John MacArthur’s Post-Enlightenment Philosophical Understanding of “Truth”

John MacArthur versus the Emerging Church - 1
Review of The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception

John MacArthur’s latest book seeks to take up the battle against those he claims have crept into the contemporary church as Christian teachers, but are actually denying the truth of Jesus Christ.

In his Introduction, MacArthur writes, “Scripture describes all authentic Christians as those who know the truth and have been liberated by it (John 8:32). They believe it with a whole heart (2 Thessalonians 2:13). They obey the truth through the Spirit of God (1 Peter 1:22). And they have received a fervent love for the truth through the gracious work of God in their hearts (2 Thessalonians 2:10)…Clearly, the existence of absolute truth and its inseparable relationship to the person of God is the most essential tenet of all truly biblical Christianity. Speaking plainly, if you are one of those who questions whether truth is really important, please don’t call your belief system ‘Christianity,’ because that is not what it is. A biblical perspective of truth also entails the recognition that ultimate truth is an objective reality. Truth exists outside of us and remains the same regardless of how we may perceive it.” (pp. xix-xx).

The presumption that MacArthur makes is that these biblical authors had the same conception of “truth” that the post-enlightened MacArthur has. My question to MacArthur is this: Would pre-Enlightenment biblical writers think of truth as “an objective reality?" Or, would they rather think of "truth" as something that they have seen and experienced?

This is the subtle nuance that we must understand if we are going to understand MacArthur’s point-of-view. It is a matter of how we define “truth.” MacArthur defines it in a philosophical manner that reflects his modernist, post-Enlightenment mindset. Truth is objective reality; something we can know through objective scientific observation that can be articulated with words that correspond to that objective reality. Above all, “truth” is that which is irrefutable and foundational to everything else. These irrefutable statements are the foundation upon which everything else we know can be based. For the modernist post-Enlightenment mind, without this kind of “truth,” our whole world would unravel into chaotic anarchy.

So, when MacArthur reads the texts he cites above, he reads “truth” as that which conveys objective, irrefutable reality, i.e., as foundational propositions that explain what is real.

What if, however, we defined “truth” in these passages in a way that a pre-modern Christian would, without all the baggage of Enlightenment philosophy? What if “truth,” according to the pre-modern mind, was simpler than all that? It could simply be that which explained experiences as they really happened, and it would be less tied to propositional statements and more tied to relational witness. "Truth," to the pre-Enlightenment mind, was probably less about statements that they would irrefutably base their lives upon and more about people and experiences.

For instance, in John 8:31-32 (cited above in the quote from MacArthur's book), Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” To MacArthur's modern enlightenment mind, the truth of the teachings is what sets you free. But what if these pre-moderns understood the “truth” that sets people free not just as Jesus’ teachings (as if his teachings, in and of themselves, can set people free) but as the very person of Jesus—that Jesus is the one who sets people free? For MacArthur, the teachings of Jesus have power, in and of themselves, because they are truth statements. This is no small distinction: Does a "teaching" have inherent power to set anybody free? Or is it the person of Jesus that sets people free? MacArthur's modernist approach to "truth" disconnects the person of Jesus from his teachings.

I contend that the pre-modern would have understood that the "truth" that sets people free as Jesus himself. In fact, later in the Gospel of John, Jesus indeed calls himself “the truth” (John 14:6). Jesus' teachings are not some objective truth devoid of the relational aspect of Jesus himself. Jesus' teachings do not exist in a vacuum. Without Emmanuel (God with us) conveying truth in person, the teachings cannot set people free.

This is where the confusion rests: MacArthur is upset that Emerging Church types are calling into question modernist conceptions of “truth.” MacArthur presumes that what this means is that the basis for faith, that is "truth" (the claims that Jesus is who he really is, did what he really did, and offers salvation to the world because of this), is being attacked.

This is a major misunderstanding by MacArthur. Just because we don’t buy the Enlightenment conception of “truth” does not mean that we deny a pre-Enlightenment conception of “truth.” MacArthur fears that those in the Emerging Church are completely rejecting the idea of “truth,” but this simply is not the case. What we are questioning is the modernist philosophical faith in knowing absolute truth as the basis of everything in life, especially things of faith.

For MacArthur, one must know truth in order to have faith. I would say that one must have faith in order to know truth.

The Entire Series:
1: John MacArthur’s Post-Enlightenment Philosophical Understanding of “Truth”
2: Is Rob Bell a Godless Man, Condemned by God?
3: Is Postmodernism Primarily Concerned with Truth?
4: Straw Men – The Emerging Church is Filled with Hard Postmodernists
5: MacArthur Fits His Own Criteria for an Apostate

technorati: emerging church, postmodernity, books

Akron/Canton Emergent Cohort Oct 12

October’s meeting of the Akron/Canton Emergent Cohort is going to be on the usual 2nd Friday of the month, which is the 12th.

The time is the same (8:00 PM) but the place has changed. We will meet at the Bennigan’s near Belden Village Mall (426 Dressler Rd NW, Canton, OH 44718 - see map).

Here is a blog post I wrote that we will be discussing:

Metanarrative Power-Grabs that Result in Violence

Akron/Canton Emergent Cohort blog

technorati: emerging church, missional, missional community, postmodernity

Ron Sider and Chris Seiple - a Better Approach to the Israel/Palestine Issue

I posted last month about how Dispensationalism and the rest of evangelicalism differ on the Israeli/Palestinian Controversy.

CNN has reported on this issue. See it here.




technorati: social action, politics

Modern Apologetics: For Outreach or for Christian Edification?

When I first came to faith in Jesus Christ, one of the first books I read was C.S. Lewis’ classic book, Mere Christianity. Lewis became an instant hero. His clear, logically reasoned defense of the Christian faith helped ground me, helped me be confident that the leap of faith that I had just plunged into was not just dumb belief, but was also something that made sense. I was so grateful to Lewis.

In my first church experience, we talked a lot about the reasoned proofs for the faith. We quoted Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict; we bought books by Norman Geisler.

When I went to seminary, there was a department dedicated to the “Philosophy of Religion.” I had friends who majored in that, hoping to be the next Ravi Zacharias. Apologetics was a required course for my Master of Divinity, and I remember furiously taking notes in that class so that I could later equip people to defend their faith.

My first ministry was as a pastor for adult ministries in a church of about 600 people. I initiated a ministry to the college students in our church, recruiting some young men and women to lead worship and I preached a series called, “Prepared to Answer,” with messages that defended that God exists, why the Bible is inerrant, that Jesus was resurrected, that Darwinism is wrong, and how evil and a good God can be explained. In doing this series, I was reading deeply the heady writings of William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland. My thinking was that Christian college students needed to be “Prepared to Answer” since it is especially on secular college campuses that Christians had better be ready to make a defense for what they believe.

One of the worst feelings to have is to feel like an idiot. We fear that people will scoff at us who believe in Jesus Christ as if we have no brains. We want to prove them wrong. We want to know what we believe and why we believe it, as Paul Little instructs in his books. We want to show people, especially those who are in our educational institutions, that we can reason and debate with the best. Our faith is not idiotic. It is a “Reasonable Faith,” as William Lane Craig’s book calls it.

And my goal, as a pastor trying to equip Christians to do evangelism well in a secular world, was to help them have confidence that, in a world that demeaned Christians as unthinking people, they could have credible ways to defend the faith against the atheists who will inevitably attack them.

The problem was, most of us rarely meet anybody that we can actually use these arguments against.

What all these defenses of the faith actually accomplished, more than anything else, was to shore up our own belief system. We became assured that what we took on faith was not “just” something that people could believe based on faith, that people could also come to the reasoned conclusion that it was true.

It was almost as if having faith was not enough. Faith needed to be reasoned, it had to be able to be defended logically, or else it was invalid.

Faith without validation by way of reason was baseless, illogical, and therefore was open to the accusation of being downright stupid.

Why did we need reasoned arguments to ground our faith? It was because we were steeped in a modern cultural context.

Myron Penner writes,

"Modernity is often labeled as the Age of Science, or as the Age of Reason, but I would like to add one more moniker: Modernity is also the Age of Apologetics. In modernity, traditional forms of authority (viz. Church and State) are rejected and human reason is re-imagined as universal and objective so that it can fill the authority vacuum. In other words, it is to Reason (as universal and objective) that one must look in modernity for the authority and legitimacy of one’s beliefs and actions (and one must do it for oneself!)...

It is little wonder, then, that Christians found it necessary to take up the arms of modern rationality and defend themselves. In short, in response to the attacks on Christian belief from modern philosophy, modern evangelical Christians developed a “scientific” apologetic, modeled after the philosophical method and rigor of modern analytic philosophy, which attempted to establish the universal rationality of Christian belief using the same “objective” and “presuppositionless” premises required by modern empirical science." (A New Kind of Conversation)

technorati: emerging church, missional, missional community, postmodernity, spiritual formation, apologetics, evangelism

A "Commissioning Service" for everyone in every line of work

It is my contention that we need to get beyond the false secular/sacred dichotomy that is so prevalent in the church today. One glaring way we create this false dualism is in saying that pastors and missionaries are the ones "called" to ministry. This creates the presumption that all the rest of us are simply working at our jobs. And underlying that is the presumption is that those not in "full-time Christian vocation" are doing something less than spiritual. Maybe their main purpose is to make money so that they can financially support those with the high call of ministry. It is not often that somebody comes right out and says these things, but they are our presumptions.

And they are ridiculous.

Every Christian is in "full-time ministry," no matter what they are doing, no matter what it says on their business card, no matter if they punch a time clock or are on salary, no matter if they are doing technical work or people work, no matter if they are paid or a volunteer, no matter if they work for their boss or for their family as a housekeeper.

Every line of work, no matter what it is, is full-time ministry. Because every line of work needs to be transformed into a calling from God to fulfill the cultural mandate of Genesis 1 & 2. Our first command from God is to create culture - "to fill the earth and subdue it, to work it and take care of it" (see Gen 1:26-28; 2:15 below).

My proposal, then, is this: Instead of having "Commissioning Services" only for pastors and missionaries, local congregations should, on a very regular basis, offer commissioning services for every single Christian in the marketplace. Pastors need to see the workplace as the greatest opportunity for the gospel to shine, as Christians work to transform their workplaces and vocations into that which is reflective of God's Kingdom. Pastors talk a lot about "equipping the saints," and yet when was the last time a pastor visited the people he is shepherding at their workplaces, encouraging them to live out the gospel there, helping them to make the connection between Sunday and Monday?

Here, then, is a "Commissioning Service" that local churches can begin using on a regular basis to create a missional mindset toward vocation.

******

Commissioning Service

Opening Prayer

“Lord, Redeemer of all, we commit ourselves to the call to be your people, going into all the earth to proclaim that you are King of kings and Lord of lords, bringing harmony and flourishing back to your good creation. We do this for your glory, Amen.”

Scripture Reading

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule… So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground”...The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15)

Commissioning

Leader: As those who have committed to following Christ’s call on your lives, will you allow the expression of your personality and the exercise of your spiritual gifts and your natural talents to be directed and empowered for the glory of Jesus Christ as Lord?
Everyone: With God as our help, we will.
Leader: Will you obey the command of the cultural mandate to have dominion over the earth, to work it and take care of it, fulfilling your image-bearing ability to create from that which was created for God’s glory?
Everyone: With God as our help, we will.
Leader: Will you be used by God to transform your vocation so that it reflects God’s Kingdom values in its service to humanity and in its role of cultivating the world’s resources?
Everyone: With God as our help, we will.
Leader: Will you encourage one another toward seeing your work as more than “a job” or “a paycheck,” but as the very means by which God is redeeming the world through His people?
Everyone: With God as our help, we will.
Leader: Will you always give yourselves fully to your work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain?
Everyone: With God as our help, we will.
Leader: Will you work six days and then take a Sabbath day’s rest, trusting in God’s provision and viewing work as part of the rhythm of a holistic life of worship, with no secular/sacred dichotomy?
Everyone: With God as our help, we will.
Leader: In whatever you do, will you work at it with all your heart, because you are actually working for the Lord, not just for human leaders?
Everyone: With God as our help, we will.

Scripture Reading

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1Corinthians 10:31)

Closing Prayer

Lord, we know that our work really, truly matters. All that we do for your glory will last and will be transformed by your purifying fire when we enter the new heavens and the new earth. Thank you for our calling. We want you to show us how you meant things to be, how things are fallen, and how you intend to transform them. And we want to know what you want us to do in our work lives so that we can be agents of your redemption of all things. Your kingdom come and will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven—especially in our vocations. We seek to glorify you in all that we do. Amen.


technorati: emerging church, missional, missional community, spiritual formation, faith and work

Labored Day

by Mike Metzger, The Clapham Institute
September 3, 2007

No Labor Days.
If you love Labor Day you might not enjoy heaven that much. But don't worry. Anyone can acquire a taste for eternity. The key is unpacking the origins of Labor Day, work and holidays. It also requires changing the way we imagine heaven.

Samuel Gompers is the man behind the inception of Labor Day. The Industrial Revolution of eighteenth century England and nineteenth century America forced thousands of farmers from working in fertile fields to filthy factories. They toiled in demeaning and dangerous conditions. English factory workers went so far as to describe this kind of work as a "job" – from the old English word meaning "criminal or demeaning activity." Robbing a bank is sometimes still called a "bank job."

Gompers led the American labor movement that demanded better working conditions. He organized an unpaid day off in September of 1892 for New York City union workers. With national elections on the horizon, Congress and the President sprung into action and Labor Day was signed into law in 1894. Gompers called it "the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed..."

When was the last time you discussed rights and wrongs on Labor Day? Uh huh. It's more about drinking than debate. That's partly because Gompers viewed work as toil. It wouldn't exist in a perfect world. Labor Day became more about getting away rather than getting more out of our work. And that's why some of us might not enjoy heaven that much. According to an ancient faith tradition, work is good and lasts forever.

In the ancient "four-chapter" gospel, work was designed in creation as good and enjoyable. That's Chapter One. But our default is to view work as toil or a job. That's because of Chapter Two – the Fall. When Adam disobeyed God, the Lord said, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life."¹ Toil is the same Hebrew word for "the pain of childbirth" that women suffer. Ouch. Chapter Three – redemption – tells us what we can do about today's toil. We can begin by returning to a dignified view of work rather than retreating from work altogether. Holidays are a good time to pursue this, since "holiday" comes from "holy day." Holidays are supposed to help us see our work and our rest as sacred.

Finally, a great many people are surprised to learn that those destined for eternity with God will work. Forever. This is Chapter Four – eternity. Of course, it's not the kind of work we imagine. It won't be toil or a job. There won't be office politics. It will not exhaust us. It'll be fun. Eternity's chefs will be better than Bobby Flay. Lawn maintenance workers will surpass Augusta's greens – and without the battle against crabgrass and chickweed. Transportation will be intergalactic yet not consume nonrenewable resources. Heaven, in other words, is more than harps. The "new heavens and new earth" will faintly resemble our earth (there might even be a new New York!). And those most qualified will become mayors and governors, yet not have to deal with crime and injustice. Remember, Jesus did say, "Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, be in authority over ten cities."²

Imagine this: Flight attendants will no longer be surly. Teachers will educate engaged and eager students (gasp). We'll still enjoy holiday breaks but they will be to appreciate and discuss good work. And to appreciate rest. Our work in eternity will no longer pollute the environment or eradicate animal species. In fact, we'll get along with all the animals.³ Isaiah looks forward to a time when violence and cruelty will vanish, even between the animals. Hosea's promise for what happens in eternity affects even the birds and animals and will ultimately abolish weapons of war.⁴

This is why if you love Labor Day – but see it only as an escape from your job – you might not enjoy heaven that much. "Heaven is an acquired taste," said C.S. Lewis.⁵ It means enjoying work… forever. The Labor Day holiday in eternity will help us get more out of our work. It won't resemble today's celebration where we're simply trying to get away.

If you've never heard of this view of work, start with the "four-chapter" gospel and imagine work as one of the most fantastic experiences in the universe. It's all part of an eternity that is unimaginably good: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."⁶ See if this whets your appetite for eternity and helps you acquire a taste for heaven.
_________________
1 Genesis 3:17-19
2 Luke 19:17
3 Isaiah 11:6-9
4 Hosea 2:18
5 Letters of C.S. Lewis, ed. W. H. Lewis (Harcourt Brace, 1966), p.164
6 I Corinthians 2:9

For more by Mike Metzger, go to the website for The Clapham Institute.








technorati: spiritual formation, Christian Worldview

Off to College? Here's Some Help

Here's some resources for those who are either entering into college for the first time, going back to college, or are trying to minister to those in college.

Christian + University = ?

How to Think Your Way Through College

by Brian J. Walsh

"...What happens when we take a Christian and add him or her to the secular university? We'll end up with at least four possible equations..."

Navigating the College Transition
by Derek Melleby with Susan Den Herder

"...The transition from high school to college is a difficult one. Yet it is a transition often overlooked. College-bound high school students are often told that their time in college will be the "best four years of their lives," but the reality can be quite different..."

Making the Most of College (Comment Magazine, 2006)

Making the Most of College (Comment Magazine, 2007)

a series of excellent articles from Comment Magazine. Highly Recommended!

Worldview Formation on the College Campus

by Dawn Buckley

technorati: emerging church, missional, spiritual formation, college, Christian Worldview

Comment's "Making the Most of College" 2007 Edition

The Work Research Foundation's Comment Magazine has just finished this year's installment of "Making the Most of College."

(see an index to last year's excellent articles here).

The articles in this year's volume:

Making the most of college: Preparing for leadership
by David T. Koyzis

Making the most of college: Learning with friends
by Esther Lightcap Meek

Making the most of college: Recovering the lost logic of church
by John Seel

Making the most of college: Finding your coffee community
by Bethany Warren

Making the most of college: The importance of dressing well
by Jeff Cavanaugh

Making the most of college sports: courts, diamonds & gridirons
by David Greusel

Making the most of college: Appreciating the arts
by Russ Kuykendall

Making the most of college: Business, balance, and learning to live
by David C. Bentall

Making the most of college: The off-campus investment
by Alissa Wilkinson



technorati: college, Christian worldview, spiritual formation, missional

Dispensationalism vs. the Rest of Evangelicalism on the Israeli/Palestinian Controversy

Dispensationalism is a theology that, among other things, believes that there are clear distinctions between Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament.

It holds that God has two distinct plans for the nation of Israel and for the church. God’s promises for Israel will be fulfilled through earthly blessings at a time in the future (in a "millennium" that is found in Revelation chapter 20 - interpreted as a literal 1,000 years when Christ will rule on earth).

God’s purpose for the church is different than that for Israel in that the church is promised to enjoy eternal life in heaven. Thus, before the final purposes for Israel begin to be fulfilled, the church will be raptured away from the world. So, contrary to the majority of Christians in the world and throughout history, Dispensationalists deny that the church is the “new Israel” or that all the Old Testament prophecies about Israel will be fulfilled in the church. They hold to the belief that these prophecies will yet be fulfilled literally in the ethnic nation of Israel.

I came to faith in a ministry heavily influenced by Dispensationalism. I still greatly admire a lot of Dispensational theologians (especially the progressive Dispensationalists like Darrell Bock, Robert Saucy, and Craig Blaising). Though I no longer hold to this theology, I have several friends whom I respect that do, so I am not here to bash this.

But there is one very disturbing consequence that flows from so many American Christians holding to dispensational theology: A seriously flawed political position on the contemporary nation of Israel.

John Hagee is one Christian leader that has taken Dispensationalism to its extreme conclusion: The advocacy of Christian Zionism. This radical form of Dispensationalism believes that Christians must support the nation of Israel against its enemies. Since Israel is God’s chosen nation, then Christians (and especially American Christians) must support Israel, no matter what. The most vocal in the Christian Zionist movement is the group Christians United for Israel. CUFI's main spokesman is Hagee, and among the board members are Gary Bauer and Rod Parsley.

To quote Hagee on the Christians United for Israel website,

“Why do Christians support Israel? Truth is not what I say it is. Truth is not what you think it is. Truth is what the Torah says it is; there’s the Torah way and the wrong way. Genesis 12 and 3 says I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. We believe those blessings are very real and those judgments are very real. Where are the nations that have persecuted the Jewish people? Where is Pharaoh and his army? Where are the Babylonians? Where are the Greeks? Where is the Ottoman Empire? Where are the Romans? Where is that goose-stepping lunatic Adolf Hitler and his Nazi hoards? All are historic footnotes in the bone yard of human history. Where is Israel? Where are the Jewish people? They’re alive and well; they’re thriving; they’re prospering; they’re growing - even on a day of adversity they’re still going forward. Where is Israel? Where are those who are scattered throughout the Diaspora? The mighty right hand of God has gathered them from the nations of the world and Israel was miraculously born May 15, 1948. Israel lives! Shout it from the housetop - Israel lives! Let every Islamic terrorist group hear it - Israel lives! Let every tinhorn dictator in the Middle East hear it - Israel lives! Let it be heard in the halls of the UN - Israel lives! Let it echo down the marble halls of the Presidential Palace in Iran - Israel lives! Let it ring in the terrorist camps of Osama Bin Laden - Israel lives! Israel lives! Israel lives!”

However, Hagee’s theology opposes that of a large portion of American Evangelical Christianity. A few weeks ago, a letter was written and signed by thirty-four top evangelical leaders and sent to President Bush. It stated that, in spite of the efforts of Christian Zionists to promote their viewpoint as the only evangelical or biblical stand on the issue of Israel/Palestine, very many evangelicals are in favor of a two-state solution.

“We...write to correct a serious misperception among some people including some U.S. policymakers that all American evangelicals are opposed to a two-state solution and creation of a new Palestinian state that includes the vast majority of the West Bank. Nothing could be further from the truth. We, who sign this letter, represent large numbers of evangelicals throughout the U.S. who support justice for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

The letter states that these Christians are willing to hold Israel accountable for acts of injustice toward the Palestinians.

“As evangelical Christians, we embrace the biblical promise to Abraham: ‘I will bless those who bless you.’ (Genesis 12:3). And precisely as evangelical Christians committed to the full teaching of the Scriptures, we know that blessing and loving people (including Jews and the present State of Israel) does not mean withholding criticism when it is warranted. Genuine love and genuine blessing means acting in ways that promote the genuine and long-term well being of our neighbors. Perhaps the best way we can bless Israel is to encourage her to remember, as she deals with her neighbor Palestinians, the profound teaching on justice that the Hebrew prophets proclaimed so forcefully as an inestimably precious gift to the whole world.”

And, contrary to the Christian Zionist claim that only Israel has the right to this portion of land in the middle east, the letter says,

“Historical honesty compels us to recognize that both Israelis and Palestinians have legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine. Both Israelis and Palestinians have committed violence and injustice against each other. The only way to bring the tragic cycle of violence to an end is for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a just, lasting agreement that guarantees both sides viable, independent, secure states. To achieve that goal, both sides must give up some of their competing, incompatible claims. Israelis and Palestinians must both accept each other’s right to exist.”

The New York Times reported that John Hagee responded to the letter with ridicule:

“Bible-believing evangelicals will scoff at that message…Christians United for Israel is opposed to America pressuring Israel to give up more land to anyone for any reason...The Palestinian people have never owned the land of Israel, never existed as an autonomous society. There is no Palestinian language. There is no Palestinian currency. And to say that Palestinians have a right to that land historically is an historical fraud.”

Among the signatories of the letter are:
Ronald J. Sider, President of Evangelicals for Social Action, Don Argue, President of Northwest University, Raymond J. Bakke, Chancellor of Bakke Graduate University, Gary M. Benedict, President of The Christian & Missionary Alliance, Gary M. Burge, Professor at Wheaton College & Graduate School, Leighton Ford, President of Leighton Ford Ministries, Vernon Grounds, Chancellor of Denver Seminary, Stephen Hayner, former President of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, David Neff, Editor of Christianity Today, Glenn R. Palmberg, President of the Evangelical Covenant Church, John Perkins, President of the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development, Leonard Rodgers, Executive Director for Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding, Jim Skillen, Executive Director of the Center for Public Justice, Glen Harold Stassen, Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, Richard Stearns, President of World Vision, Clyde D. Taylor, Former Chair of the Board for World Relief, Harold Vogelaar, Director for the Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice, and Berten Waggoner, National Director for the Vineyard USA.

You can join me by going to the website of Evangelicals for Social Action and adding your name of support to it, which will be sent to the White House.

To read more on the Christian Zionist movement, I have a section here at Vanguard Church on this issue, with several links to articles.

technorati: social action; theology, politics, justice

A Shrunken Gospel in an Individualistic, Self-Centered Society

Len Hjamarlson over at Next Reformation has an excellent post on why the gospel in the West is weak and ineffective.

He writes,

"We in the west shrunk the gospel in response to an increasingly individualistic, self-centered society. The good news of the kingdom went from a sweeping story of God’s mighty acts, His plan to reconcile all things to himself and restore creation, to personal life insurance...
...it reduces salvation to a spiritual exchange divorced from life in this world. It makes salvation and God irrelevant to daily life. In a world increasingly aware of the interconnection between all things, this sacred-secular split is nonsense...
...Rediscovering the nature of the gospel and the covenant God and His purpose in history is the only solution for our world, our only hope for some measure of justice, and the only possibility of peace, both inner and outer..."

Len quotes Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy a couple of times (including this priceless quote: "The gospel of sin management produces vampire Christians who want Jesus for his blood and little else."), and asks if our metaphor to describe Christ's work on the cross needs to shift away from penal substitution toward the metaphor of Christus Victor.


technorati: emerging church, missional, theology, atonement, evangelism

Forgiveness: The Way of Deliverance from Evil

This past weekend, my dad and I watched a speech from Archbishop Desmond Tutu that he had recorded.

Tutu was the chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created by Nelson Mandela’s Government of National Unity in 1995 to help South Africans come to terms with their unjust and violent past. It was established to investigate the violations that took place between 1960 and 1994, to provide support and recompense to victims and their families, and to compile a full and objective record of the effects of apartheid on South African society. It is a tremendous testimony to the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ that apartheid did not end in a bloodbath, but rather with reconciliation and forgiveness.

When Tutu speaks on forgiveness, he speaks from a deeply personal and practical application of this central Christian doctrine.

He writes,

“When I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person too. But the process of forgiveness also requires acknowledgement on the part of the perpetrator that they have committed an offense.”

Forgiveness and reconciliation are so central to the Christian message. According to Miroslav Volf, God summons us to repent, forgive and embrace those who have sinned against us. In order to do so, the evil and the evildoer must be named and confronted (what Volf calls “exclusion”). The “embrace” of the one who has deeply hurt us delivers us from the bondage of resentment, bitterness and hostility. Volf writes, “If you are ultimately after justice, you must ultimately be after embrace,” and, “Actions against injustice must be situated in the framework of the will to embrace the unjust.” (Exclusion and Embrace, Abingdon Press, 1996).

Desmond Tutu’s book is entitled, No Future Without Forgiveness (Image, 2000). Forgiveness is a central characteristic of the Christian message. As we live out this in the present, we testify to the promise of the future eschaton of God that is invading into our present circumstance. The Christian gospel is manifested in our willingness to embrace those who have wronged us (whether it is in one-on-one relations, in societal relations, or in international relations) by fully forgiving them of the evil that we have clearly identified as such.

Peace and justice are not found without the removal of the deep bitterness that naturally flows out of being a victim of evil, injustice, sin. We are free to love when we are freed from our hostility toward our enemies.

N.T. Wright says, “When we forgive someone we not only release them from the burden of our anger and its possible consequences; we release ourselves from the burden of whatever it was they had done to us, and from the crippled emotional state in which we shall go on living if we don’t forgive them instead of clinging to our anger and bitterness. Forgiveness, then…is a central part of deliverance from evil.” (Evil and the Justice of God, IVP, 2006)



technorati: emerging church, missional community, spiritual formation, social action, theology, politics, Shalom, justice

Understanding the New Perspective on Paul (by Scot McKnight)

This past month's cover story of Christianity Today was, "What Did Paul Really Mean? 'New perspective' scholars argue that we need, well, a new perspective on justification by faith" by Simon Gathercole.

It is a good overview of the main issues involved in the New Perspective theology from scholars like E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, and N.T. Wright.

Scot McKnight is another scholar in the New Perspective camp (having studied under Dunn). As an insider on the subject, he offers his perspective on the new perspective.

With Scot's blessing, the series is offered here at Vanguard Church as a pdf file.

Download it here: Understanding the New Perspective on Paul by Scot McKnight


technorati: theology

The Results are In…

…for the latest Vanguard Church poll.

This poll sheds some light on the types of Christians that read this blog. I asked you to finish this sentence:
“In order to reach those in a postmodern culture, the story of the gospel I tell is about...”

45.8% - KINGDOM: God’s Justice and Shalom restored to all Creation

41.7% - COMMUNITY: Relationships with God and others restored

37.5% - REDEMPTION: Called into God’s work of taking back the broken world

33.3% - NEW CREATION: Entering into God’s current re-creation of the cosmos

29.2% - RESTORATION: The image of God restored in humanity

25.0% - SALVATION/DELIVERANCE: Freed from our bondage to sin/evil/death

20.8% - LIFE: Born from above / born again - into a new, abundant, and eternal life

16.7% - JUSTIFICATION: Being right with God / wages of sin paid for by Christ

8.3% - ADOPTION: Chosen in love to be in God’s family

4.2% - HELLFIRE and DAMNATION: Turn or burn

In the Christian world in which I came to faith and in which I first pastored, the top answers would probably had been “LIFE,” “JUSTIFICATION,” and “ADOPTION.” But these three are at the bottom of the choices selected here. This is a fascinating thing to me.

The new poll is a little less serious.

technorati: postmodernity, emerging church, theology, evangelism

Motivational Posters for the Emerging Church

Phil Johnson over at TeamPyro posted some satirical graphics of what he calls "Motivational Posters for the Emerging Church Conversation Chaos." Phil, with great satirical wit, has issued a very creative way to criticize us. I found some of the posters quite good and spot-on. Others, not so much.

Here's a few of them:


The author of the Emerging Grace blog has posted some of her own motivational posters in response, she calls them "A More Generous View."

Here are a few of these excellent posters:






HT: Steve Knight, Emergent Village Weblog

technorati: emerging church