There is a new church that purports to embrace all religions. This new church is called the Living Interfaith Church of Lynnwood, which is based in Lynnwood, Washington. The person that runs it is the Rev. Steven Greenebaum, aged 65.
According to an article posted in The Blaze,
"the church offers an 'interfaith' experience, (which ) rather than focusing solely upon Jesus, Muhammad or other central religious figures that are specific to certain faiths, focuses upon a more interconnected sentiment — one that brings together people of any and all theological views."
The article states further,
"Here’s how the church defines its theology: Interfaith is a faith that embraces the teachings of all spiritual paths that lead us to seek a life of compassionate action. Interfaith, as a faith, does not seek to discover which religion or spiritual path is 'right.' Rather, it recognizes that we are all brothers and sisters, and that at different times and different places we have encountered the sacred differently. Interfaith celebrates our differing spiritual paths, recognizing it is our actions in this world that count; that we are called to engage the world, and to do so with compassion and with love. In the past, 'interfaith' has usually meant people of good will from differing spiritual paths getting together briefly for a project and then simply going home. That was worthwhile and hugely important. But today the world needs more. Interfaith, as a spiritual practice, can serve as a model for how we deal with each other."
(Parenthesis added.)
Commentary:
This 'new' church is simply another emerging church. Its interfaith theology, catering to the post-modern generation and mindset, is nothing truly new but is just another sign of the Endtimes - the emergence of the One-world Church that shall embody the collective pagan religions of the coming Antichrist and False Prophet (read Revelation 13 ff.).
The Living Interfaith Church of Lynnwood may recognize the differing paths of the different faiths, but does it recognize that there is only one path to heaven? Or is the salvation issue not its concern? It appears to be the case since it claims to serve as a model for how, as brothers and sisters, mankind should deal with one another. This is called the social gospel.
Therefore as a church, it could not be further removed from the one Jesus Christ built. Its core tenets could not be more remote than those of Matthew 28:19-20 and John 14:6.
On the further ramifications of the interfaith movement, I shall insert an abstract from a novel (why reinvent the wheel, yes?), which ably explains the interfaith movement as an anti-biblical theology and doctrine.
* * *
(Taken from the novel, Bene Ha Elohim, Sons of God, Part 2, Chapter 1. To set the scene this is a dialogue between Mishael, one of the protagonists of the story, and the angel, Gabriel. The setting in which the protagonists find themselves is that of the Great Tribulation. This chapter is told from the first-person narrative point of view, which is that of Mishael.)
“Some call Antichrist the modern-day Nimrod,” I added.
“Indeed,” (Gabriel) stated. “Nimrod was a type or foreshadowing of the Antichrist, a harbinger. Lucifer was behind Nimrod’s endeavours just as Lucifer was behind the globalists’ endeavours. Globalism proved subtly deceptive and this is because Lucifer is the most subtly deceptive of the forces of darkness in the high places. Except for the Lord Jesus’ disciples, to whom the Holy Spirit gave discernment to recognize the satanic root of globalism and post-modern relativism, the rest of the world had bought into the globalists’ deception. How bad could it be, they thought – their elected political and economic rulers were uniting the world together to advance social justice through the redistribution of wealth. Their elected spiritual leaders were uniting together the world’s religions to do good works such as eradicating humanitarian crises – war, famine, poverty, genocide – through ecumenicalism and syncretism.”
“Explain,” I requested.
Gabriel nodded: “Sure, syncretism was the globalists’ focus on extricating from the world’s religions their common ideologies in order to make them the basis of dialogue, cooperation and unity. Ecumenicalism was the synthetic unity of religions to create universal brotherhood within the frameworks of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. The end goal of syncretism and ecumenicism was the uniting of the world’s religions to eradicate humanitarian crises but this marked the beginning of the decline of the Evangelical Right and evangelicalism in general. Churches were assimilating the experiential practices of pagan spirituality and rituals of eastern mysticism that had their basis in Hinduism and Buddhism. Some examples of these satanic practices being imported into neo-evangelicalism were Christian yoga – an oxymoron of terms, the Law of Attraction – a term synonymous with the Power of Positive Thinking, Contemplative Prayer and Centering Prayer. The uniting of religions through syncretism and ecumenism made it possible for the world to accept the ascension of the False Prophet as the ruler of the present One-world religion, which is the false religion of pagan spirituality.
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| Image by The Whyman @WHY?Outreach |
“The Christian churches and the doctrine of Sola Scriptura were the most heart-rending casualties of moral relativism; churches were left with one of these choices: assimilate into the ecumenical worldview where all religions were equally valid; adopt the Emergent heresies of salvation by good works and Universalism where all paths led to heaven; or cease to exist. The majority of mainline and evangelical churches chose to follow the Emergent path, blurring the lines between the liberal Left and the conservative Right. This was to the detriment of the church congregations since they were all lost and on their way to hell.
“The Lord’s Bride was face to face with the proverbial Enemy Within; the assaults on the Church’s traditional Judeo-Christian precepts came mostly from those within the congregations themselves, not just from the Left-leaning liberals, but also from the so-called Evangelical Right that taught the gospels of Dominionism and Reconstructionism and preached the heresies of Ecumenicism and Contemplative Spirituality. Their leading proponents were able to draw cult-like followings to themselves by claiming to have received extra-biblical revelations from God’s angels. Angels – well, that should be a red flag. Many a new religion founded by a false prophet was the result of angelic revelations, which were truly the revelations of fallen angels sent by Satan.”
“And, so, believers who would not assimilate into the new Emergent and Ecumenical orders were pressured to leave and they started their own home churches,” I said. “Other churches closed their doors for good owing to widespread apostasy, since all faiths were seen as equally valid and fundamental Christianity – then the only faith which made the truth claim that Christ Jesus was the only path to heaven – was no longer seen as relevant. Christian talk radio was either taken off the air or became defunct because the hosts were espousing the exclusivity of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ and speaking out against homosexuality and other false religions.”
Gabriel nodded: “These people that were objecting to moral relativism and adhering to the exclusive claims of Scripture and Jesus Christ were accused of being judgmental and intolerant. However, the irony was that this action itself was an intolerant judgment of Bible-believing Christians. Thus we have another example of the self-defeating nature of the post-modern worldview.
“Slowly, people started realizing that their freedoms were being eroded. As I said, Mish, post-modern relativism turned out to be deceptive because long-held ideas of morality were being questioned and turned upside down. Right was wrong and wrong was right.
“Well, now, in all the world’s churches, the youth started to question and deny such absolutes as the historicity of the Genesis record, the inerrancy of Scripture, moral objectivity and the existence of a just and holy God who punished everyone that rejected His Son as His one and only provided solution for humanity’s problems, which all stemmed from sin. The Lord Jesus Christ was no longer accepted as the only way to salvation, as per His claims. In place of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ was the gospel of works and social justice, which fitted with the post-modern idea that all faiths were equally valid.
“This was the new churchianity, which was welcomed by all religions. People of many stripes embraced the gospel of good works and social justice for it exempted them from acknowledging the problem of their sin nature and having to justify their chosen lifestyles, which were usually antithetical to the traditional Judeo-Christian model of probity. And, so, the seeker-friendly mega-churches of the gospel of feel-goodism became very popular: they couldn’t expand fast enough to accommodate their congregations, most of whom did not hold to the fundamentals of Christianity. Their young people were inculcated with the misperception that their place in heaven was airtight as long as they were charitable to their community, helped the poor, infirm and widowed, and involved themselves in projects that professed to alleviate poverty and illiteracy, and protect the environment. And, as far as the atheists were concerned, unless they were facing an existential crisis, they could care less about the new churchianity; they had many reasons not to be antagonistic towards the neo-Church, not the least of which was her politically-correct false doctrine of Universalism. In fact, the new churchianity was on a slippery slope towards being indistinguishable from atheism.
“In just fifty years, you were hard pressed to find a young person who knew who Jesus Christ was; or believed in God, heaven and hell; or could articulate the gospel message in one sentence.”
“Fifty years?” I exclaimed. “So the post-modern attitude had been embraced as a worldview for several decades when it finally infiltrated the churches?”
“Indeed,” my mentor replied, “since the nineteen-sixties, in fact. Post-modern relativism in its nascent form could be pinned down in the points of view of such dubious luminaries as Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe. From critics’ perspectives of their works, what one regarded as salacious was considered as pulchritude by another, but both critiques were equally valid. That’s practical relativism. Of course, there had been moral relativists in every epoch prior to that; after all anthropocentricism is as old as the original sin and is symptomatic of man-centeredness. There really is nothing new under the sun as King Solomon has adduced. However, to call moral relativists of past epochs post-modernists, by the very definition of the term, would be anachronistic. But I digress.
“Well, to continue where I left off: because the church youth were being raised on post-modern relativism, their churches became filled with members who saw themselves as cultural attachés instead of ambassadors for Christ, as cultural warriors instead of spiritual warriors. As well, the post-modern churches became filled with leaders who replaced creed with deed, and with missionaries who were involved in communitarianism instead of the Great Commission, which should be the true role of a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ."
