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 31st, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Not getting old, getting wiser…realising that good conversation is an amazing thing, and that competititve exchanges of ideas are dead boring, and miss the point of communication. I just can’t be stuffed - I mean, what do we get out of it, when we approach the exchange of ideas in such a manner? I used to play in a lot of eisteddfods - winning was fantastic, but if our only goal had been to win, rather the miraculous experience of creating something beautiful with a group of people, I don’t think it would have been much fun at all.
May 31st, 2007 at 2:55 pm
You ever notice how the losers always say, “its not about competition, its about communication” Sure it is.
rev
May 31st, 2007 at 3:09 pm
ok here comes the testosterone…
rev has just made a better argument for hetersexuality than saint or abtruth. imagine if the world was just full of blokes!
May 31st, 2007 at 3:19 pm
May 31st, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Yeah it would be great, cricket, footy, beer and power tools
awesome
and no whingey chicks telling us not to fight, or drink too much but who would drive us home? hmmmmm
oh and here ya go girls, feast your eyes on this mass of testosterone
http://rockass.net/therev/images/rev4hula.JPG
rev
May 31st, 2007 at 4:21 pm
my eyes my eyes………..
May 31st, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Lol who is the picture of? No you surely Rev?
May 31st, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Yes, that’s the Rev. He’s SUCH a poser!!
May 31st, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Poor Bec and Emma - Greg just accused me on the other thread of being argumentative and a Type A personality as if it was really bad (note to self: must have beer with Greg). So now you are telling me that’s a boy thing? Sheesh. What’s a saint gotta do to get an even break around here?
Rev,
I have the mother of all headaches today, and a brain still too focussed on work. Perhaps this may explain why I thought of you when I read this report of the Pope’s address about Tertullian (no I am not Catholic, but B16 is a bit of a fave; I can’t find the full text of his message just yet though I think this series on the Apostles and early church Fathers is going to get published by Ignatius Press later this year). Emphasis is mine:
May 31st, 2007 at 6:04 pm
rev…and you telling me you looked like hellboy…why you’re just shy aren’t you???
May 31st, 2007 at 6:34 pm
I was told by others that hellboys character reminded them of me, I think more personality than looks.
Saint, being compared to tertullian is not the worst thing I have been told. I will point out however, that I have many warm relationships with many Christians that do not live in the way I believe we are called to. The difference is that they do not try and support theologies that are incongruent with the life of Christ. My goal is not for everyone to be perfect, but rather for people to accept that we all fall short of Jesus, and that we fall upon God’s grace (as I do every day) and pray that He would enable us to be more conformed today than yesterday. That we would commend Christlike behaviour as much as we commend good theology, and that we would seek to give our lives in love to each other and the least of these.
rev
May 31st, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Bec
re your declining argumentativeness as you get older…I am reminded that the female of the species also requires testosterone to function at their best.
Hmmmmm
Cheers
MN
June 1st, 2007 at 12:14 pm
How many NIV study Bibles does one have to bench press to get pecs like the Revs? (It’s a professional interest question, OK???).
Would Tertullian have posed half naked on the web…?
June 1st, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Oh gees it makes me ill to see the girls go all wobbly over revs photoshopped photo!
Now this is a real man
Actually I just finished building a dog kennel for our two dogs - ‘killer’ and ‘mauler’ - and by odens beard it felt good to on the end of a drop saw with a sliding arm. The zing of the blade, buzz of the sander, the whistle of the drill as it bit into the hardwood - it got my juices flowing and my testosterone pumping. My neigbour came over and helped me and we drank beer and I got meat and we BBQ’d while the girls oo’d and aah’d at our manliness and skill.
power tools, beer and Jesus- that’s the theme of my next mens group meeting (which i actually refues to attend and hate with a passion - all old skinners with falkey skin and bad memories!
June 1st, 2007 at 1:55 pm
this, actually is the real man
June 1st, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Hey rev - I’m getting better at Karate - very soon now I will comne to Melbourne and we shall see what we shall see!
June 1st, 2007 at 3:29 pm
like I said before, karate is cute.
rev
btw, I am not quite so fit anymore
June 1st, 2007 at 4:27 pm
ooooh…more testosterone. Help!! Signposts is drowning in the stuff!!
June 1st, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I ignore Signposts for a few days, and it comes to this….
June 1st, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I think we’ve just all witnessed some sort of pressure release valve effect.
Now,
back to regular programming?
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:10 am
Librarian, I want to ask you a question:
How much do you think I can bench press?
rev
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I don’t care how much you can bench press, stupid macho stuff with no real world application or relevance to the current debate.
what I want to know is how heavy a man could you lift in a rugby union lineout!
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:24 pm
About a hundred and twenty five kilos, that is bench press
I can’t play rugby they don’t have enough pads and I might get hurt.
rev
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Compass Sunday June 3rd- food for thought.