Bridging the Gap Between Good and Evil

By Roger Oakland

Lighthouse Trails –
August 18, 2008

Read the entire
newsletter here:

www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletter081808.htm

Understand
the Times

The serpent’s temptation of Eve
in the Garden of Eden, that we can be like God, remains with
mankind to this very day. Satan’s plan is to lessen or eliminate
(he hopes) the gap between himself and God. The following
explanation puts it well:

“It is important to
understand that Satan is not simply trying to draw people to
the dark side of a good versus evil conflict. Actually, he
is trying to eradicate the gap between himself and God,
between good and evil, altogether. When we understand this
approach it helps us see why Thomas Merton said everyone is
already united with God or why Jack Canfield said he felt
God flowing through all things. All means all–nothing left
out. Such reasoning implies that God has given His glory to
all of creation; since Satan is part of creation, then he
too shares in this glory, and thus is ‘like the Most
High.'”1

When those in the emerging church
try to persuade people that we need to bridge the gap between
Christians (or Christ-followers as they put it) and
non-Christians, they aren’t really talking about reaching out to
the unsaved in order to share the Gospel with them. They are
talking about coming to a consensus, a common ground. Leonard
Sweet explains:

“The key to navigating
postmodernity’s choppy, crazy waters is not to seek some
balance or “safe middle ground,” but to ride the waves and
bridge the opposites, especially where they converge in
reconciliation and illumination.”2

It takes a little thinking to
figure out what Sweet is saying by this statement, but when he
talks about bridging the opposites, he’s referring to a chasm
that exists between good and evil. This tension between the two
is called dualism, and at the heart of occultism is the effort
to eradicate it. If that gap could truly be closed, then Satan
and God would be equal. The Bible clearly states this will never
happen, but it also says that it is Satan’s desire:

“How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down
to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast
said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt
my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the
mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the
most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the
sides of the pit.” (Isaiah 14:12-15)

This misguided effort to unite
all things, to give people the option of maintaining their own
religious practices, suggesting they do not have to call
themselves Christians is a spiritually slippery slope and an
undoing of the Christian faith.

Samir Selmanovic was raised in a European Muslim home, then
served as a Seventh Day Adventist pastor in the US. Today, he
helps to develop the emerging church through his role in the
Coordinating Group at Emergent Village and his leadership in
Re-church Network. Selmanovic has some interesting and alarming
views on Christianity. He states:

“The emerging church movement
has come to believe that the ultimate context of the
spiritual aspirations of a follower of Jesus Christ is not
Christianity but rather the kingdom of God…. to believe
that God is limited to it [Christianity] would be an attempt
to manage God. If one holds that Christ is confined to
Christianity, one has chosen a god that is not sovereign.
Soren Kierkegaard argued that the moment one decides to
become a Christian, one is liable to idolatry.”3

On Selmanovic’s website, Faith
House project, he presents an interfaith vision that will:

“…seek to bring progressive
Jews, Christians, Muslims, and spiritual seekers of no faith
to become an interfaith community for the good of the world.
We have one world and one God.”4

While Selmanovic says he includes
Christians in this interspiritual dream for the world, he makes
it clear that while they might be included, they are in no way
beholders of an exclusive truth. He states:

Is our religion
[Christianity] the only one that understands the true
meaning of life? Or does God place his truth in others too?
Well, God decides, and not us. The gospel is not our gospel,
but the gospel of the kingdom of God, and what belongs to
the kingdom of God cannot be hijacked by Christianity.”5

While it is true that God is the
One who decides where He is going to place truth, He has already
made that decision. And the answer to that is found in the
Bible. When Selmanovic asks if Christianity is the only religion
that understands the true meaning of life, the answer is yes.
How can a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Muslim fully understand truth
when their religions omit a Savior who died for their sins?

Though world religions may share some moral precepts (don’t lie,
steal, etc), the core essence of Christianity (redemption) is
radically different from all of them. Interspirituality may
sound noble on the surface, but in actuality, Selmanovic and the
other emerging church leaders are facilitating occultist Alice
Bailey’s rejuvenation of the churches. In her rejuvenation,
everyone remains diverse (staying in their own religion), yet
united in perspective, with no one religion claiming a unique
corner on the truth. In other words all religions lead to the
same destination and emanate from the same source. And of
course, Bailey believed that a “coming one”6 whom she called
Christ would appear on the scene in order to lead united
humanity into an era of global peace. However, you can be sure
that if such a scenario were to take place as Bailey predicted,
there would be no room for those who cling to biblical truth.

As is the case with so many emergent leaders, Selmanovic’s
confusing language dances obscurely around his theology, whether
he realizes it or not. Sadly, for those who are lost and who are
trying to find the way, the emerging church movement offers
confusion in place of clarity. It blurs if not obliterates the
walls of distinction between good and evil, truth and falsehood,
leaving people to stumble along a broken path, hoping to find
light. In sharp contrast, Jesus commanded believers to stand out
as beacon lights in this dark world, bearing the Word of God to
a lost and dying generation. In such times as these, in which we
live, let us not be quickly deceived, but let us heed the words
that give life and true peace:

“Ye are the light of the
world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither
do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a
candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the
house.” (Matthew 5:14-15)

From chapter 10,

Faith Undone by Roger Oakland

Notes:
1. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, p. 108.
2. Leonard Sweet, Soul Tsunami, p. 163.
3. Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope,
Samir Selmanovic section, “The Sweet Problem of Inclusiveness,”
pp. 192-193.
4. >From Faith House Project website:
http://samirselmanovic.
typepad.com/faith_house/2.WhatisFaithHouseProject.pdf.
5. Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, p.
194.
6. Alice Bailey, The Externalization of the Hierarchy.

You can
order Roger Oakland’s books,
Faith Undone and

Another Jesus,from
Lighthouse Trails at

www.lighthousetrails.com/formanyshallcome.htm