have led McLaren and others like him into radical
apostasy. In essence, nothing is changing at all – it
will be like the child who hides his peas under the
mashed potatoes – they’re still there but just out of
sight for awhile.

For those who are skeptical, let us leave you with this.
It’s been sometime since Jay Gary has been a part of
Lausanne – now it is Rick Warren who is there as the
influencer. But Jay Gary and Rick Warren share something
vital in common –

Leonard Sweet. Sweet was

invited to Regent University a few years ago to
speak with Gary who is on staff there. And just a few
months ago, Rick Warren had Sweet come and speak at the
Small Groups Conference at Saddleback. Sweet is a
New Age sympathizer, and yet both men find him
appealing. So nothing has changed at Lausanne, and for
Kimball and McManus, who claim to be going in a more
theologically sound direction, they may be jumping from
the frying pan into the fire and unfortunately taking a
vast number of young people with them.

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Other reports from

www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com:

Bridging
the Gap Between Good and Evil

Donald
Miller, the Emerging Church, and the Democratic National
Convention

Bentley’s Revival Ending,
Dalai Lama & Rick Warren

The
Spirituality of Barak Obama and Rick Warren

Saddleback “Apologist” Threatens Web Host Company with Legal
Action

The New Age Comes to the Girl Scouts of the USA

The Oneness Blessing – Pathway to Global Awakening

Brian McLaren Tour Starts Soon |

Ken Blanchard Joins “The Secret”
Team

Rick Warren Teams Up with New Age
Proponent Leonard Sweet

Al Gore and Tony Campolo Address
Baptist Organizations

Emergent Manifesto |


Deceptive Roots of the Emerging Church

The Re-Think Conference |

Deceptive Roots of the Emerging Church

They Like Jesus, But Not the Church |

Erwin McManus

The Secret: A New Era for Humankind

Yoga, Mysticism & Moody Bible Institute