The upheaval sweeping through contemporary Christianity is not accidental. At its core, it is driven by three major movements—the Emergent Church, the Purpose Driven movement, and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)—each of which, despite their differences, shares a foundational rejection of God’s Word. This is not a peripheral issue. When the authority of Scripture is set aside, the result is not renewal but destabilization and doctrinal collapse.
The Erosion of Biblical Authority
Each of these movements undermines biblical authority in its own way:
- The Emergent Church has adopted the path of higher criticism, the very method that gutted the old mainline denominations and left them doctrinally hollow. By questioning the inspiration and sufficiency of Scripture, they have opened the door to every wind of doctrine.
- The Purpose Driven movement claims a biblical foundation, but its teachings and practices stand in direct contradiction to what the Bible reveals about the nature of man and the church. Their anthropology and ecclesiology are not derived from the apostolic witness, but from pragmatic and psychological trends.
- The New Apostolic Reformation cloaks itself in biblical language, but its leaders routinely spiritualize promises made to Israel and invent an eschatology at odds with the prophetic Scriptures. Many claim direct revelations from Jesus or angelic encounters, yet their doctrines are aberrant and cannot withstand the scrutiny of the full counsel of God’s Word.
The common thread is unmistakable: experience and subjective revelation are elevated above the objective truth of Scripture. The rhetoric of “knowing God, not just knowing about Him” is weaponized to silence those who would test all things by the Word. This is not a call to deeper faith; it is a control mechanism designed to suppress biblical critique and dissent.
“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”
—1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Unity at the Expense of Truth
These movements are not content to remain isolated. They are actively calling for global unity, urging churches to set aside doctrinal distinctions for the sake of peace and relevance. Conferences and networks now facilitate the convergence and cross-pollination of these errors, teaching that theological differences are obstacles to be overcome rather than boundaries to be guarded.
This push for unity is not innocent. It is a calculated effort to suppress the very doctrines that define the gospel—justification by faith, the finished work of Christ, and the believer’s inheritance in Him. The result is a drift toward ecumenical reconciliation with Rome, a return to the bondage of works and human authority that the Reformation rejected at such great cost.
The Dominionist Deception
A further commonality is the dominionist agenda: the belief that it is the Church’s mandate to establish God’s kingdom on earth now, through political and social conquest. This is a direct contradiction of the scriptural witness, which teaches that the kingdom comes only with the return of Christ Himself—not through human effort or institutional power.
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
—2 Timothy 4:3-4
The Cost of Compromise
What is lost if these errors are embraced? The answer is nothing less than the foundation of our assurance and inheritance in Christ. When the authority of Scripture is surrendered, justification by faith is obscured, sonship is replaced with striving, and the conscience is no longer cleansed by the blood but troubled by endless demands for performance and unity at any cost. The finished work of Christ is subtly displaced by the unfinished work of man.
The Pressure to Conform
These trends do not remain at the fringes. They have infiltrated existing churches, not by forming new denominations, but by permeating the structures that once stood for the gospel. Leaders now warn that unless churches adapt—unless they “change or die”—they will become irrelevant. But irrelevance to the world is not the threat; irrelevance to Christ and His Word is. The true church is not defined by its ability to keep pace with cultural trends, but by its fidelity to the apostolic gospel and the unchanging promises of God.
To yield to these movements is to forfeit the very things that make the church the pillar and ground of the truth. We must not trade the objective revelation of God for the shifting sands of experience, nor surrender the gospel of grace for the mirage of unity. The call is not to adapt, but to stand—anchored in the Word, cleansed by the blood, and confident in the inheritance secured for us in Christ alone.
