Rev. Ken Silva of Apprising Ministries has posted the correspondence he had with an Emerging Church pastor regarding the recent 'poster controversy' started over at Pyromanics. The Emerging Church pastor Mike Clawson said this at the end of the exchange:
“Salvation is through the grace of God alone; by the faith alone given to us by God, in Christ alone.”
Another bit of irony (and perhaps more evidence of how you really haven’t understood what those in the EC are saying) is that I would completely affirm this statement as well. You hold this up as an example of the radical difference in our views – and yet I see no disagreement here.
I 'agree' with his statement ... and pigs do fly, at least in the world of the Emerging Church movement. So salvation is both by grace alone and not by grace alone, by faith alone and also not by faith alone, and in Christ alone but not in Christ alone too. I'm sorry, I'm not 'smart' enough to get my mind around such strange doctrine (1 Tim. 1:6-7). But anyway, if Mike really mean that last statement, then his entire emerging ministry is a total sham, and vice versa. Since he himself said that he used to be orthodox, then I guess this warning applies to him:
For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, an produced a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, recieves a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. (Heb. 6:4-8)
Notice the last verse which states that such a land is worthless and near to being cursed. This is a warning that if a person is set on apostasty, his/her final end is destruction, and we are to warn that person that such is the case. This is was not meant to be used to judge whether someone is apostate, although it could be if that person has proved conclusively his or her apostasy, but hopefully be a very strong warning to prevent people from apostasizing. Those who continue in this path knowingly should very well know that there would be no hope for them anymore; no way of salvation open to them, they are considered to be damned to hell with no hope of returning to God. Such a scary prospect should very well be a warning to all of us Christians to stay on the narrow path and strive towards the goal that Christ Jesus set for us (Phil. 3:14). Let us not have ANYTHING to do whatsoever to do with all these heretical movements.
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