dangerous practices
Well, someone has tipped my attention toward this review of Emergent Manifesto, which is described as the emerging church’s “coming out of the closet tribute”:
There is another underlying theme that is permeating the pages of this book and many of the other emerging church books in print, including Dan Kimball’s. There is a continual hammering away and chiseling down of the image of Christians (the kind who take the Bible literally and stand by its authority). This effort to villainize Christians is reminiscent of Germany in the 30s when artists would draw distorted pictures of Jews with certain facial features making them look weird, and when rumors and stories would run amuck even suggesting that Jews would rape your daughters, so don’t trust them. This all out effort to get society to hate and mistrust the Jews worked. It was a campaign, not based on fact, but based on a demonic kingdom that hates anything that has to do with Jesus Christ. In the Manifesto, Brian McLaren boils down the world’s evils to the fault of Western Christians and suggests that these resisting Christians might even become militant against people one day. (Hitler was able to persuade people that the Jews were a threat so they better take them out before the Jews got them.)
There you go. Brian McLaren as Hitler. QED. To be fair, the publishers of this book have a bit of a stated position:
In the year 2000, we learned that a mantra-style meditation coupled with a mystical spirituality had been introduced to the evangelical church and was infiltrating youth groups, churches, seminaries, and Bible studies at an alarming rate.
Thus, in the spring of 2001, we began Lighthouse Trails Publishing with the hope of exposing this dangerous and pervasive paradigm?six months later we published our first release, A Time of Departing by Ray Yungen.
As we learned more about contemplative spirituality (also known as the spiritual formation movement), we came to realize it had infected the church in a wide variety of aspects. Models like Willow Creek, Purpose Driven, and the emerging church had become avenues through which contemplative was entering Christendom.
I am reminded of my dear father who, upon hearing about “this postmodernism thing” decided he ought to research it, and later told me that he knew all about it because he had purchased and read a book from a prominent Melbourne Christian bookstore entitled something like “Why postmodernism is the divisive work of the devil”.
Anyway, I must admit that I am easily tired of the “the emerging church/liberal theology/alt worship/monastic thinking is the beginning of a slippery slope to a place where people wail and gnash their teeth in outer darkness” debate. I know plenty of people who I disagree with about a whole range of things but I am perfectly proud to call my brothers and sisters in Christ. But I know plenty of Christian people that I would like to put on the other side of a large brick wall labelled with a sign saying “These people don’t speak for the rest of us”.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
if i don’t reply have gone to bed. small son has bad ear infection, haven’t slept for 2 nights. so i probably shouldn’t write anything else anyway, it won’t make sense probably
anyway abtruth you’ve got me stuck on whether God’s illogical or not. will ponder on it.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
something not seen cant be in evidence?
so what about logical arguments
can they be put in evidence to prove something is true
we have evidence for black holes.. planets orbiting other stars.. magnetic fields.. my wifes love etc etc etc
logic is often all we have as evidence for things not seen.. and then we can put our faith in them
and we have great evidence for God’s existence…
i would really like to see if you come up with something illogical that God can do…
take your time cause i had a late one last night and am going to bed now
night night
May 28th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Abtruth,
I think by your own reasoning then you could also say, that orthopraxy is more important because it shows what the true beliefs are and therefore testifies of orthodoxy.
Chicken and egg stuff there.
But I must say, your crusade against all things irrational seems to me to disagree with God’s own words that the wisdom of man is foolishness, meaning therefore that all of our beliefs in our own cleverness is silly, and God is so far above us as to be in many ways unreachable save his grace.
rev
May 29th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Abtruth
…I think you on a hiding to nothing with this one….
“i say that true faith is based on reason and that God embodies the purest rationality and logic and has imbued us with these traits as we have been made in his image.
faith not based on rationality/evidence etc is blind faith.
my belief and faith in Christs resurrection is based on logic and evidence, historical literary archaeological and that of biblical prophecy
i don’t have to have faith to believe - i believe therefore i have faith.”
Is:55:8-9″For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Rom 4: 18-22 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”
1 Cor 1:27-31 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Jahweh clearly is the most rational being from beginning to end, but I think if you limit to that you risk reducing God to your own image. The whole issue with that excuse for an academic Dawkins is he can’t see beyond reason and logic - and his reason and logic is crap anyway. Heavens to Betsy who do you think created “logic”? And if God created logic it also stands to reason that God stands outside of and is totally beyond that. Logic and reason I think is a very small box, and the above biblical references amongst others support that. Fortunately for us I think God is consistent amongst other things.
I am glad that there is sufficient evidence in the world to sustain your faith, but don’t limit the rest of us to what appears to be of little value to you. Answered prayer for example has no logical or rational basis in this world’s thinking, but is perfectly reasonable/rational/logical in God’s economy.
Demon possession and miracles are not sensible reasonable or rational in this world yet we (I take the liberty of including you) believe in these things by faith because there is insufficient empirical evidence to close the loop and turn the hypothesis into verifiable repeatable observations in a scientific laboratory, or otherwise incontrovertible historical fact.
Abraham believed God when he knew his own body and that of Sarah’s could not of itself produce a child.
The resurrection is impossible. It is not rational for Jesus to turn the water into wine, and it is even more perfectly stupid for people to willingly lose their lives in the hope that Jesus will be there in the after life to greet them to make all those hard times and sacrifices worthwhile, and they will live for ever after. Who’d be dumb enough to fall for thattt??
Go ahead…knock your self out proving to me how my faith is totally logical, reasonable, rational, and empirically bullet proof. But you could save yourself the time, because Jesus said:
“blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”:)
Cheers
MN
May 29th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Having said that and at the same time not wishing to cut the ground from underneath my feet, as stated in a previous post my faith rests on the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, and not on a myth. I guess the issue of faith is believing in things that science ultimately can’t prove, but for which there is a fair slab of evidence for. Interestingly though we all come to Christ in different ways - some might be more rational than others, but I bet for many it comes down to that knowledge inside that there is a God, and that He cares for me in a way that I can’t explain to anybody with words or “proof”. It is a “knowing” that goes beyond the boundaries of logic I think.
Cheers
MN
May 29th, 2007 at 9:08 am
mn, I like your post at 124.
abtruth, you’re still missing the point. Nobody is disputing that there is evidence for God’s existence - I am merely disputing that God’s existence can be irrefutably proven by western scientific methods.
Interestingly, a lot of things taken for granted in the sciences are “just” theories…and I have quite a few friends that began university as staunch atheists, and the more they pursue their PhDs in chemistry, physics etc, the more open to God they become. Why? Because they realise that there are many parts of science that are not as “scientific”, “rational” or “provable” as they once thought they were.
abtruth - good luck having this discussion with an atheist. I’ve still never met anyone who became a Christian after being argued into a corner, but they may exist.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Bec
this is true bec
as for being argued.. they exist all right.. gradual walls against the truth broken down till they are in a position to accept the truth CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Antony Flew (became a theist at least - after spending most of his life the most avid evangelist for the atheist cause because of the evidence)
i never said that he can be proven by western scientific methods
i am not limiting myself to scientific proofs of Gods existence - although i believe they are good.
MN re post 124 i think you are confusing certain things
some things are illogical IF there is no God… thats what those scriptures refer to… Man has said in his heart “there is no God”
but we then live in a way that says that there is a God ie morals etc
but then we try to justify that we can live in a moral way without God…
hence the warning to not be caught up in vain philosophies ie PM which are all about making sense of the world without God
we do not have the truth of God from our own making but through General Revelation should one be prepared to accept it which entails giving up our rebellion against God…
the fool says in his heart there is no God…
ipso facto - the person who says there IS a God in his heart is not being irrational or illogical but actually is being the most logical and rational he can be
further
Science can’t ultimately prove Gods existence any more than looking at a house will reveal the colour of the hair of the designer… it can infer a designer though.
Yes we all come to faith in God through different ways, but none of them are irrational or illogical…
if i am visited by a host of angels in the desert who take me to heaven to see what its like then take me back and say ‘go forth and tell the world what Christ has done’… In a universe which has been made by God who is separate from the universe - this is all the evidence one may need yet it is still rational and it is logical that if God so chose to do it this way that he could.
and i would be irrational to believe that God didn’t exist after such an encounter as i would have been fully convinced that he is real
i think the western mindset has taken on a dangerous belief that science is the only area where we can truly logically and rationally know anything
therefore faith is necessarily irrational.. this is the lie of Richard Dawkins
they may never become a Christian but we should (Peter tell us to) be prepared to give an answer (apologetic) to anyone who asks for one of us… and the answers we give depend upon the culture we live in and the questions being asked
if we only give them the doubt in their mind of their position it may at the least save them from infecting others with their beliefs and provide encouragement to those who doubt the Bible because of their indoctrination into vain philosophies through school and uni.. over 70% of the 58% who leave the church and never return in their late teens early 20’s for intellectual reasons …
still waiting for something that God can do that is Illogical……………..??
May 29th, 2007 at 10:27 am
abtruth, I believe we’re actually saying pretty much the same thing.
Beyond logic, and illogical, are different things imho. Who has said that God can do something that is “illogical”?
May 29th, 2007 at 10:29 am
btw, abtruth - when you say:
“i think the western mindset has taken on a dangerous belief that science is the only area where we can truly logically and rationally know anything
therefore faith is necessarily irrational.. this is the lie of Richard Dawkins”
That is one of the reasons that many of us do not see PM as “vain” but in fact a rather interesting and even productive cultural shift.
May 29th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Abtruth
I actually agree with most of what you say, but you are the one that set up the logical/illogical dichotomy. No one - at least not I - said that God is illogical - think Bec is in that camp too - see #128.
What we are putting forward is that God goes beyond and outside of logic.
You are right - we are called on to give account to people of our faith when required, but for may until they hand themselves over to God it remains a mystery and something not quite rational. To you and I it is perfectly rational, but still remains beyond scientific proof.
At the end of the day God is beyond our capacities of reason and logic, I think beyond logic anyway. I mean within the terms of logic and rationality how do you explain a being who just is without a “first cause”?
We’re on the same side here Abtruth - believe it or not!
Cheers
MN
May 29th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Can God do something Illogical???
just a question i am posing because i think the answer will tell us something of the question of “beyond logic” etc as i believe God is always logical
not that we always have access to that knowledge of his logic however
dualism is where we believe that science deals with facts logic and reason and that faith deals with existential matters separate to facts logic and reason.
Francis Schaeffer called this a 2 storey view of reality which is ultimately a marginalisation of Christianity from anything we should reasonably see as reality
MN.. do you see what i am getting at or do you still think im on my way to a hiding to nothing?
what about you Rev..? am i making sense to you yet?
May 29th, 2007 at 11:32 am
sorry MN you posted while i was typing
May 29th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Well it depends, is love logical? And is God truly love?
And even if we say God is always logical, though we are sometimes incapable of understanding said logic, is it not true that to us in our limited understanding it would be illogical? And can we actually live in any paradigm outside of our own?
To ancient man the idea of man flying around in a hunk of metal would seem illogical, so does that mean it is illogical? No, but, it was illogical to them. And rightly so, with the technology they had, and the abilities and materials they had it was completely ludicrous to expect a man could fly in a hunk of solid stuff taken from rocks and melted. So is it too much of a stretch to suggest that our understanding of the nature of God is so far beneath His reality that we can suggest only that God appears illogical to us in the here and now, but we have faith that He is in the end completely logical?
Ultimately this appears to me to be intelectual wankery, no offense meant.
We have a fairly simple task, to love God and love our neighbors, thereby extending the rulership of God, because Jesus told us to. I know many people who’s beliefs are not “perfectly orthodox” that are actually proving their faith and love for Jesus, by living the way He did, and extending His kingdom. I also know many people that believe all the “right things” but are bitter, intelectuals who will be those people that Jesus says to, “when I was struggling in depression, you did not comfort me” Everyone close to me knows what I believe because I actually live like it is true, or struggle to do so. So when Jesus says that those that do the things he teaches are building their lives on a good foundation, I will show my faith by trying to do just that. As James explained you will see my faith by what I do, then truly the more appropriate test of faith is actions, not professions.
rev
May 29th, 2007 at 11:53 am
there is a difference between beyond our ‘reason and logic’ and our understanding…. he is beyond our understanding yes..
reason and logic are tools which we use to understand…
actually it is through reason and logic that we come to that conclusion… it is the only logical explanation from kalaams cosmological argument that can be drawn. A first cause that is uncaused must exist otherwise we are left with the illogical conclusion that time regresses infinitely which would mean that we would never get to the present.
do you think when we get to heaven and God says ‘here ya go… this is everything in my mind’ that we will see illogical things happening?
hence my question… is it possible under any circumstances that God can do anything illogical whatsoever?
May 29th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
no i would say it seemed impossible not illogical
and love is not a question of logic so much as it is reasonable that a being capable of love with free will would freely choose to love as they saw fit
and as to intellectual wankery? i take no offense but beg to differ…
if we allow faith to be seen as illogical and unreasonable then we give everything to the evolutionary naturalist and have only our own private beliefs which have no bearing on the on the human condition and we have nothing but our own subjective feelings which hold no more authority than any other religious or philosophical belief system… the ultimate marginalisation of Christianity, utter irrelevancey…..
i would go so far as to say that the malaise of Christianity in the West is because of our lack of attention to the intellect..
as Mark Knoll , the author of ‘the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind’ said……………………………….
“the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there isn’t one”
May 29th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I would say the scandal of the evangelical mind is that it doesn’t actually animate the body to do anything.
That really is a completely ridiculous statement by Mark Knoll, with men like NT Wright, Alvin Plantinga and Ravi Zacharias out there, there is plenty of minds.
Jesus said the world will know that the Father sent him not by our stunning arguements and our rational and reasonable apologetics, but by the way we love each other. The ultimate proof of Christ is our love, not our words or thoughts. Paul also said that God uses the foolish things to confound the wise. Ultimately as N T Wright says, most people long for beauty, justice, transcendence, and community, when we follow the commands of God, and actually live out the call of Christ everyone sees it. A man with an arguement is not at the mercy of the man with an experience.
There is no way you can explain to me how my life can sound logical or reasonable to the materialistic world we live in. The cross itself is foolishness to those that do not believe.
rev
May 29th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
abtruth, you keep distorting what people are saying. Nobody here is saying that faith is “illogical” or “unreasonable”. In VERY simplistic terms, I see biology as one discipline, and theology as another. They may interact, but they are not one and the same.
abtruth, I’m beginning to feel like this conversation is going around in circles. I don’t feel that you understand what’s being said here - and I’m not sure why that is.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Cheryls (alternative worship project) article refuting Dawkins etc
This is very good writing
May 29th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Errr…Greg…that article is what triggered this conversation!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Bec
you endorse the comment by Cheryl
and then go on to say
so which is it … can it be irrational and reasonable
rev don’t be silly
Plantinga Zacharias JP Moreland Et Al are astounding standouts in a sea of Christian cerebral mediocraty … and i think all of them have referred to his book as being a watershed of incisive thought on the evangelical movement as we know it
and the foolish things are the things that seem foolish to those who think themselves wise in their rebellion against God
what if that experience tells me that we are all gods who are yet to reach perfection and that through sucessive lives we will be purified through our own suffering and eventually reach a state of nothingness in nirvana.
i don’t think your life sounds logical at all rev
but if you mean i can’t make the gospel reasonable? Such an approach makes it virtually impossible to contend for the Gospel.
When one contends for something he gives reasons why a person ought to adopt his viewpoint, in this case beleive a particular thing, the Gospel… the Apostles did this, as did Jesus.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
oh.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Cheryl just gives away the farm - flimsy??? its her arguement thats (well written and has some air of plausability but on further reading) is really flimsy
May 29th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
abtruth, I’ve got other things I really should be writing (things that might pay!) and I’m not hugely motivated to continue this conversation. It’s just going in circles, and I feel like my words (and the words of others) are being distorted (or perhaps just misunderstood) no matter how hard I try to explain myself.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Thats funny, I thought my contending is about standing firm and secure in a current that is contrary. I feel no need to contend with Dawkins and Harris, no need at all, my life is proof that they are wrong. I don’t need to provide well thought out reasonable arguements with them, infact if I am not mistaken many already have and it has done no good. If I am not mistaken the bible is pretty clear that no one comes to God unless God draws them, my reasoning does not open hearts.
Now lest you think I am just a lazy mystic, I have read the complete works of Francis Schaefer, many books by Lewis, N T Wright, essays by Plantinga ect. In the end I find it is more beneficial to learn to serve others, to live a life of love, and to respond to God’s Spirit. At the end of my life I am quite positive I will not wish I had spent one more minute studying, but rather had given one more moment of my time loving the least of these.
rev
May 29th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
then we may feel that we just have a different calling rev, and i am happy for that,
I take Pauls instruction to Timothy…… to contend for the truth “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition” so that they may “come to their senses” (2 Timothy 2:25-26) and “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” (2 Timothy 4:2)…… as a bit of a mandate to take on the likes of Dawkins et al… and get pretty annoyed when well meaning people make such a hash of it publicly
May 29th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
all I can say is that this all may be very interesting and it probably has to do with the postmodernist horse being bolted, but abtruth nothing you have said here has made me feel like I could print out what you’ve said and give it to a non-Christian friend as an alternative view to dawkins. What Cheryl wrote on the other hand I have done that with and I think it is a brilliant starting point. It’s not an end point, it’s a starting point, and a really good one at that. So for that I am really grateful.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
should add too that I understand you’re not intensing what you’ve written for a non-C audience, you’re debating signposters. but I disliked that you said she had made “such a hash of it”. I think that soudned pretty arrogant, and I really disagree. Whether or not you agree with everything she said, I think it was a great way to open up conversation.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
how about ’screw it up royally’ giving people the impression ‘faith’ is all about ‘how we live’ and ‘restoring broken things’ and that rational truth or actual objective truth for all mankind is not what its about.
i am quite happy to concede that i can be a prickly SOB … but i argue here like this not because i want to be an arse but because i care for the way our beliefs are presented - esp in a public forum
May 29th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
well abtruth I have a challenge for you. You write an article in response to dawkins - for a non-C audience - and we’ll have a look. I’m not being a pain either, I would be genuinely interested to see what you would write.
May 29th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
emma
accepted
i’ll get back to you shortly