One of the ways we keep up around here is to read what others are or will be reading. At any given time there are 8-10 books on my desk and I tend to take them on one at a time in between other aspects of the ministry. From time to time we post our reviews and since Stephen Burnett reviewed Why We’re Not Emergent by Two Guys Who Should Be two weeks ago it seemed about time for me to get a little caught up on this as well.

The first will be Mark Mittelberg’s latest offering Choosing Your Faith: In a World of Spiritual Options (2008; Tyndale House Publishers, $19.99). Mark has done a service to believers and non-believers in laying out and analyzing criteria by which we can and should examine our world view and embrace the beliefs which pass the test. Although an Evangelical himself the criteria he discusses can and should be applied to the Christian claims as well. The book isn’t an apologetic for Christianity directly as much as it is a call to ask the hard questions, understand relativism, pragmatism, tradition, authority, reality, intuition, knowledge, mysticism, logic, evidence and science. Each of these can be helpful or, if not properly understood, harmful. Continue reading …

What would you think would be the main idea of an article entitled “Survey Shows U.S. Religious Tolerance”? Wouldn’t you think the article would be about how, unlike many Middle Eastern countries (and most of the U.K.), the religious people of the U.S. are much more tolerant—as in not burning down mosques, outlawing proselytizing, or generally persecuting those who believe something different about God and the universe? That’s what I thought when I saw the New York Times headline about tolerance. The U.S. is more tolerant than say Britain where the archbishop of Canterbury is willing to relegate whole neighborhoods to Sharia law, where it might be a crime to proselytize or even question the Koran.

Sadly no. When I started reading the NY times article I soon discovered that I was a victim of an Orwellian switcheroo where words have new meanings but the “Ministry of Truth” has not changed the dictionary. According to the paper of record, Continue reading …

From what I’ve read here on the MCOI site and elsewhere, it seems like it would be interesting for anyone to out-emerge “emergent church” writers in terms of style and substance.

First, I would have a great conversational style, interrupting myself multiple times for pop-culture and movie references to show (perhaps incidentally) how trendy and hip and with-it I am. Secondly, I would be very well-read and adept and making seemingly complex ideas lay-level and understandable. Oh yes, and thirdly, I would subtly undermine concepts of orthodox Christian doctrine and the very idea of claiming to know objective Truth. Instead, I would offer a custom-cooked stew of warmed-up leftovers from old and molded heresies, such as Pelagianism, extreme postmillennialism, liberation theology and Jesus-died-to-set-a-good-example-for-us-ism.

Alongside all that, I would maintain a demeanor of humility, yet suspicion and intolerance Continue reading …

Brian McLaren presents himself as all embracing as far as religions are concerned. In his latest book, Finding Our Way Again, his major premise is that we can go back to the middle ages and extract all the various mystical practices from Roman Catholicism (which are now being euphemistically termed “contemplative”) and throw them all together in a subjective stew in any manner and proportion that suits our spiritual fancy and come out just fine. If only he had gone back a little further and connected with the Apostles! The dark ages have nothing to offer us but dead traditions however there is life in God’s Word.

One thing that is very obvious in all of McLaren’s writings is Continue reading …

As I demonstrated last week, Jesus says that the disciples will actually be “where” He is going. That’s more than simply a spiritual sense. Being first century Jews there is more to the context and hence the understanding of the disciples which comes from what we now call the Old Testament.

The Wisdom of God

Craig Keener connects the notion of the way to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament:

“The LXX of Isaiah (30:11, 21; 33:15; 40:14; 42:24; 48:17; 58:2; 63:17; 64:5) and other biblical tradition [sic] (e.g., Exod 18:20; 32:8; Deut 8:6; 9:16; 10:12; 11:22, 28), especially the wisdom tradition, also apply the image of the ‘way’ to the way of righteousness and wisdom. In both biblical (e.g., Isa 55:7-9; 56:11; 59:8; 66:3) and early Jewish sources, ‘ways’ refer to behavior, as in the rabbinic use of halakot. ‘Ways’ as behavior represents a usage that would be understood in John’s circle of believers (Rev 15:3).”1

Keener continues, Continue reading …