I received my copy of the September issue of Christianity Today this past weekend which contains the article “McLaren Emerging” by Scot McKnight. McKnight is the Karl A Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University in Chicago, IL. McKnight by his own claims is part of the emerging church (something I wrote on in February of 2007 Five Streams of the Emerging Church or Has the Church Sprung a Leak?). McKnight raises some good questions about McLaren and in the closing paragraph of the article writes:

All in all, I am hoping that McLaren’s works will lead to a massive conversation on the meaning of one word, gospel.(p 66)

His ending comments circle back to his opening paragraph:

Emergent is no longer just emerging. Is has in many respects emerged. Though some things remain unclear, what you see is what it is and, more importantly, what you see is also where it is going. Where it is going is in the direction of gospel expansion. Is emergent “evangelical”? (p. 59)

McKnight gives the three predominant answers of “By all means!” (that would be by emergents themselves), “Well, yes on some level” (this group he terms “moderates”) and finally “No, of course not,” (this would be conservative and fundamental Evangelicals).

This issue is important for two reasons. First, with no clear understanding of what the gospel is there can be no clear presentation of the gospel in any meaningful way. Second, as McKnight notes, emerging is impacting even “… megachurches like WiIlow Creek Community Church and Saddleback Church.” (p 60) Each of these in turn impacts thousands of churches which are part of their new denominations (which they euphemistically call “associations”). McKnight correctly points out that McLaren has abandoned the gospel as he understood is form the Plymouth Brethren and now:

…reads Jesus, to cop the words of Marcus Borg, “again for the first time.” What McLaren discovered was Jesus’ thoroughly social vision and he believes that most people – especially the conservative evangelical group in which he was nurtured – buried the kingdom vision of Jesus and distorted the gospel. (p 60)

McKnight is correct. As I have pointed out on numerous occasions, McLaren has abandoned any plain, natural reading and understanding of Scripture as most people would understand it, and adopted Marcus Borg and the Jesus Seminar’s view of Jesus as a social radical not as God in the flesh to redeem mankind from sin and separation from God by His sacrificial death, burial and resurrection in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The outworking of McLaren’s McGospel make’s no demands on its followers which might result in being uncomfortable or perhaps even suffering as a result. McLaren’s comments in Beyond Business-as-Usual Christianity are quite instructive on this issue. When asked:

… in your book ‘A Generous Orthodoxy.’ You said, in part, that making disciples doesn’t necessarily “equal making adherents to the Christian religion.”

He is fairly clear on this point:

It becomes dangerous and impossible for people who want to follow Jesus in their lives to identify as Christians. Very often if you’re in a Muslim country, and you identify as a Christian, you’re set up for exclusion and bad treatment. In some cases, worse.

How does this square with such statements as:

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for (N)theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. (Matthew 5:10-11)

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)

For McLaren the cross is not the power of God for salvation but, as McKnight notes:

…a life of denying the use of violence (which is, according to McLaren, the message of the cross)

I am not all together sure that we need to hope that “McLaren’s works will lead to a massive conversation on the meaning of one word, gospel” but rather an affirmation and proclamation of what the Apostle Paul clearly stated the gospel is:

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that (K)He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)

The gospel, it seems to me, it clear, the one Paul preached brought about salvation to the individuals who heard and believed. It was he death, burial and physical resurrection of Christ as affirmed by many witnesses. It is not only the one he proclaimed here but outlined in Romans 10:9-15:

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “(O)WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.” How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!”

If McKnight is correct that McLaren has arrived where the emerging church and those such as Willow Creek and Saddleback, who are incorporating emerging views into what they are doing, is headed, and I believe he is, we don’t really need “a massive conversation on the meaning of one word, gospel,” we need evangelicals leaders to publically state that Brian McLaren is a false teacher of the highest order and reaffirm the gospel which Paul proclaimed. I am inclined to doubt this will happen because it doesn’t market as well as the McLaren’s McGospel.

The July 31, 2008 Chicago Tribune carried the article by Mara Tapp Celebrity again trumps real values. Mara used the occasion of someone taking Barack Obama’s note out of the Wailing Wall and publishing it. She correctly points out:

The problem is that Americans, as usual, focus on the celebrity rather than the deeper and more troubling issues the note’s fate presents. Its leak offers just another tidbit about those Obamas—a sacred variation on how cute Michelle Obama’s dress is or whether she yells at her husband about picking up his socks or his older daughter’s mortification when he shakes her friends’ hands. After all, to the celebrity-struck, don’t-bother-me-with-real issues average American, these are the details that matter.

Many in the church are trying to figure out how to minister to the post modern culture but don’t realize that as Dr. Ergun Caner has pointed out in his talk Christians Coming Out of the Closet that since September 11, 2001 we have lived in the transmodern culture. In the transmodern culture the spokesman for culture is celebrity. It is driven by feeling and the desire to be near or at least emulate celebrity. Real issues are set aside where they interfere with celebrity stuff and as it plays itself out in the world we are seeing that Young Adults and Liberals Struggle with Morality.

The “faith” vote is playing big on both sides of the aisle this election and Evangelicals are divided as can be seen in Evangelicals say McCain’s the one while Brian McLaren and others in the Matthew 25 Network claim that Barack is the one and act as an Evangelical advisory group to Obama’s campaign. As part of that coalition Donald Miller to Give DNC Benediction.

As those who are born again by grace alone through faith alone in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection alone, how are we to decide such important issues? The answers are not easy and I certainly do not have the inspired, inerrant and infallible understanding of the inspired, inerrant and infallible Scripture but perhaps we can lay out some basic guidelines for consideration.

Government will not save us but God uses government to preserve a relatively peaceful society (Romans 13:1-7). As I pointed out in Who Shall Rule? sometimes God allows (more…)

C.S. Lewis . . . political philosopher?

Was there any subject to which C.S. Lewis wouldn’t bend his wry blend of “mere Christian” wit, penetrating passion, and ridiculously complex sentence structure? Perhaps the last great Christian renaissance man, Lewis wrote essays and letters about everything. A new book elucidates (or attempts . . . I’ll reserve judgment till I read it) Lewis’ philosophical theology. However, I wanted to quote from an essay of his that deserves more attention. In “Is Progress Possible?” Lewis says,

. . . Classical political theory, with its Stoical, Christian, and juristic key-conceptions (natural law, the value of the individual, the rights of man), has died. The Modern state exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good–anyway, to do something, to us or to make us something. Hence the new name “leaders” for those who were once “rulers.” We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, “Mind your own business.” Our whole lives are their business.

And this from a man who, like Jesus and Tony Campolo, is neither a Republican or a Democrat. When asked about “the great issues” of the day, Lewis asked:

Could one start a Stagnation Party—which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place?

Is “mind your own business” to government consistent with the great commission of mere Christianity? (more…)

The August 7, OCRegister headline read, Rick Warren hopes to redefine presidential politics. The issues that will be addressed are of a social nature, curing AIDS, poverty, sickness and will likely avoid such questions as same sex marriage, and abortion. As the article notes:

“It is a lot more sterilized and socially acceptable to be concerned about people who got HIV in Africa – because they acquired it in a heterosexual way – than to discuss the real, core issues of why Americans are getting it, which have to do with sexuality, poverty, lack of education, drug use,” said Rodriguez, president of the AIDS Services Foundation Orange County board. “These are segments of the population that don’t really get people votes.”

Earlier this year we also saw the birth of the Obama Bill: 845 Billion more for global poverty. I am not certain that McCain would be opposed to this since both he and Obama endorse Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan:

Warren noted that McCain and Obama have endorsed Saddleback’s PEACE Plan, a strategy to mobilize churches to fight global problems such as illiteracy, corrupt leadership and disease

Rick Warren seems very comfortable and enamored with the political left. He is dedicated to the idea that contrary to Jesus’ claims that we would always have the poor (Matt. 26:11; Mk. 14:7; Jn. 12:8), we humans can eliminate poverty, hunger and sickness from the face of the earth. He seems so consumed by this that he seems to convey it is the church’s mandate to do so but the church doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to fulfill Warren’s mandate. He seems to be of the view that the Federal Government should steal the money from its citizens in order for the church to fulfill Warren’s dream. Will 845 Billion more for global poverty. be the ticket? Will McCain (more…)

One of the topics I spoke on at a church retreat recently was Roman Catholicism. One of the points I made was that Rick Warren stated at the Pew Forum that he doesn’t see much difference between Roman Catholicism and what he believes. I pretty much followed the outline of our Journal article Thus Saith Rome! which poses some questions based on Rome’s official teachings. On August 1, 2008, John H. Adams published his article ‘Emerging church’ spreading in PCUSA on The Layman Online. To those reading these may not really seem connected at first glance. The connector comes in through a quote a friend emailed this week which bears on both of these issues. The quote is from the book Faithfulness and Holiness by J.I. Packer (Crossway Books, 2002). On page 38-39 Packer quotes the late J.C.Ryle, whom the book was about:

‘I believe the most powerful champion of the Pharisees is not the man who bids you honestly and openly come out and join the Church of Rome: it is the man who says he agrees on all points with you in doctrine …..all he asks you to do is to add a little more to your belief, in order to make your Christianity perfect….

‘I consider the most dangerous champion of the Sadducee school is not the man who tells you openly that he wants you….to become a free-thinker and a skeptic. It is the man who begins with quietly insinuating doubts…..whether we ought to be so positive in saying ‘This is the truth, and that falsehood,’ doubts whether we ought to think men wrong who differ from us on religious opinions, since they may after all be as much right as we are….It is the man who always begins talking in a vague way about God being a God of love,and hints that we ought to believe perhaps that all men, whatever doctrine they profess will be saved.’

Although this came from Ryle over a century ago his points are just as relevant and poignant today, perhaps even more so. It is more honest for a Roman Catholic to (more…)

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. (more…)

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, (more…)

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 (more…)

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 (more…)

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, (more…)