Friday, December 30, 2011

The Big Story of 2011: Denver Seminary and Gnostic Feminism

This was a wild-ride of a blogging year for me.  The night before my birthday, a fellow alum dropped a major scandal in my lap begging, me to do something about it.  At least I thought it was a major scandal.  The president of Denver Seminary dismissed it as a bit of  "iGossip".  The school did, however, admit to dereliction of duty in not properly vetting the video promoting the Gnostic women's center run by a fellow alum and classmate of mine.  And, they pulled the video from their website.  A minor skirmish won though Denver Seminary is still wholly captive to the heresies of religious feminism and that battle is lost.

It was by far and away the most read issue on the blog this year. I'm folding together the five posts to take the top spot in the 10 Most Read Posts of the year:

In a melodramatically titled first post, The Death of Denver Seminary, I crack open the embarrassing de facto endorsement of a gnostic women's community center, Pomegranate Place.  I'll readily admit to being in shock when I wrote this post. I kept trying to figure out whether or not it was a hoax.

In the first follow-up post, Denver Seminary's Transformation, I highlight one of the Affiliate Guides of Pomegranate Place.

The Wrap-up post is my report on a meeting I had with the school's VP for Advancement.  The comments also include an enlightening exchange between Vaun Swanson (the foundress of Pomegranate Place) and me.

An Open Letter to Mark Young, President of Denver Seminary is a full explanation of the problems with the school's de facto endorsement of Pomegranate Place and utter failure to exercise discernment, abandoning their position of trust in the Evangelical community.  In this post I detail some of the major philosophical and theological errors promoted by Pomegranate Place.

Finally, my report of a meeting that left my skin crawling.  After a failed bit of game-playing on Vaun's part, she and I finally met to talk about her work with the women's center she had established.  During the meeting she made it clear that, whether or not she realizes it, she is selling a Christ who cannot save.  In short, Vaun Swanson serves a Gnostic Christ.

It was a tough couple of months.  To see my alma mater fail so thoroughly in elementary discernment, to hear a former classmate embrace and teach a sulfurous deception, and to then see no godly men connected with the school stand up and call them out was disheartening . . .

At least it would have been if God hadn't blessed me in the middle of it all with a new friend.  She is a warrior for truth, a woman of discernment with a heart for teaching philosophy and worldview to women.  I encourage you to get to know Sarah Flashing and the Center for Women of Faith in Culture.  Without Sarah's wisdom and her national blogging platform, I doubt Denver Seminary would have paid much attention to one irritating alumna.

*in 2012 what I hope will be my last post on the decline of Denver Seminary will be a report on the first religious feminism conference held there back in ----- 1973.

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