Faith Undone

Author ROGER OAKLAND

Publisher LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS PUBLISHING

ISBN 0-9791315-1-0


Lighthouse Trails Publishing is committed to making available those books that promote a pre-millennial eschatology and has a distinct aversion to anything to do with what it perceives to be mystical.  So, in a way, they publish books that are crusading against what they perceive as enemies of Christ.  Whenever something like this is present you can expect a tendency towards painting the ‘enemy’ (in this case many current leaders in the North American church) in rather extreme ways.  This is somewhat sad because the heat of argument, even argument vividly bolstered by numerous quotes from these leaders, can detract from statements of profound seriousness and that demand our attention.  

The book is a full-blown critique of the so-called ‘Emergent Church’.   But, even I know that those lumped under that dubious title are incredibly varied, there are at least five different strands that I myself know of and not all buy into the extremes Roger Oakland is at pains to present in these chapters.  I have not read a book on this subject that is so exhaustive in endeavoring to make a case, and, if the things revealed here continue, a vital case, to show just how far the church is in danger of drifting in this twenty-first century.  Yes, there is serious departure taking place.  Spiritual discernment is in short supply, love for the Bible and the truth of God revealed there is being eroded, these things are not to be denied.  Perhaps a book of this kind can help warn the unwary and inform those in danger of slowly walking into the minefield that will blow their legs off because it says ‘danger’ in no uncertain terms.  But, having said this, it does seem to me to be “baby out with the bathwater.”  Not sufficient reasoned examination of what is peculiarly North American about the ‘emergent church’.  So much of what these leaders say is a virtual irrelevancy in the two-thirds world.  Often I have wondered how some of their most prominent leaders would handle village life in India or Africa where life is naked and false religion and its fruit most manifest.  The chapters found in this particular book focus on the more extreme statements about contemplative spirituality and mysticism made by these leaders with sections about a new missiology and Eucharistic evangelization and is very clear that the Emergent church is leading the churches in general back to Rome.  There is plenty to make the reader think as he goes through this book.  Some readers will be shocked; pastors might be saying, “Well I never realized some of these men were so far out in their belief system.”  It would be well for those in leadership to get a copy of this and read it thoughtfully endeavoring to avoid either the extreme of throwing it in the waste basket because they are sympathetic to the Emergent Church or on the other hand, hunkering down into an ultra conservative evangelical viewpoint.   

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