Where are the McLaren protests? Why are we not Picketing the other MarsHill?

So here is what I am learning. Apparently to some people the biggest sin in the world is being a big “meany”. Apparently the collective panties of many a blogger are in a a bunch because they thought Mark Driscoll made a point they disagreed with in a “strong” way. Boo hoo. Moral of the story in our generation seems to be “Be nice, it is all that matters.” The question posed by the collective “WWJD” bracelet of this generation seems to be answered by “Be nice, smile a lot and pat you on the head.” Welcome a world where people are so desperate to be affirmed that the truth stated is a harsh way is now way more offensive than than teaching complete falsehood about God. Because if truth mattered at all we would be protesting this morning in Doug Pagitt’s bathroom, or greeting Rob Bell this morning over his grapefruit and cheerios with protest, outrage and placards, perhaps painted on velvet.

Oh well, preach on, be strong Mark, part of why your preaching affects people is because it flows from who you are, don’t let whiny heretics steal that from you. What you are preaching is centered in Christ and therefore has power to save people from sin and death. The Preaching of others in our generation is centered in a human desire to be God, or a human desire to define and control God and has no such power. Oh course they get offended when you speak, you continually point to Christ and the coming of his kingdom…and that never bodes well for people who are busy setting up the kingdoms of this world, and especially dangerous when those setting up these false Kingdoms are doing it in Jesus name, because when you preach Christ it inaugurates Jesus kingdom and Jesus himself into our time and culture and it is much harder for these false kingdoms to flourish when the real Jesus is standing in the room.

This is Very Usefull…

Here is a post from Mark Driscoll on Penal Subsitutionary Atonement. It is great. I have been working on my own post on the topic, but for now I will link to his. It makes a great point. It also references 24 and Jack Bauer so it will be of special interest to my friend Kyle who has a man crush on him. In a pure sort of way…(I hope). Here is the post: Here.

This Blog is very worth reading…

Bob.blog

Doug Pagitt, Kuyper College, and Marcus Borg…

So I almost accidentally typed in Dung for Doug..that would have been a Freudian slip huh… Just some quotes from the Dougster, (or Emergent’s other white meat, as I like to call him) and Some from Marcus Borg, who among other things believes:

1. Most (perhaps all) of the “exalted titles” by which Jesus is known In the Christian tradition do not go back to Jesus himself. He did not speak of or think of himself as “the Son of God,” or as “one with the Father,” or as “the light of the world,” or as “the way, the truth, and the life,” or as “the savior of the world.” Only two “exalted titles” might possibly go back to him: “messiah” (about which “cutting edge” scholarly opinion seemed to be negative), and “Son of man” (see “9” below).

2. It follows that Jesus message was not about himself or the importance of believing in him.

3. Jesus was an eschatological figure. He expected “the end of the world” in his own generation. This expectation was quite literal, involving the coming of the Kingdom of God “in power,” the gathering of the elect, and judgment. This expectation was central, not peripheral, to shaping and animating Jesus’ ministry and message. This point, along with the next three, has fallen away as a foundation to my work.

4. His central message was the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God, understood eschatologically.

5. Jesus also spoke of “the coming of the Son of man,” whose advent would be associated with end of the world events. Scholars were divided about whether he was referring to himself (that is, to his own future role), or whether he was speaking about a figure other than himself (that is, though he expected “the coming of the Son of man,” he did not identify himself with that figure).

6. Finally, we cannot know much about Jesus. Any very specific claim about him is highly problematic.

Anyhoo Here are the comments from the “D” (courtesy of the Grand Rapids Press)

“Christianity is not something to be taught and believed, but something to be lived and re-imagined with every generation.

“I don’t see something wrong with understanding the gospel through a cultural lens,” he said.

“Faithfulness is as much situational as enduring.”

And here is one From the Borg:

I now see that the Christian tradition—including its claims about Jesus—is not something to be believed, but something to be lived in. I see that Bible and the tradition as “icons,” mediators of the sacred. The point is not to believe them, but to be in relationship to that which they mediate: God, the Spirit, the sacred. My own journey has thus been “beyond belief.” It has moved from belief through doubt and disbelief to relationship. For me, to be a Christian is to be part of a community that tells these stories and sings these songs. It feels like home.

Always good to know that those who have abandoned the Gospel agree I guess. Also good to know that Kuyper College is inviting them to speak to their students. That’s beautiful. Was James Arminius not available? Perhaps Anton Levay (not that I am suggesting that Doug is the head of the church of Satan mind you). But you would think that a college (Formerly Reformed Bible College) named for a reformed luminary…might not invite someone so at odds with it’s basic doctrine to have so much say on their campus, but perhaps as George Castanza might say they are “down” with the whole emergent thing…Their Student are, as evidenced by the following quote:

“All I know is I like what he’s saying and I’m hopping on board,” said Nate Heyboer, a 24-year-old student from Zeeland. “Doug comes in and kind of connects the dots for me.”

As a final note, isn’t it funny how guys like Pagitt say things that set up false choices: i.e. Christianity isn’t something to be believed it is something to be done. I don’t get it, isn’t it possible that it is both?

Or Perhaps Christianity is a relationship. With someone whom you love and believe in so much that you would do anything for him. Anything he wanted. And while you are  doing anything he wanted, perhaps you might realize that it is not your job to re-imagine him for your culture and time, but rather to understand his revealing of himself and how it can transform you in your culture and time. Or perhaps I could re-imagine what he meant when he said he was the same, yesterday, today and forever…

 

Un-Reformation3

Rob Bell walks up on the conversation…and trying hard to impress McLaren and Erasmus tries to jump into the conversation…
…
Bell: Guys…hey guys..I don’t like assertions either…remember…we don’t really need the Virgin birth, I said that, remember…not foundational remember…guys..remember…you know springs, and trampolines and the whatnot..come on guys…talk to me too…guys…guys…talk to me i am cool too, I am totally repainting the the faith…guys, guys…paint…faith..guys…I am the prototypical postmodern Jesus-ish type person….See, did you catch that I am even repainting the old titles…No offensivee use of the power hungry inflected word Christian for me..nope, that would not be very un-post-modern Jesus-ish type person of me…right guys, guys…

…

Mark Driscoll At this point decides to jump in and puts Rob out of his misery..so after saying some very un-Baptist words to Rob he also says:

Driscoll::“Many Christians simply thought that postmoderns were a new kind of Christian. But, I believe postmoderns are simply not Christians. Anytime you have a hyphenated Christianity (i.e. New Age Christian, liberal Christian, etc.) then you have negated the Christianity. For postmoderns the issue is one of authority/power as they see all leaders and all texts as means by which someone exercise authority/power over another. They see all authority and power as inherently bad and prefer experience over truth, relativism over absolutes, and tolerance over judgment to varying extremes.

The result is that they will reject any singular interpretation of Scripture arguing that it is your perspective and that there are other perspectives and none are true, so we should be tolerant of all.

Driscoll then notes that of course he is not saying that Rob is not a a Jesus-ish guy, but that his teaching is increasingly not…

Brian Mclaren and Erasmusvillage and the Unreformation2

So what if Martin Luther, Erasmus and Brian McLaren sat down for a conversation…Maybe it would be a little something like this:

Erasmus: “I find so little satisfaction in assertions that I would readily take up the skeptics’ position where ever the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture and the Church’s decisions permit…”

Brian McLaren: I agree “Ask me if Christianity (my version of it, yours, the Pope’s, whoever’s) is orthodox, meaning true, and here’s my honest answer: a little, but not yet. Assuming by Christianity you mean the Christian understanding of the world and God, Christian opinions on soul, text, and culture I’d have to say that we probably have a couple of things right, but a lot of things wrong, and even more spreads before us unseen and unimagined. “

Martin Luther “I assume (as in Courtesy bound) that it is your charitable mind and love of peace that prompts such sentiment..”

Brian McLaren: This is true. For me at least. I am unsure about ‘Ras but for instance, “I hesitate in answering “the homosexual question” not because I’m a cowardly flip-flopper who wants to tickle ears, but because I am a pastor, and pastors have learned from Jesus that there is more to answering a question than being right or even honest: we must also be . . . pastoral. That means understanding the question beneath the question, the need or fear or hope or assumption that motivates the question.”

Martin: But I say “To take no pleasure in assertions is not the mark of a Christian heart. Indeed one must delight in assertions to be Christian at all…”

McLaren: Well I guess that is ok with me because “I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.”

Martin: “Now lest we be mislead by words, let me say here that by ‘assertion’ I mean staunchly holding your ground, stating your position, confessing it, defending it and persevering in it unvanquished. …And I am atlking about the assertion of what has been delivered to us from above in the Sacred Scriptures”

McLaren: Yes but “Scripture is something God had ‘let be,’ and so it is at once God’s creation and the creation of the dozens of people and communities and cultures who produced it.”

Erasmus: Word. I say it again: “I find so little satisfaction in assertions that I would readily take up the skeptics’ position wherever the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture and the Church’s decisions permit…”

Luther: “The Christian would rather say this: ‘So little do I like skeptical principles, that, so far as the weakness of my flesh permits, not merely shall I make it my invariable rule steadfastly to adhere to the sacred text in all that it teaches, and to assert that teaching, but I also want to be as positive as I can about those non-essentials which scripture does not determine; For uncertainty is the most miserable thing in the world…”

McLaren: Well I don’t know about that “clarity is good, but sometimes intrigue may be even more precious; clarity tends to put an end to further thinking, whereas intrigue makes one think more intensely, broadly, and deeply.”

Luther: Now you sound just like Erasmus…What was that you said about this Ras’?

Erasmus: Simply this “some [doctrine] is recondite [Concerned with obscure subject matter] , whereas others are quite plain”

Luther: Surely at this point you are either playing tricks with someone else’s words or are practicing a literary effect! However you quote in your support Paul’s words in Romans 11: ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!’ And Isaiah 40 ‘Who gave help to the Spirit of the Lord , or who hath been his counselor?’ It was all very easily said, …but…here is my distinction: God and his scripture are tow things, just as creator and creation are two things. Now no one questions that there is a great deal hid in God of which we know nothing. Christ himself says of the last day ‘Of that day no man knows but the father’…But the notion that in scripture some things are recondite and not all plain was spread by the godless sophist. I certainly grant that many passages in scripture are obscure and hard to elucidate, but that is not due to the exalted nature of the subject but to out own linguistic and grammatical ignorance; and it does not in any way prevent our knowing of scripture. For what solemn truth can the Scriptures still be concealing, now that the seals are broken, the stone rolled away from the door of the tomb, and the greatest mystery of all mysteries bright to light-that Christ God’s son became man, that God is Three in one. And that Christ suffered for us and will reign forever? Take Christ from the Scriptures and what more will you find in them? You see then that the entire content of Scriptures has been brought to light…”

To Be Continued…

Don’t Tell Him I Said So…

Rather shockingly while researching for a post I will soon write called “Erasmus McLaren and the Unreformation2” I found this quote by Brian McLaren:

“The church has been preoccupied with the question, “What happens to your soul after you die?” As if the reason for Jesus coming can be summed up in, “Jesus is trying to help get more souls into heaven, as opposed to hell, after they die.” I just think a fair reading of the Gospels blows that out of the water. I don’t think that the entire message and life of Jesus can be boiled down to that bottom line.” —Brian McLaren, from the PBS special on the Emerging Church

Now if you have been under the influence of crazy “The Kingdom is only for the Jews…Someday” dispensationalists, you might not realize it but he is exactly right. I the Really is a Kingdom and it really is advancing and John 10:10 means anything at all he is very, very right.

So I guess I am Just not feeling Angry Lately…

I have been having trouble getting up the energy to post about anything in particular…So let me just say this: I don’t maintain this blog just to make snippy comments about other folks (though it is a nice side benefit)… The reason I maintain this blog is so that I can help certain young peep’s whom I love ask intelligent questions. I think there is an ongoing battle for the future of Christianity, I want to help those young people ask the right questions and make the right decisions. But beyond just helping them to believe the right things, I hope to help them break free from the cultural malaise that has hijacked Christianity in our country, even though that might mean that they have to get rid of their American flag Bible covers, and reject the faulty reasoning of their predecessors that Rush Limbaugh is a prophet for this generation. It is a weird tension, because while there are many things I hope to see them reject there are so many more I hope to see them accept. I long for a truly Christian response to racial issues, and issues like the enviroment and immigration and wars in Iraq and education. More than that I am hoping that this generation unlike their forefathers will realize that each of these is a spiritual issue.

Most of all, I hope to help my friends navigate culture without caving to it. I hope that they will be Salty Christ followers, useful and flavorful, Christ followers who do not view the culture as the enemy of our mission, but the field. Right doctrine plays a large part in this, but so does dialogue, and especially love. So my friends I am occasionally angry but I hope I am always radical. I hope for the sake of the King and his unmerited but oh so amazing love that you will risk it all and be a radical too.

Sola Deo Gloria

Bell V The Baptist Confession of 1689

Historical Persective, we don’t need no historical persective…

When you hear people say they are just going to tell you what the Bible means, it is not true. They are telling you what they think it means. They are giving their opinions about the Bible”-Rob Bell

Vs.

“The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, depends not on the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God it’s author (Who is Truth itself) Therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God.” – The Baptist Confession of Faith 1689

Bell v. Luther

and the Un-refromation continues.

“When you hear people say they are just going to tell you what the Bible means, it is not true. They are telling you what they think it means. They are giving their opinions about the Bible”-Rob Bell

Vs.

“The Holy Spirit is no Sceptic, and the things he has written in our hearts are not doubts or opinions, but assertions-surer and more certain than sense of life itself”-Martin Luther