A City Of Refuge

What Charles Spurgeon Said About the Emerging Church May 15, 2018 (first published February 19, 2009) The emerging church represented by Brian McLaren and the Emergent village is not as new as it appears to be. It was already raising its ugly head in the late 19th century, because Charles Spurgeon described it perfectly in his comments on James 5:19-20. He called it “modern thought” and “deceitful infidelity.” Spurgeon also described the tolerant attitude of modern evangelicalism that puts up with emerging heresies. He called this “latitudinarianism.” SPURGEON’S COMMENTS ON JAMES 5:19-20 “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20). It was not merely that he fell into a mistake upon some lesser matter which might be compared to the fringe of the gospel, but he erred in some vital doctrine--he departed from the faith in its fundamentals. There are some truths which must be believed, they are essential to salvation, and if not heartily accepted the soul will be ruined. This man had been professedly orthodox, but he turned aside from the truth on an essential point. Now, in those days the saints did not say: ‘We must be largely charitable, and leave this brother to his own opinion; he sees truth from a different standpoint, and has a rather different way of putting it, but his opinions are as good as our own, and we must not say that he is in error.’ That is at present the fashionable way of trifling with divine truth, and making things pleasant all round. Thus the gospel is debased and another gospel propagated. I should like to ask modern broad churchmen whether there is any doctrine of any sort for which it would be worth a man’s while to burn or to lie in prison. I do not believe they could give me an answer, for if their latitudinarianism be correct, the martyrs were fools of the first magnitude.  READ THE REMAINDER HERE: