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Yearly Archives: 2008

Great Scott! Catching up on things EmergenT

Many will be reading Scott McKnight’s new article in the latest edition of Christianity Today.  Here’s some background info on McKnight. 
 
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Scott McKnight is a redactional criticism expert who somehow got involved in the discussions over the emerging movement, and soon after considered himself “emerging.”  
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Actually … it began like this … 
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After he started writing about the emerging church on his blog Jesus Creed, his readership hits went through the roof, and his students (he teaches at North Park University in Chicago) became more interested in reading his writings.  He realized that most people were not really that interested in his technical writings on redaction, but whenever he wrote about the Emerging Church, everyone listened, and he could hardly keep up with the comments on his blog (one of the most well read blogs in the entire blogospheric galactic spectrum).
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This led to number of conversations between him and emerging leaders.  Now that he’s intimately familiar with the emerging movement, he considers himself emerging (yes … I know about the recent “abandonment” of the term) and by Doug Pagitt’s categories would be considered emergenT (that T is important … you’ll see why if you keep reading).  Not that I’ve heard Pagitt call McKnight emergenT, but because Pagitt and other emergenT leaders insist that emergenT is not defined by its theology, but rather, is simply a network of friends in conversation (deconstructive conservation mostly). 
HOWEVER … Scott McKnight, although an emerging leader who has tried his hardest to be sympathetic with the concerns of emergenT leaders across the board (even emergent village etc.)–we will see more of this in his upcoming book The Blue Parakeet–has not sympathized with the most controversial aspects of the emergenT movement.  
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His recent article, “McLaren Emerging,” does several predictable things.  Here are a few … 
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1) He reminds us of the distinctions between emerging (a broad movement of mostly evangelicals) and emergent (a smaller movement of the emerging movement that leans in a post-evangelical direction).
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2) McKnight depicts Brian McLaren, perhaps the most influential emergenT leader, as having become disillusioned with the “gospel” he was taught growing up in an ultra-conservative church, and sensing a great tension between the “global” message of Jesus about the “kingdom,” and the “individualistic” message about “salvation,” that he grew up with.  McLaren thinks the church’s message is different from the kingdom proclamation of Jesus.  The message of Jesus was peace, reconciliation, and love–“not just with God and not just in the heart, but both and more: the peace Jesus envisions is global. … through him, God was launching a new world order, a new world, a new creation.”  Sounds a lot like N.T. Wright’s fresh emphasis on the new creation theme.  Nothing too crazy here.  
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3) More specifically, McKnight tells us that McLaren questions the evangelical theology of the cross.  McLaren does not believe that the Father was “venting” his wrath on the Son so that believers could have salvation (i.e. penal substitution).  Rather, the central message of the cross is the repudiation of violence.
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4) McKnight addresses some questions to McLaren in a kind, but challenging, way.  They are predictable questions such as … 
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a) “What role does the Cross play in the emergent kingdom vision”?  He follows this up with statement like, “The most stable location for the earliest understanding of the Cross, from Jesus all the way through the New Testament writings, is the Last Supper–and not a word is said there about violence and systemic injustice.  Other words are given to explain the event: covenant, forgiveness of sins, and blood ‘poured out for many.’  Insight into the Cross must start here.”  Great [point] Scott.   
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b) “What is the relationship of kingdom to church?”  He follows this up with statements like, “According to the Newt Testament, the kingdom vision of Jesus is, it seems, only implemented through the church.”  
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He closes by saying, “All in All, I am hoping that McLaren’s works will lead to a massive conversation on the meaning of one word: gospel,” and by quoting Mary’s Magnificat from Luke as evidence that “Luke tells of a gospel far greater than most of us are hearing today.” 
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Thus … he is sympathetic with the deconstruction of emergent leaders, agreeing that the church may have missed the full significance of the message of the gospel of the kingdom, yet skeptical of the reconstruction taking place with respect to theories of atonement and ecclesiology.   

Boom in Moscow

Sick

BC One Breakdance Lilou

Spreading the Gospel in Downtown Richmond

…. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. … My friend Josh Soto planted and now pastors a church in downtown Richmond.  I haven’t had a chance to visit there yet, but my friend Ricky visited once and he says it’s thunder (well … he doesn’t actually say thunder, he says “awesome,” but you understand).  The church is blowin’ up. 

You can check out the churches website here.  See pictures of the church and the people here.

Josh and I used to minister together on Vision teams at Liberty University.  Now he’s a pastor at an inner-city church and I’m an outreach director at an inner-city church.  We’ve had talks about me coming down to Richmond to check out what he’s doing, but I keep putting it off.

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Rick Warren Get’s Publicly Challenged by a Naturalistic Scientist

Rick Warren spoke at the well known secular venue TEDTalks.  After he was done, a naturalist scientist challenged him on some of the things in his book “The Purpose Driven Life,” which has sold a gigatrillion copies.  *I think PDL is the most popular book in history outside the Bible (or, at least that’s what I’ve heard people say … not sure how they get stats on that).*

Anyway … Poor Rick gets cross examined by Dan Dennett.  I posted a response to Dan Dennett’s response below the video’s if your itching for cross-examination of the cross-examinaton.  My response was initially posted on the comments section on the website, and spawned an interesting “debate” in the thread.
Rick Warren’s Talk
Dan Dennett’s Response (you have to wait a bit before he starts challenging Rick directly) 
My Response
Dan Dennett, like most scientist I have heard who try to speak to religion, doesn’t appear to understand religion very well (or philosophy). He doesn’t even come close, for example, to addressing the presuppositional differences that underlie his differences with Rick Warren and other religious leaders and the worldviews they tend to espouse. 

It’s incredibly naive to think that religion could be taught unbiasedly–either by secularists or by religious leaders. Who determines the criterion for “facts”? Presuppositions will determine what one accepts as “facts,” which means to even approach teaching a course on religion based on “facts only,” you already have to use your presuppositions in determining what’s legitimate for a class in religion. Thus, there would be no such thing as an objective look at the “facts” about religion. That such is possible is an enlightenment myth.

Also, he picks on Rick Warren’s belief in intelligent design (which is different than creationism, but he doesn’t seem to be aware of these sorts of distinctions) rather than engaging, say, the Oxford/Cambridge/Berkley/Harvard Scientist’s who have tried to argue for intelligent design. That’s not good protocol, and it makes his critique of things weak. Rick isn’t a scientist or a philosopher, he’s just a pastor. 

Finally, he took Rick’s comment in a way that Rick probably never meant it, and read into it certain motives that may or may not have been present (even IF his interpretation was correct)—namely, the motive of throwing down a “wild card” to trump any “reasonable” inquiry or questioning of religious beliefs. Such an understanding of Rick’s comment is not only a misinterpretation of what a statement like that tends to mean to Christians like Rick Warren (again, demonstrating his ignorance of religious philosophy), but it also is guilty of reading motives into the statement, as if such motives could be accessed even if they were present. 

Sloppy engagement.

Choose Your Fallacy


Choose your fallacy today from the Dictionary of Logical Fallacies composed by Hogeye Bill.  Read through one a day a try them out on your friends!

No really … I just find this list helpful.  You might want to add it to your bookmarks as a reference.

You Might Be A Blog Troll If …

Go here to read Denny Burk’s post “Don’t Feed the Blog Troll’s.”  

“Blog Troll” is Denny’s word for bloggers who make rude comments or get more exercised about the subject matter than they should, and thus overdue the rhetoric.  His post is composed of suggestions for how to respond to such comments.  By reading his post, you may even realize that you have a little blog troll in yourself from time to time.  His suggestions seem fair and just, and you never know when a blog troll might show up on your blog. 
Someone with more time than me should do a post with the same title as this one that actually lists several humorous things that blog trolls might do.  

Calvin meets the Block, things will never be the same …

Christian Hip Hop artists are starting to get more attention and appreciation from Reformed leaders because “Reformed theology” is actually making inroads through their ministries.  Lecrae, who is probably my favorite rap artist, was interviewed by Mark Driscoll about the missional aspect of Christian Hip Hop, Lecrae’s life, false doctrine, and “Reformed theology.”  Listen to it: HERE.  

Spreading the Gospel in the Inner City of Richmond


My friend Josh Soto planted and now pastors a church in downtown Richmond.  I haven’t had a chance to visit there yet, but my friend Ricky visited once and he says it’s thunder (well … he doesn’t actually say thunder, he says “awesome,” but you understand).  The church is blowin’ up.  

You can check out the churches website here.  See pictures of the church and the people here.
Josh and I used to minister together on Vision teams at Liberty University.  Now he’s a pastor at an inner-city church and I’m an outreach director at an inner-city church.  We’ve had talks about me coming down to Richmond to check out what he’s doing, but I keep putting it off.