With The Golden Compass releasing soon, the Christian demon-recognition email-forwarding machine is fully active. Everyone seems freaked at the murder of God in the Philip Pullman's books. My question is, Is Philip Pullman killing the Christian God, or is Philip Pullman killing a false view of God? I think it's the latter, and is probably a god we would want to kill too. Jeffrey Overstreet at CT writes head along those lines with "Fear Not the Compass." Oh, and check out Carl Trueman's post on the matter.
Holy Cow. I try to be biblically generous, but Doug Pagitt makes little sense in this short interview with Way of the Master's Todd Friel. It's just a small segment near the beginning of the show. Look, I'm
no Way of the Master fan or defender, and Friel really could have done much more with this conversation, but Pagitt shows both wacky theology and an inability to have a meaningful conversation based on...words...and ideas.
Fundamentalism is really losing the war, and I think it is in part responsible for the rise of what we know as the more liberal end of the emerging church. Because a lot of what is fueling the left end of the emerging church is fatigue with hardcore fundamentalism that throws rocks at culture. But culture is the house that people live in, and it just seems really mean to keep throwing rocks at somebody's house.
Mark Driscoll in the Sept 2007 Christianity Today, "Pastor Provocateur"
The policy addresses an ongoing SBC debate. Baptists
have championed alcohol abstinence since the late 1800s, but a growing
number want the SBC to reexamine the issue, said Timothy George, dean
of Beeson Divinity School.
"There is growing
discontent, people saying that we shouldn't be mandating things that
aren't spoken clearly about in Scripture," George said. "It's hard to
argue that the Bible requires total abstinence."
Allelon - "a movement of missional leaders" -- They have a website which has a number of resources, but I'm really loving Alan Roxburgh's netcast (especially the audio podcast) the most. There are things said that I don't like or agree with, but in general this is a great podcast for seeing the emerging missional church for what it is and what it claims to be in different locations. The interview with Steve Taylor is really great.
Theology Unplugged (TUP) is a podcast by some Dallas Seminary profs. They say, "The uniqueness of
TUP is that we speak on theological issues of the day with clarity,
honesty, and openness. TUP allows the listener to make informed
judgments on the most important theological issues today." Their seven part series on the emerging church is a great example of that. I'm through the first three episodes and I'm pretty shocked at how well they do in trying to understand the emerging church. Well worth hearing. (HT: Internet Monk Radio)
One of my recurring frustrations with recent debates in the Reformed
world is a widespread failure of theological imagination. Too many seem
to operate on the assumption that we have everything already figured
out; we have all possible categories and positions ready to hand. All
we need do is deploy these categories on whatever happens our way.
It'll fit, Procrustes says.
Thus, it is seriously proposed that someone is either on the road to
Rome or the Road to Geneva - with no possibility of a third (or fourth,
or fifth) destination, with no possibility that there might be
something in between (though in between is where much of the Christian
world lives). And if I suggest that we Reformed might still have
something to learn from the Bible about justification, then I must be
Rabbinic or Roman Catholic - there simply is no other alternative.
It just kills me how hard some folks (can anyone say Missouri Baptist Convention?) are trying to distance themselves from the "emerging" Acts 29 organization and Mark Driscoll. Driscoll is all pomo and truth has no meaning for him.
Then in Bizarro world Bill Hybels (a pastor of a moderately influential, smallish church in suburban Chicago) has poked him publicly for his fundamentalism after viewing Driscoll on video at the National New Church Conference. He basically didn't like Driscoll's male-centered approach to church planting and let that be known from the platform. That resulted in Acts 29 eating thousands of Driscoll's videos because the conference decided not to hand them out as originally planned.
From Driscoll on the Resurgence website...
Last year I spoke at a large church planting event along with a
number of other church planters and church planting movement leaders.
The event was held in Florida, went well, and did a very encouraging
job of bringing together a number of denominations, networks, and
organizations that otherwise would not have benefited from such a
partnership.
This year I was invited back but declined because the few-day round
trip from Seattle to Florida to give a very short message (last year it
was less than twenty minutes) seemed like too much in light of other
responsibilities. So, the sponsors of the event asked me to instead put
together an eight-minute video on church planting that could be shown
at the event and then handed out to each of the 1,500 attendees. So, in
an effort to be helpful, the video crew from Mars Hill Church and I
spent half a day in freezing weather at a military cemetery shooting
scenes that were then edited for the video. Apparently the video was
shown at the event, was well received by the attendees, and then
criticized by Bill Hybels from the stage because it did not speak of
women church planters. And, not wanting a bigger fuss, the organization
hosting the event then made a decision not to hand out the video as
they had promised, leaving the guys from our Acts 29 Church Planting
Network who had hauled suitcases of the videos to Florida with
thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of wasted effort. The
leaders of the event are good guys whom I still consider friends, and
I've never met Bill Hybels so I won't speak about him personally. But,
I thought we should at least post the banned video online, so here it
is:
The “Theology Committee” of the Missouri Baptist Convention have released a statement today that, in effect, separates the MBC from ever working in partnership with Acts 29 and their organization of church planters again.
Alan Hirsch's book, The Forgotten Ways, is causing me to ask a lot of good questions of my theology, my ecclesiology & missiology. It's good, challenging stuff and I recommend you pick it up. I've been meaning to read/review this book for some time and it has been too long in coming. Over the next few weeks or so I'm going to make the effort to post a few quotes, reflections, and/or questions about the book and the issues it raises. Please feel free to interact with the ideas.
I wish I had time to do the book more justice, but Scot McKnight (for one) spent a good deal of time on the book (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). You might also want to check out Jordan Cooper's epic first half review here. I encourage you to go to these links for a good recap of the arguments of the book.
If the heart of discipleship is to become like Jesus, then it seems to me that a missional reading of this text requires that we see Jesus's strategy is to get a while lot of little versions of him infiltrating every nook and cranny of society by reproducing himself in and through his people in every place throughout the world. (p 113)
I'm currently reading Hirsch's book slowly (I'm not doing enough reading lately) and expect to have a handful of posts up on the book in the weeks ahead.
Scot McKnight is speaking at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary tomorrow. At 8am on the atonement (Student Center), at noon on the emerging church (cafeteria), and at 3pm on the sociology of conversion (in the Leavell Center). If you are in the area you should check this out. Scot is a good guy and an important Christian voice in our culture.
I met Drew Goodmanson last year at the Reform & Resurge Conference in Seattle. Really good guy. I've had his blog on my sidebar for a while, but I just wanted to emphasize that Drew is doing some great blogging lately. Make him one of your "must reads."
I'm reading several books right now including The Power of the Hour (Lakhani) and The Forgotten Ways(Hirsch). The Forgotten Ways is a very interesting read so far. My worship team and I are reading Pleasing God in our Worship, a booklet by Robert Godfrey. Basic but good. Bob Roberts' new book is out, Glocalization. I've read his other book, Transformation, and liked it. Looking forward to picking up this new one. You should keep up with Bob's blog as well.
I just finished preaching a series of sermons on generosity. God's timing was amazing with this series and the events of my life. I then preached Psalm 103 last Sunday, will be preaching on being a church without walls this coming Sunday and on the need for small groups on the 18th. Then I start a series on the book of Daniel that should take us through to warmer weather (it's currently 1 degree with like a -10 wind chill).
In another study I do before worship on Sundays I just finished teaching through The Enemy Within (Lundgaard) and am now doing a straight-up practical series on The Organized Life.
I'll post soon on some really incredible things God has done for our family. Look for it.
Wow. Very interesting article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about The Journey Church in St. Louis and their pastor, Darrin Patrick. It's called, ahem, "Beer and the Bible." Darrin is a friend and someone who I think is doing an unbelievable job pastoring. They are associated with the SBC as well as Acts29 (Picture credits to the StLP-D).
It seems, according to the article, that there are some frustrations in the Missouri Baptist Convention because they loaned The Journey money to buy a building and then found out some at The Journey drink (like Jesus). The Journey has a regular theology event called Theology at the Bottleworks where they discuss all sorts of issues, and yes, some drink a beer there.
Theology at the Bottleworks is run by a wildly successful congregation
of young St. Louisans called The Journey. The Schlafly program is part
of the church's outreach ministry. And it works.
Every month dozens show up at the brewpub to drink beer and talk about
issues ranging from racism in St. Louis to modern art controversies to
the debate about embryonic stem cell research. First-timers are invited
to check out the church on Sunday, and Journey leaders say many have.
Theology at the Bottleworks is just one of The Journey's ministries,
but it has helped the church grow from 30 members in late 2002 to 1,300
today.
I should have been linking this blog for some time now, but just realized I don't have him on my blog list. Please keep up with Steve Addison's blog, World Changers. It's consistently fantastic.
One of the podcasts I enjoy is Catalyst. Recently they interviewed Rick McKinley and discussed kingdom issues, the gospel, his church (Imago Dei, Portland) and the Church, the emerging church & Emergent, and practical missional stuff. I've listened to it a few times now and it continues to provoke me in the right direction. Check it out.
Hamo (Andrew Hamilton) over at Backyard Missionary has some good thoughts (not earth shattering, but good) in his three part series, "Some Thoughts on Missionary Work in Suburbia." He discusses six building blocks.
Post 1... 1. Proximity - being near people 2. Regularity - spending significant time together Post 2... 3. Depth - going beyond the fluff in relationships 4. Conflict - being prepared to disagree and realise that’s ok and necessary Post 3... 5. The Message - we need to speak about who we are, and why 6. The Supernatural - ultimately it still comes down to a work of God Post 4... Going a little deeper with the above six points
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