Commonality is one of the buzz words being is propagated to defend Christian ecumenism with cults and false religions.  A large number of leading Christians signed “A Common Word” Christian Response, a letter urging interfaith dialogue with Muslims based on the idea of commonality.  Among the signers were, Leith Anderson, President, National Association of Evangelicals, David Yonggi Cho, Founder and Senior Pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church, Seoul, Korea, Brian D. McLaren, Rick Warren, Founder and Senior Pastor, Saddleback Church, and Bill Hybels, Founder and Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church.  Also, consider the following statements by leading Christians.

“There is enough commonality that evangelicals and Catholics with a living faith can recognize one another as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ with a common Lord and common grace that brought them together.” (Beeson Divinity School founder, Timothy George)

“There’s more commonality than we realized in the way we talk about Jesus and his atoning work.” (Dr. Richard J. Mouw, president emeritus of the Fuller Theological Seminary, speaking to Mormons, Utah Valley University, November 15, 2013.)

Citing confusion about differences in belief systems as an issue, Mouw and other Evangelicals and Mormons have been meeting biannually for 12 years to discuss their differences and commonalities.  It really is simple.  It does not take 12 years to discover if Mormons are Christians or not.  It should be patently obvious that they are not Christians no more than Muslims are Christians.  However, even when Christians interact with Muslims commonality again appears to be a popular word.

“That’s the place where we (Christians and Muslims) come together, in common need and common suffering, as we reach out to one another in love, leaving judgment in the hands of God, sharing out of our own faith.  I mean the last thing we are asking in those times is—is your theology the same as mine?—and vice-versa.  All of the sudden in the hour of suffering there is a commonality.  And that’s where we meet.  It’s in mystical spirituality and in communal mutuality that’s where we come together.” (Tony Campolo in an interview with Shane Claiborne about inter-religious cooperation.)

Sayyid Syeed, of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) spoke to a group of Baptists in Pasadena.  Referring to the Bible and the Quran, he said, “You are people of the book.  We are people of the book.”  He then said that Baptists and Muslims should make an effort to build on that commonality.  The next Saturday, Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church, also implied unity through commonality when spoke at the ISNA convention.  I fail to see how the Quran and the Bible can be mentioned in the same breath and the result labeled commonality.  I should point out here that Anton LaVey and his followers in the Church of Satan was/are also people of a book, the Satanic Bible.

I have read a number of statements by Evangelicals in an attempt to discover why they are seeking commonality with cults and false religions.  Some of them claim that the purpose is the unity of all religions for the common goal of peace.  Christ declared that He did not come to bring peace on the earth (Matthew 10:34-36).  Ecumenists ignore that truth, and form unbiblical peace initiatives with cults and false religions.  Further, if commonality is the key to peace between Christians and other religions and cults, why are there no scriptures supporting this tactic?  It appears that early Christians and Gnostics had some common ground, but none of the church leaders made an attempt to compromise on the ground of commonality.  The purpose of the Gospel is not peace with sinners, but salvation from sin.  The doctrine of commonality compromises that purpose, as I will explain later in this article.

Other proponents of commonality declare that they have the goal of evangelizing cults and false religions.  I can’t imagine the Mormons, Muslims, Roman Catholics, and the rest entering into dialogue with Christians whose publicly stated goal is to evangelize them unless they knew it was not true.  I believe that they will all evangelize Christians as the Mormons do.  The truth is that commonality is not an attempt to evangelize cults and false religions.  It is nothing more than a compromise by a weak faction of Christianity that, due to heresy, has for the most part lost its exclusivity and identity.   Further, it no longer has the spiritual impetus to discern or the power to hold back the darkness.

Commonality is a thinly disguised “many paths” gospel.  Historically, Christianity held the exclusive position that Jesus Christ was the only Way, Truth, and Life.  The uncompromising truth is that He is the only path to God Almighty and salvation.  Commonality proponents are essentially declaring that position to be invalid, agreeing with what the cults and false religions have insisted on for centuries.  Additionally, when Christians compromise the Gospel to find common ground, they give validity to the cults and false religions.  Of course, the promoters of this ecumenism do not believe that they are compromising the Gospel.  However, when Christians make overtures to cults and false religions for peace on the ground of commonality, they give away exclusivity.  It is a statement to Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and the rest, that Christianity no longer has the only true and living way.  Instead, it indicates that those religions also have a path to the only and true God, which denigrates the Gospel.    God’s word informs us that only Christianity has the truth, the true Gospel of reconciliation to God, and the hope of the world, Jesus Christ.  No other religions can truthfully make that claim.  Their Jesus is not our Jesus.  Paul declared individuals that preached another Jesus are accursed (Galatians 1:8-9).  To give accursed individuals equal access to salvation is to put susceptible Christians and lost individuals in jeopardy of converting to a religion that may damn their eternal souls.  Further, building an interfaith coalition with cults and false religions based on so-called commonality is not a viable method to win the lost.  It does a great disservice to souls that are bound in cults and false religions.  Christians are supposed to establish a relationship with God and call the masses to surrender to Him.

The fact is that proponents of commonality also claim that in some cases the common ground in a cult or false religion is that they also have a Jesus.  For example, commonality proponents, such as Robert Mowr, have pointed out that Mormons also believe in a Jesus.  Mowr and his fellow ecumenists appear to believe that a false Jesus is equal to the true Lord and Christ Jesus, the Son of God.  Thus, a point of commonality is established.  God’s word is clear that the true followers of Christ Jesus are possessed by His Spirit.  The apostle Paul wrote that if one does not have the Spirit of Christ, then he or she does not belong to Christ (Romans 8:9).  To declare the Mormon Jesus to be the same as the Christian Jesus is to declare that the spirit that originated and works in Mormonism is the Holy Spirit.  If that isn’t blaspheming the Holy Spirit, it is dangerously close to doing so.

Commonality may have harsh consequences for evangelicals that appear further down the road.  For example, George Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, claims to be adamantly opposed to homosexuality.  It gives AoG ministers and members false hope that the denomination will never support homosexuality.  Consider that some of the individuals that Wood is forming commonality alliances with, and their close associates, are not so disposed.  However, what happens when Wood departs from leadership?  Reportedly, some AoG ordained ministers and membership are softening their stance on homosexuality.  Since commonality with gay-friendly individuals has already been established, will the next General Superintendent cave in to the pressure to accept homosexuality?  After all, if individuals will presently associate with cults or false religions under the covering of commonality (consider the Ruth Haley Barton debacle), disregarding the fact that Satan is the founder and the author of their destructive doctrine, accepting homosexuality seems to be a much smaller pill to swallow.

True Christians must understand that homosexuality is coming upon the earth like a creeping plague and there is no stopping it.  If we are in the last days, and the final deception and great apostasy is occurring, then the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah is here as well.  It is not commonality that Christianity needs, but a revival of righteousness and intimacy with God.  The Scriptures do not predict such a revival in the last days, but exactly opposite.  Christian leaders that fraternize with cults and false religions under the heretical doctrine of commonality are prostituting themselves, and by proxy, Christianity.  In my opinion, there is no difference in what they are doing than what Israel did by fraternizing with the nations about them and accepting their gods and idols.  How can a righteous God judge and punish Israel and not do the same to American Christianity that commits the same sin?  The truth is that commonality is necessary for a one world religion to form.  That is what appears to be occurring at the present as the surge to find common ground with cults, false religions, and even homosexuals, continues to swell in Christianity.  God’s word declares that there can be no communion (commonality?) of light with darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14).  This is a time of great darkness, of a roaring and roaming Satan, and multitudes of weak and susceptible Christians.  Guard your hearts, minds, and souls!

In this quasi-Christian realm of changing paradigms, hirelings, and heretics, numerous terms are coming forth that most professing Christians do not understand.  There is Emerging and Emergent Church, Contemplative Spirituality, Spiritual Formation, Spiritual Director, Labyrinths, Enneagrams, Breath Prayers, The Silence, Spiritual Direction, Centering prayer, Soaking Prayer, and etcetera. Since most Christians have been “dumbed down” from the pulpit, they cannot even recognize when they are being slowly converted to the New Age Movement or Roman Catholicism.  They buy books such as, “Jesus Calling”, “One Thousands Gifts”, The Barbarian Way”, or books written by Brian McLarean, Rob Bell, or Rick Warren, and do not know they are soaking in heresy that could bring them under great deception.

Further, there is a clever (and some not so clever) use of words to puff up conference, pulpit, and literary jargon so that it appears something truly special is occurring.  It is as if the word wranglers have studied a political spin manual.  They should know that “spin” is synonymous with “lie”.  These word wranglers have descended on Christianity with a mission. They intend to birth a new Christianity by destroying the old Christianity. The truth is that it will not be Christianity, but instead the religion of the Antichrist’s sidekick, the False Prophet.

For example of such word wrangling, I refer to an announcement by James MacDonald for one the earlier Resurgence Conferences.  One might wonder why I would bring up an event that occurred a couple of years ago.  It’s not the event itself, although it is questionable, but the verbiage that described its purpose.  The verbiage promotes an event about elementary principles as if it is a revelation from God, a tool in His hands, a necessary event for the restoration of Christian ministers.  I bring it up because there is a pattern that I see employed by the invaders of Christianity.  It needs to be exposed because it is being used by heretics/hirelings not only to sow deception, but to cover up their activities when they are exposed.

MacDonald began by saying, “The Resurgence conference is not going to be another tribal gathering but a gathering of tribes, united by grace as one body in Christ.”

First, it is an elementary truth that all true Christians are one Body in Christ.  Is there a need for a conference to explain that?   Not unless the conferences is actually about meshing heresy with Christianity to produce a synthesis.  Second, I didn’t know that Christians were/are a group of tribes or even that we had tribal gatherings in the past.  Where there is a tribe, there is a chieftain.  Since it is not likely that the tribes attended, he must have meant, “not another chieftain gathering, but a gathering of chieftains (One sort of sounds like the definition of the other.).  As goes the chieftains, so go the tribes.  Not a pretty picture, to say the least.  I’m glad that it is not a correct one about the true Body of Christ.

Then he wrote, “We want to bring together different voices, traditions, and backgrounds to show that the most significant, life-changing, can’t-miss, unifying theme of first importance for the church across all time, all countries, and all peoples is Jesus Christ.”  He continued, “The conference will be an invitation to pastors, church leaders, and Christians everywhere to make it all about Jesus in life and in ministry.”

Okay, so the conference is about teaching “tribal chieftains” and their “tribes” the elementary principle that Jesus Christ is the theme of Christianity.  Who else did they think was the theme that they would need such a revelation?  Mohammed?  Buddha? It also appears that the “chieftains” did not know what it was all about in their lives and ministries.  What did they come to the conference believing it is about?  Selling books?  Playing golf?  Maybe they came thinking it is all about them, which explains why they need a conference to explain Christianity and that Christians are one Body in Christ.

MacDonald then asked the question, “Do we continue living the lie that some things are “sacred” while others are “secular”?

I will respond that if one is living a lie, one has no moral authority to lead God’s people.  Such a one needs more than a conference.  He needs to repent and submit to the Holy Spirit for a life change.  However, it is not a lie to consider that some things are sacred while other ones are secular.  But I won’t explain that to people to whom it ought to be patently obvious.

MacDonald concluded his announcement with the following, “The 2012 Resurgence Conference is an invitation to start thinking differently.  It will be a call to every Christian to live all of life to the glory of Jesus and for the benefit of his kingdom, to say, by God’s grace…Because Jesus lives, we live for Jesus.”

The need to begin thinking differently is an indictment of the individuals that he invited to the conference.  First, God already sent out this call over 2000 years ago to whosoever will bow in full surrender before Christ the Lord and Savior.  If they were not surrendered and did not know they had to be, then they must have been apostates.  I personally believe that some of the speakers and attendees were and remain apostates.  McDonald’s ending cliché, “Because Jesus lives, we live for Jesus” although true, is completely apparent to true Christians.

It is obvious to me that the Resurgence Conference and the successive conferences are but a few of many events that are nothing more than conclaves to unify the entirety of Christianity in apostasy.  Eventually, they will usher in the False Prophet.  Most of those events included many of the major heretics and hirelings that are dismantling Christianity.  The main speakers read like a “Who’s Who in Heresy”.  I doubt that anything constructive was accomplished.

MacDonald used gobbledygook and pabulum to invite leaders to attend the conference. Gobbledygook is defined as, “wordy and generally unintelligible jargon” (Merriam-Webster). In the hireling and heretical sphere, it is religious gibberish, e.g. words concocted into nonsensical or elementary sentences usually to purvey the impression of wisdom, deepness, or perhaps a special revelation.  It manifests as speaking elementary things as if they were resounding from the depths of God’s wisdom.  Included in the announcement were a number of axiomatic elementary truths that would be tacitly assumed by even a new convert.  I honestly do not know of another word for that linguistic practice.  I believe the Apostle Paul had a couple of terms that seemed to fit (1 Corinthians 13:1).  If gobbledygook is the sounding brass, then clanging cymbal fits the other practice.  There are many examples that I could give of this practice from some of my professing Christian friends (some are perpetually nominal).  They post quotes on Facebook from America’s leading heretics (e.g. Joel Osteen) as if it were pure and rare gold from faith tried in fire.  I am not saying that the quotes have no truth in them, but that the truth is so elementary that it is like explaining to an adult what a table napkin is used for.  How does it qualify these heretics and hirelings as significant and relevant?

I am increasingly concerned about the number of professing Christians that have no clue about the tragedy that is closing in on them.  They are so distracted by the world system, and enamored with smooth words, and outward appearances, that discernment cannot function in them. Numerous ones are clinging to dead, defunct, or heretically metastasized denominations thinking things will get better when the opposite is obvious.  Word craftsmen are sliding nets over their minds and they don’t even realize it.  The state of affairs is so decrepit that blatant wickedness is committed by denominational leaders and they spin their way out of it with doublespeak and little or no consequences.  When they are exposed, does it change anything?  No, not the deceived or the deceivers.  The deceived will not change because they are fearful of the whole truth and remain in a state of denial.  The deceivers realize that they do not have to change.  Nothing is going to slow down their diabolical word machine, that is, until Christ appears. And they know the first part of that statement very well.

Some professing Christians are aware that evil is at the door, and I include ordained ministers. However, they are remaining in the defiled churches and denominations still clinging to a tiny thread of hope.  The overthrow and conversion of Christianity into a one-world apostate religion that ushers in the Antichrist is imminent.  Clinging to a thread of hope in this situation is like being in a canoe with a busted paddle and a hurricane approaching.  There is the captain of a nearby ship inviting them on board, but they are focused on the fact that they are still floating. Not for long.  It is past time to wake up and focus on reality.

Consider the follow true story.

It all started with one self-destructive leap.  Shepherds eating breakfast outside the town of Gevas, Turkey, were surprised to see a lone sheep jump off of a nearby cliff and fall to its death. They were stunned, however, when the rest of the nearly 1,500 sheep in the herd followed, each leaping off of the same cliff.  When it was all over, the local Aksam newspaper reported that “450 of the sheep perished in a billowy, white pile.”  Those that jumped from the middle and end of the herd were saved as the pile became higher and the fall more cushioned. (450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths in Turkey, WashingtonPost.com, 7-8-05)

A wise and godly man once wrote, “When confused sheep start over a cliff the individual sheep can save himself only by separating from the. flock.  Perfect unity at such a time can only mean total destruction for all.  The wise sheep to save his own hide disaffiliates.” (A. W. Tozer, God Tells the Man Who Cares; chapter entitled, “Divisions Are Not Always Bad.”)

There is this familiar and oft-quoted excerpt from a poem, “Outwitted”, by Edwin Markham;

“He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In !”

Is it possible to cause a rebellious heretic to change his heart and mind with nothing but love?  Of all the people to attempt to win with love, the rebellious heretic is the most difficult.  It seems good on the surface, a Christian thing to do, roping a rebellious heretic with a circle of love and taking him in.  In fact, professing Christians often quote the excerpt as if it is a noble example of true Christianity.  But I’m not certain that it was Christianity that Markham determined to win his rebellious heretic to.

Before writing his poem, Markham became a mystic under the influence of Thomas Lake Harris.  Harris, who had contact with spirit entities such as “The Lily Queen”, was the leader of a small religious cult.  As a winemaker, he claimed that his wine was filled with “divine breath” and thus free from noxious properties including the effects of alcohol.  Markham also became a Mason. His first wife divorced him over his adulterous affair.  To my knowledge he never practiced Christianity.  So exactly what he meant by his poem we may never know.

There is some circle drawing going on in Christianity today that appears to be based on the same fanciful notion that Markham wrote about.  Popular pastor and author Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church (and other professing Christians) has been teaching an imaginative salvation plan called Kingdom Circles.  It is a method of inclusion whereby false religions and cults are accepted into Christianity without renouncing their sin or heresy.  The plan involves a large circle with a number of small circles on its perimeter.  The large circle supposedly represents the Kingdom of God, and the smaller circles represent false religions and cults.  The portion of the small circles that fall inside of the large one is considered light, and the portion on the outside of the large circle is darkness.  Thus, a Muslim has his dark portion in the kingdom of Satan with his light portion in the kingdom of God.  Of course, this defies the Word of God, but that does not matter to the circle makers.  They drew circles and took them in.

One of Warren’s associates and collaborating authors Dr. Mehmet Oz practices Reiki.  During a workshop with her husband, Dr. Oz’s wife conducted a Reiki experience that went as follows.

“She followed with a couple of similar exercises, then finished with what for me was the day’s highlight: the hatsurei-ho meditation, this time for hundreds. The energy in that cavernous room at the Javits Convention Center shifted palpably as Mrs. Oz led the crowd through progressive relaxation, envisioning a golden light all around, drawing the light inside and then breathing it back out into the space around us, adding our own energy with each exhalation. There was no need to explain what Reiki was—everyone felt it, even without touch.”

Oz then told the crowd, “Go in wellness, knowing you have brought light into the world.”  Of course, Christ Jesus is the One who brought light into the world.  I’m not certain whether or not the actual application of Kingdom Circles involves breathing in golden light and exhaling it into the small circles.

Ed Young, Texas pastor of a mega church, believed that putting a king-size bed on top of the church building and remaining in it with his wife for a week would accomplish something significant.  Having failed with the rooftop experiment (as the result of sunburn), he put the bed on the stage of his church.  On Sunday morning, there he sat with his wife on the edge and taught sex education.   It appears that he has drawn a circle around the sexual philosophy and focus of the world system and took it in.

In a book written by Mark Batterson called, The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears, Batterson insist that one can draw a circle around various issues and desires, and God will intervene mightily.  In the context of the mental sphere, you could only do such a thing with your imagination.   In that sense, you wouldn’t need prayer for anything except asking God to bless your imaginative grasping for help and benefits.  I prefer the scriptural method of praying directly to God through Christ for His help with my needs and problems.

There was a period when churches believed that lifting up Jesus Christ, preaching and teaching the truth, and simply being God’s unique and godly people, would draw individuals to the meetings.  That method began to gradually disappear when gimmicks to draw crowds became popular.  Ministers thought that eating their lunch on top of the church building would draw people to Christ.  Other churches put on pew-packing contests and large prizes were given to the one who could fill the most pews with the most people.  The gimmickry grew in proportion with the mimicry of truth and godliness.   In spite of copious and polemic warnings by men of God who knew the consequences of such shenanigans, they continued to work at increasing the numeral value of church attendance until it became the primary focus.  A rancid pragmatism developed that many churches now use to justify whatever it takes to get people through the doors.  They drew a circle around secular marketing techniques and took them in.

Is love truly the motivation of the present paradigm of circle drawing?  Let’s consider the ramifications.  Numerous churches and even denominations have drawn circles around rebellious heretics, New Age teachers, gurus, and mystics, Muslims, and other cults and false religions, secularists, and many other sinners.  Not only did they take them in, but they have even set them before congregations to present their heresies.  I remember a time when most ministers would not accept vain honor and glory.  It appears that now they draw a circle around the accolades and adoration of the masses and take it in.  They grovel in it as if it is a godly benefit.  They have also drawn circles around much of the world system’s entertainment methods and musical genres and have taken them in.  Preachers now perform rather than preach under the anointing.  They appear more as entertainment icons, stand up comedians, and secular motivational speakers, rather than men of God.  They have no brokenness or contriteness, no passion for truth or sincerity, and no anointing.  Their churches musical offerings are more like secular music concerts.  So much carnality is involved one has to wonder if it is possible for participants to worship God in Spirit and truth.  The truth is that those churches have drawn a circle around the spirit of the world, and have taken it in.

They insist that it is all about love.  The claim is that their quality and quantity of God’s love compels them to break through traditional barriers in order to “reach people”.  It is possible to love people so that they cannot deny your authenticity as a Christian and that you love them.  In fact, it is God’s command that we love people.  John 3:16 is probably the most recognized verse in the Bible, “For God so loved the world…”  I know from experience that love allows us to reach the hearts of sinners with the message of the Gospel.  However, no one has more love than Christ.  Although He loved them immeasurably, He spoke the unvarnished truth to rebellious heretics.

The churches and denominations today may have indeed encircled and taken in the ones that stand opposed to Christ and His lordship.  However, they have not converted them.  In fact, few if any sinners are being converted in their meetings.  Instead, much that was once outside of Christianity is now inside.  They have made their churches habitations of demons and darkness.  That is certainly not what love is supposed to do.  It is not how the power of love operates.  Love is supposed to change our world, not include it.  God’s love is too powerful for evil to dwell in it.  Love converts, not condones.  God’s love offers us a Savior, not a sanctuary for our sin.  God still speaks through His Son today.

²³ Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. ²⁴ For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. ²⁵ For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? ²⁶ For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:23-26)

It is not circles that they need, but “sonship”.  God offers that blessing for those who make a straight line to His throne in repentant prayer.