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Multnomah Publishers, a long trusted, well known name in Christian publishing has been forced to resign from its association with the National Religious Broadcasters Evangelical community over its roll in the publication of Matthew Vines' book, God And The Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships.
Multnomah Bible College was founded by Dr. John G. Mitchell, Dr. Willard Aldrich and other godly men in 1936-37. It was later renamed Multnomah University.
Multnomah Publishers was founded as a part of this ministry some years later.
Multnomah Publishers was purchased in 2006 by a publishing conglomerate and is no longer associated with Multnomah University. Here are the details of the sale.
Over the years the publisher has become a trusted name in the Christian community, publishing books by Chuck Colson, Charles Swindoll, Randy Alcorn, Kay Arthur, Dr. David Jeremiah and many others.
It has now become apparent that current Multnomah leadership is attempting to use this trust and reputation to advance their new imprint "Convergent Books."
This is a purposeful attempt to mislead the Christian public while financially benefiting from publishing books that stand in direct opposition to biblical teaching and the beliefs held by evangelicals.
Matt Barber, a Christian lawyer, vice president with Liberty Council, and founder of BarbedWire.com says this:
Matthew Vines is "a homosexual activist and Bible revisionist known for manipulating Christian terminology to advance the counter-Christian homosexual agenda."
Barber says, "Despite his frequent use of Christian-like lexicon, Vines surprisingly admits to running an apostate enterprise that he calls 'The Reformation Project'."
He says, "Vines has publicly acknowledged that his goal is to 'reform church teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity'."
Andrew Walker, director of Policy Studies for the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said publishing Vines' book "is the first step in a larger effort to fundamentally recast long held, universally acknowledged norms pertaining to sexual ethics."
BarbWire.com received an email from someone either inside Multnomah or closely associated with which said, "With a little help...I recently followed a few bread crumbs---connected some dots---and the picture turned out to be pretty disturbing. I know for a fact that there are certain individuals (whistle blowers, if you will) who believe this information should be made public, but there is immense pressure from within Multnomah Publishers to keep it under wraps and not allow entities in the NRB/Evangelical orbit to learn about it."
The Christian Retailing Industry got on board as well with this promising article in November 2012, reporting "Convergent will explore the contemporary faith experience for a broad range of Christians who are drawn to an open, inclusive and culturally engaged exploration of faith."
This is a banner description of both the New Age Movement and the Emerging Church movement.
The Christian Retailing article affirmed that "the imprint would be based in Colorado Springs like WaterBrook Press and Multnomah Books" and would be headed by Stephen W. Cobb who heads up all Christian publishing for these publishing entities.
Christian Retailing quoted Steven Cobb, "The audience for 'Convergent Books' represents a growing movement of consumers."
He said, "These readers don't typically see themselves as either liberal or conservative, evangelical or mainline. Yet they frame their spiritual journey in Christian terms, and they're absolutely passionate about what theologian Brian McLaren has called 'the sacred endeavor of loving God and neighbor, stranger, alien, outsider, outcast and enemy'."
Brian McLaren is one of the most influential leaders in the Emergent Church movement and the so-called Social Justice movement---all part of the religious left.
These are the folks whom President Obama quotes when he says there is significant support among Christians for same-sex marriage, etc.
Christian Retailing said in their article, "This 'should have little impact' on Christian publishing according to industry observers."
The "observers" were wrong.
Barber says this whole move is the "same company---different mask."
He says its "smoke and mirrors" all intended to mislead and deceive Christians who trust the Multnomah brand.
Barber says, "This is confusing because it is designed to be confusing. It's intentionally ---a shell game purposefully calculated to obfuscate and hide the ball from the Christian community."
Three weeks ago Barber said, "It is reasonable to speculate that Multnomah is trying to cover up its fast growing connection to sexual sin activism" and avoid the kind of backlash that took place at World Vision "when they abandoned clear biblical teaching on sexual immorality."
It is now apparent Barber is right.
He says he seems to remember something, somewhere about this kind of deception: "Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, 'Who sees us? Who will know'?"
Be Discerning. Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.