Why it still matters to engage sad, silly men like Tony Jones

It would be easy to just let Tony Jones fade away into the sunset of ever degenerating evangelicalism. Tony has proved time and again to be nothing more than a less intelligent incarnation of 19th century theological liberalism. There really is nothing substantively new in Tony Jones, Doug Pagget, Brian Maclaren, etc. They have come and will go like any fad. Unfortunately, however, because the heart of man is an idol factory, the tired liberalism of Jones and company will be resurrected in some other virulent messengers.

I still engage Tony Jones' writing and teaching because however silly he may be (and he is considerably silly), he nevertheless has influence. The fact that he does have influence tells us much about the current state of evangelicalism. Within the "big tent" of evangelicalism we no longer agree on such things as the nature of God, salvation, the cross, discipleship, and sexual ethics. The once promising movement called evangelicalism is defunct. The emperor has no clothes. The watchers on the wall fell asleep long ago.

In a recent post, Tony Jones sums up some of his thoughts on Christians and sexuality. You can read it here but I warn you: Jones traverses the heights of silliness only to arrive at the slough of the truly disgusting.

Interacting with the opinions of homosexual blogger Dan Savage, Jones writes:

Savage would never endorse pedophilia. He would, instead, say that pedophilia is the result that of a sexually repressed culture, one that lacks honesty. The ethic of honesty is what Savage calls for in his column, week after week telling his readers that if they’ve got a kink or a fetish, they should tell their partner about it. And, if you’ve picked smartly, your partner should be GGG: good, giving, and game.

Savage’s sexual ethic is primarily one of realism: human beings are animals who, until very recently, procreated like animals. It is evolutionarily dishonest to demand monogamy of a species predisposed against it. It’s not impossible to be monogamous, he says, but it is super difficult, and you’ll be more likely to succeed if your partner is GGG.

I don’t know if Savage’s ethic jibes with a biblical, Christian view of sexuality. But I do know a few things: 1) he’s a helluva lot more realistic about sex than most Christians I’ve talked to about sex; 2) based on my experience on this blog and at the Wild Goose Festival, a lot of Christians really want to talk about sexuality; and 3) many Christians are ready for our conversations about sexuality to expand beyond “what to do with the gays,” and instead have a more fully-orbed dialogue about sexuality and human identity. I also know that, for the first time in my life I’ve met Christians who are in “open” marriages or are practicing polyamory — and I’m committed that my theological/ethical response to them be both Christian and pragmatic/realistic.

Ah, yes, "honesty." Tony wants us to be honest about sexuality. It has taken Tony Jones to finally introduce honesty into the church's conversations on sexuality. Apparently a few days in the woods of North Caronlina can produce keen insights the likes of which the church has never known. I suppose believing, teaching, and struggling to be faithful to the Scriptures very clear teachings on human sexuality is not being "honest." Honesty is is more like, oh, I don't know, calling yourself a Christian and living in an "open marriage." How novel.

I suppose if one is an unrepentant adulterer, the idea that "open marriages," and "polyamory" are within the bounds of Christian realism and honesty could provide comfort and a salve for the conscience. But it is tragic when the house theologian of an influential emergent church advances the notion that sexual perversion is well within the bounds of a "biblical, Christian view of sexuality."

Update:
Mike Witmer and Denny Burk have both commented on Tony's latest post.

On not being "overtly Christian"

An Episcopal priest who describes herself as "left leaning" seems to have been right in the middle of the target audience for the recent Wild Goose Festival. Yet Catherine Caimano writes:

I was surprised that an event billed in part as a revival would have an almost pervasive timidity about mentioning Jesus and his central role in everything that was happening there. It was odd. Maybe our common discipleship was a given. Or maybe I was just at the wrong events or talking to the wrong people. Whatever the reason, I saw and heard little that was overtly Christian at this Christian gathering. I could just as easily have been at an Earth Day celebration or a political rally.

Now, Miss Caimano is not exactly a card carrying member of the religious right. She is a priest in one of the most liberal denominations in America. And yet even she was surprised by how little Jesus seemed to matter at the Emergent woodstock in North Carolina.

I was heartened to be with people who cared about such issues. But the longer I was there and the more people I talked with, the more I realized what was missing. It was the very reason that all these topics are important to Christians: Jesus.

I know that the resurrected Christ was present and that I was in the company of many faithful Christians. Yet despite all the good work that was in this place, I had a hard time finding and feeling the evangelical spirit of those whose work is discipleship. Whether I was listening to presenters or visiting with people or overhearing conversations around me, Jesus did not come up often.

Serious error from a silly gathering

If a group of hippies gather in the North Carolina woods do they make a sound? Well, thanks to twitter and blogging they do. They even caught the attention of The Economist.

About a week ago a group of people who are terribly sad they missed the 60's gathered to celebrate homosexuality, beer, tattoos, pagan rituals, bad art, and recycling, under the banner of The Wild Goose Festival.

I am not exactly sure why some of them still refer to themselves as Christian but I suppose old habits are hard to break. It even gave Frank Schaeffer another chance to denounce evangelicals and their love affair with that ancient mythical collection of writings some of us call "the Bible."

Anyway, when you get a chance check out The Economist's brief but accurate description of the disastrous little camp out in the woods.

Words escape me...

How do you parody a movement which has become a parody?

Spot On...

An Emergent Woodstock?

The Emergent movement is desperately trying to stay alive and relevant. Of course, in one sense they will always be with us for error and heresy have always been with the church. Next week a plethora of emergent leaders and former evangelicals will gather for a festival in North Carolina. The gathering is called The Wild Goose Festival.

Here is how the organizers describe the event:
“The Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. We are followers of Jesus creating a festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts. The festival is rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation.”

What a strange revision of both history and Christianity to say that it is part of the Christian tradition to embrace all religious beliefs and sexual practices.

The line-up of speakers will feature: Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, Tony Jones, Tony Campolo, Phyllis Tickle, Shane Claiborne, Frank Schaeffer, Lynn Hybels, and many more. Clearly, the message coming from the Wild Goose Festival will be confusing at best, heretical at worst. Among the errors of the emergent movement is the denial of the substitutionary atonement, the uniqueness of Christ, the necessity of faith, the doctrine of hell, etc. It is now characteristic of emergents to reject biblical sexual ethics as well. This is an important connection because sexual perversion tends to grow in the garden of theological liberalism.

Wild Goose Festival - June 23 - 26, 2011 - Shakori Hills Farm, NC from Wild Goose on Vimeo.

Al Mohler Responds to Brian McLaren

The other day Brian McLaren decided to point out Al Mohler's many errors in his critique of Rob Bell's Love Wins. It's the usual post-modern emergent fogginess. You know the routine. It's the, "We can't really know the Gospel so we can't really critique another person's version because it's only an interpretation anyway which makes your critique invalid but my critique of your critique is valid," sort of thing. In the end, McLaren's challenge to Mohler falls quickly under the weight of its own inconsistencies.

Helpfully, Mohler weighs in with a response to McLaren.

We do not know who God is by knowing what love is. We understand love by knowing who God is. But Brian McLaren seems quite ready to judge God by human standards of love and justice. In his most important book, A New Kind of Christianity, he rejects the Genesis account of God’s actions in the story of Noah, describing the story as “profoundly disturbing.” As he concluded, “In this light, a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship.” He responds to other texts in a similar way.

But God explicitly rejects such a human determination of his character. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord,” as the prophet Isaiah declared. [Isaiah 55:8] Instead, God defines his loving character like this: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [Romans 5:8]

McLaren’s rejection of the Noah account is based on his own view of the Bible — a truly radical view that, taken in full force, explains McLaren’s theological method and positions. He rejects the Bible as a “legal constitution” and proposes that it be seen as a “community library” that reveals an evolving human understanding of God — one in which some texts effectively nullify other texts.

He asserts that there can “be no new kind of Christian faith without a new approach to the Bible.” That statement is profoundly true, and it points to a central problem. McLaren’s new approach to the Bible is a straightforward and amazingly honest call to relativize passages that are deemed to be inferior or unacceptable. We should not wonder that he, like Bell, argues against the traditional doctrine of hell.

Read the entire article HERE.

These are important discussions because what is at stake is nothing less than the Gospel itself which the church has lost in the past and will again if not for the grace of God through the means of faithful men.

Athletes who likely are or are not emergent

Check THIS out from Ted Kluck.

A heretic by any other name (8)...

Mike Witmer next deals with questions 8 and 9 of Brian McLaren's new book:

8) “Can we find a better way of viewing the future?”

9) “How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?”

These two questions feed one another, and for time’s sake I will take them together. Brian’s “participatory eschatology” seems to be a version of postmillennialism. He criticizes postmillennialism for its “triumphalistic determinism” but thinks that the kingdom will ultimately “spread its influence gradually” as we labor on its behalf.

More interesting is Brian’s vision of the end, which he calls “un-doomed.” Unlike the traditional Christian view which asserts that God will determine the final destiny of the saved and the damned at the last judgment, Brian seems to hold to a universalism in which God’s grace does not relent until everyone ultimately is reconciled to him and to each other.

Brian says that the last judgment “is not merely retributive” but is “reconciling and restoring.” It “will not involve God…pulling down our pants to check for circumcision or scanning our brains for certain beliefs…. No, God will examine the story of our lives for signs of Christlikeness—for a cup of cold water or a plate of hot food given to one in need, for an atom of mercy shown to one who has been unkind or unthoughtful… These are the parts of a person’s life that will be deemed worthy of being saved, remembered, rewarded, and raised for a new beginning. All the unloving, unjust, non-Christlike parts of our lives…will be burned away, counted as unworthy, condemned (which means acknowledged for what they are), and forgotten forever.”

It’s not clear whether Brian sees the afterlife as a series of chances to repent until everyone comes around or whether everyone immediately endures a fiery judgment which burns away their bad stuff and preserves whatever remains. Either way, what’s left of us is ultimately reconciled, or perhaps absorbed into God (depending on whether Brian is a panentheist).

If everyone’s destiny is the same, then it follows that the last thing Brian thinks we should do is tell other religions that they are wrong. He says that we should not “insult other religions” by desiring that “all other religions would be abolished and only our own remain.” We must “learn to discover God in the other” in order to “discover a bigger ‘us,’ in which people of all faiths can be included.” Evangelism would then “cease to be a matter of saving souls from a bad ending” but instead “would invite people into lifelong spiritual formation as disciples of Jesus, in a community dedicated (as we’ve seen) to teaching the most excellent way of love, whatever the new disciple’s religious affiliation or lack thereof.” “This kind of evangelism would…[call] people to a way of life in a kingdom (or beautiful whole) that transcends and includes all religions.”

My initial thought is that it would be difficult to square this view with God’s command to Israel to destroy the idols of the false religions. Brian would probably respond that this is an immature OT God who is inferior to Jesus. But what about Jesus’ words in John 14:6? Brian knows that he must address this verse, and he spends seven pages telling us that this verse does not mean what we think. Apparently Jesus is not telling his disciples that he is the only way to the Father and everlasting life, but rather that none of them “can get to God or the kingdom of God on their own,” which is “not about the afterlife” but about how Jesus will live with them in a new way after his death. I’m sorry if that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I found Brian’s argument convoluted and at more than seven pages, working a little too hard to be taken seriously. Suffice to say that he thinks the traditional view of John 14:6 is a little too Greco and a little too Roman.

I think by now you can guess what I think of these chapters, so here’s an alternate experiment to try. Take Brian’s beliefs about the afterlife and other religions and see if they can make sense of the book of Acts. Look at what Paul said and did on his missionary journeys. Is it remotely plausible that Paul held anything like Brian’s views?

A heretic by any other name (7)...

In question seven of A New Kind of Christianity, Brian McLaren turns his attention to the issue of sexuality. Of course, by this time it should be no surprise that Brian approves of homosexuality and thinks it's high time the church made peace with homosexuality as well. After all, those bits of Scripture that clearly forbid and condemn homosexuality are among the homophobic, retrograde, and just plain untrue parts of the Bible (and Brian loves the Bible).

Mike Witmer sums up Brian's points:

1. Male and female is a dualism which goes back to Plato, so if you oppose homosexual practice you are being Platonic. In Brian’s words, you are endorsing “the Platonic dualisms in which maleness and femaleness are two absolute, eternal categories of being into which all people fit.”

I covered this in an earlier post (“Interlude”), but let me say again that not all dualisms are Platonic and not all dualisms are wrong. Brian’s argument is also strange from a historical perspective, as Plato himself might have been gay. Plato said that you might remember the form of beauty when you look at a naked boy—an unfortunate statement which would have landed Plato on my state’s sex offender list.

2. Our experience should trump the authority of Scripture. He writes that “If a Christian today experiences gay friends, neighbors, colleagues, or relatives as healthy, sincere, and morally equal” then we must not “marginalize and discredit this experience” just because we think the Bible tells us “that they are rebellious and dangerous sinners, a twisted abomination, a…moral aberrance.”

Here I would appeal to Luther’s theology of the cross, which aptly reminds us to allow the Word of God to interpret what we see rather than the other way around. Brian is reading his Bible and experience from the wrong direction.

3. It is unchristian to say that homosexual practice is wrong for then we are condemning gays “simply for being who they are.”

I address this in chapter 5 of Don’t Stop Believing, so I’ll just say here that we must not allow homosexuals to define themselves by their homosexuality. They are essentially the image of God, not gay. We are actually defending who they are when we say that homosexual practice is not how an image bearer of God should behave. This may be difficult for some to hear, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t humbly and lovingly say it.

4. Brian says that “God demonstrates supreme solidarity…with the ones who are rejected and excluded…with the ones who are humiliated and shamed.” So we who “cast the first stone at the ‘sexually other’” are throwing rocks at God. Got it?

5. Biblically, if God accepted the Ethiopian eunuch (a marginalized sexual other) then we can expect God to be okay with other forms of sexual otherness, including homosexual practice.

Observe that Brian conflates loving a person and accepting what they do, as if bringing the gospel to a eunuch or homosexual connotes acceptance of a homosexual lifestyle. He also equates being a eunuch, which is a non-moral issue, with homosexual practice, which is a decidedly moral one.

6. Rather than criticize homosexual practice we should be thanking gay people, for “By coming out of the closet regarding their homosexuality, gay folks may help the rest of us come out of the closet regarding our sexuality” (emphasis his).

Read the entire post HERE.

A heretic by any other name (6)...

"What do we do about the church?" That is the sixth question Brian McLaren deals with in his new book. Of course now that Brian has rejected the authority and reliability of Scripture, the biblical vision of God, the doctrines of sin and the atonement, and has redefined the gospel it leaves one wondering why he is interested at all in the church. Nevertheless, he pushes on. Mike Witmer soldiers on as well in what has surely been an unpleasant task.

Brian’s shallow evaluation of our problem (no Fall, original sin, total depravity, or hell) produces a shallow understanding of salvation (love as much as you can and let God’s judgment burn your bad stuff away) which produces a shallow view of the church (it exists merely to stop people from wasting their lives).

But we already have that job covered. Several institutions already exist to stop people from wasting their lives. Colleges prepare people for life, the Army challenges them to “Be all they can be,” and the Peace Corps provides an outlet to serve others. So given Brian’s description of the church’s mission, why do we even need it? Hasn’t his quest to make the church relevant merely succeeded in making it redundant?

Tim Challies has written a review of A New Kind of Christianity and he pulls no punches. Tim is a nice guy but he recognizes that McLaren's reckless deconstruction of biblical faith combined with his unfortunate influence among evangelicals deserves a strong response.

The arrogance of it all is stunning. McLaren is angrier than he has been before and more scornful. Still, though, he presents his ideas coated with the veneer of a false humility. But, handily, he builds into the book the means he will use to answer his critics. He will simply accuse his detractors of having this old Greco-Roman understanding of the faith. We poor fundamentalists cannot be among the new kind of Christian until we have been enlightened to understand the Bible through an entirely new narrative structure. Only then will this all become clear. Until then, more to be pitied are we than any men.

Here, in A New Kind of Christianity it’s as if McLaren is screaming “I hate God!” at the top of his lungs. And swarms of Christians are looking at him with admiration and saying, “See how that guy loves God?” I don’t know what McLaren could do to make the situation more clear. In fact, his book is nearly indistinguishable from many of the de-conversion narratives that are all the rage today. Compare it with Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem and you’ll see many of the same arguments and the same misgivings; you’ll find, though, that Ehrman is at least more honest. He at least has the integrity to walk away from faith altogether rather than reinventing God in his own image.

McLaren says he would prefer atheism over belief in the God so many of us see in Scripture. Well, he is not far off. This new kind of Extreme Makeover: God Edition Christianity is no Christianity at all. It is not a faith made in the image of Jesus Christ, but a faith made in the image of a man who despises God and who is hell-bent on dragging others along with him as he becomes his own god.

A Heretic by any other name (5)...

In his continuing review and interaction with Brian McLaren's new book Mike Witmer addresses the fifth of McLaren's questions: "What is the Gospel?" Since Brian rejects the biblical doctrines of the fall and sin he is also doomed to distort the gospel which he does with breathtaking hubris.

The gospel, according to McLaren, is not the announcement of salvation through Jesus' atoning work (McLaren rejects the doctrine of the atonement). Instead the gospel, so says McLaren, is a new way of life; a life of love. Well, I certainly will not argue that the Gospel, properly believed and apprehended by faith will lead to love for God and neighbor. But what Brian does is what theological liberals have always done. He abandons the substance of the gospel for the fruits of the gospel. In other words he denies what the gospel is and replaces it with one aspect of what the gospel produces within those who believe - a life of love.

Witmer addresses this issue in two posts (Here and Here).

In this section Brian reveals how liberalism grows in orthodox churches. He says that at the beginning of their movement, he and his friends were “peace-loving people” who didn’t “want to needlessly upset anyone,” so they thought, ‘Maybe this new understanding can simply be added to what we already have, gradually, gently, so people won’t even notice…Maybe we can simply add this kingdom-of-God stuff as fine print on the bottom of our existing theological contracts…without upsetting anyone.”

Brian writes that “Many are still working with this hope, and I wish them luck”—which should be a wake-up call to us all. Brian says that for his part he can no longer pretend, for “the cat is out of the bag” and it’s time to be honest about his new Christianity and admit that it can’t be crammed into the traditional way the church has believed in God...

Here’s the lesson: the easiest time to stop liberal theology is before it flowers and gains a following. If we make room for liberal questions it won’t be long before we’ll be asked to tolerate liberal answers. The little bit of liberalism that we tolerate today will eventually grow to become the dominant view. At least that’s the plan, according to Brian. We’ve been warned.

Postscript: some have asked why my reviews of A New Kind of Christianity have been critical. Isn’t there something positive to say about it? That’s a bit like asking, “Otherwise, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” or “C’mon Paul, the Judaizers got something right, didn’t they?” (If you want to see negative, read Galatians 1, 1 Timothy 1, or anything in Jude).

Brian does rightly remind us to love each other, but this salient point is overwhelmed by his deconstruction of the Christian faith. As an evangelical elder statesman shared with me yesterday, “Brian fails every one of Machen’s tests.” This is my point in chapter 12 of Don’t Stop Believing, but you can see for yourself. Pick up a copy of Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, written in 1923, and you’ll see that what Brian is saying isn’t exactly new, and according to Machen, it isn’t even Christian.

A heretic by any other name (4)...

Brian McLaren's problem with the Bible (which he loves, by the way) is that so much of it is just plain wrong. Among the many things that the Bible gets wrong is what it says about God. Don't misunderstand. The Bible records some things about God that are true (i.e. the things Brian likes). But the Bible leads us seriously astray in much of what it declares. Thankfully, Brian McLaren is here to help us discern the difference.

From Mike Witmer:

Is God violent?

Brian begins this section by admitting that he has a big problem. It helped his new kind of Christianity to assert that the Bible is our cultural library rather than authoritative constitution, but he still has to wrestle with the fact that this library contains many bloody books. In Brian’s words, he needs a way to deal with the numerous “violent images, cruel images, [and] un-Christlike images” of God that are found in the Bible.

Most troubling is the God who appears in the Noah narrative. Brian complains that “a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship. How can you ask your children—or nonchurch colleagues and neighbors—to honor a deity so uncreative, overreactive, and utterly capricious regarding life?”

Brian solves his problem by misusing the concept of progressive revelation. Everyone recognizes that God reveals more of himself as the Scripture narrative progresses. In the Old Testament God told the Israelites that he was one (Deut. 6:4), and then at the incarnation and Pentecost he revealed that he was also two and then three. But note that God’s future revelation expands rather than contradicts what came before. New Testament Christians still believe that God is one, as much as any OT Jew, but they now confess that God’s oneness also makes room for three persons.

Conversely, Brian asserts that future “revelations” supplant and correct earlier passages of Scripture. So while he cannot “defend the view of God in the Noah story as morally acceptable, ethically satisfying, and theologically mature,” he concedes that this early, immature view of God was at least a step up from the stories of God told by other religions of its day.

I put the term “revelation” in quotation marks above because Brian seems to think that the God we find in Scripture is merely what humans at the time thought of him. He writes: “when we ask why God appears so violent in some passages of the Bible, we can suggest this hypothesis: if the human beings who produced those passages were violent and genocidal in their own development, they would naturally see God through the lens of their experience. The fact that those disturbing descriptions are found in the Bible doesn’t mean that we are stuck with them….”

Read the entire post HERE.

A heretic by any other name (3)...

Reading Brian McLaren is sort of like dealing with a sleight of hand artist. The problem for Brian is that he's not very good at it. As you read you can almost hear him saying, "Look at my left hand, not my right hand!" Straw men abound in his books. False choices are repeatedly insisted upon. For instance, Brian insists that the Bible is either a wonderful book (Brian loves the Bible you see) but merely a human product full of errors and contradictions (but that's what makes it so great!) OR the cold and dispassionate rule book of those mean 'ol fundamentalists. In Brian's world you have to pick one or the other.

More from Mike Witmer's review and interaction with Brian McLaren's new book:

How should the Bible be understood?

Martin Luther warned us not to destroy something good simply because it is abused. He said that some people worship the sun and moon, but we don’t “pull the sun and stars from the skies;” some people visit prostitutes, but we don’t “kill all the women;” and some people get drunk, but we don’t “pour out all the wine” (actually some of us Baptists do that one, but you get the point).

Destroying the good thing that is abused is precisely the mistake Brian makes on question two. He recklessly alleges that this list of atrocities—“slavery, anti-Semitism, colonialism, genocide, chauvinism, homophobia, environmental plunder, the Inquisition, witch burning, apartheid” was committed because Christians thought their authoritative Bible was telling them to do so. To the extent that this is true (e.g., slavery in America), the obvious solution is a more careful reading of Scripture. But Brian doesn’t consider this option. Instead, he asserts that the only way to stop such crimes against humanity is to stop reading the Bible as our constitution.

Brian smuggles two disparate terms into his definition of constitution, effectively confusing the issue for many readers.

1. He says that we misuse the Bible as a constitution when we read the Bible as a legal document without appropriate attention to genre. Paying attention to genre is simply good hermeneutics, and no one would disagree with him here. But that doesn’t prevent Brian from caricaturing the other side, asserting that reading the Bible as a constitution demands that we naively consider the speeches of Job’s misguided friends to be as much the Word of God as what God himself says in the book. If the Bible is a legal document, then every word in it—even the speeches of Satan—is equally what God wants us to believe. Brian says that “there isn’t an easy way out of this problem.” Actually there is. It’s called hermeneutics, and every seminary teaches it.

2. Perhaps Brian spends so much time on his hermeneutical red herring so his readers will not notice when he smuggles in what he’s really against. Brian says that we also treat the Bible as our constitution when we stand under it as our authority. Brian knows that this point will offend many of his readers, but if he can persuade us that reading the Bible as our authority also commits us to naively reading the Bible without attention to genre, then he may be able to convince many that the Bible is not our constitution.

The key to not being swept away by this sleight of hand is to realize that (1) and (2) are mutually exclusive. It’s easy to stand under the Bible as our authority (2) and still read biblical poetry differently than Paul’s epistles (1). All of us do it all of the time. Brian surely knows this, so I can only conclude that either he is being extraordinarily sloppy here or he is trying to trick us into rejecting the Bible as our authority.

After caricaturing the Bible as constitution, Brian goes on to give his solution: we must treat the Bible as a cultural library for Christians. Just as a library presents competing perspectives on perennial questions, so the books of the Bible present different answers to the big questions of life. We should not expect our Bible to be internally consistent, but should take its messy conversation as our cue to join its great debates. Even God, when he appears in the biblical text, does not give the final answer on anything, for doing so would oppressively “shut down any conversation.” Instead, the “God character” in the book of Job is “not the real God” but merely “a representation,” an “imagined God, the author’s best sense of God, the fictional character playing God for the sake of this dramatic work of art.”

Brian realizes that his view may open the door to moral relativism. He reassures us that it doesn’t, but he doesn’t even attempt to explain how. Indeed, I suspect that Brian’s reading of the Bible opens the door more widely to moral atrocities than the constitution view he blames. Which person is more likely to abuse the Bible to commit violence on others—someone who believes that the Bible is God’s Word which he must obey or someone who thinks that the Bible is a library where one can pick and choose which answers he likes and which ones he doesn’t? How exactly would Brian convince Hitler that God says genocide is wrong? Couldn’t Hitler respond that he was more into another book in the cultural library, thank you very much? Yes, I just played the Hitler card (this is a blog after all), but note that the card was dealt by Brian when he said that my view led people to commit genocide.

Brian’s naiveté or duplicity (it’s hard to tell which) is on display when he accuses people like me of being the “religious thought police” who defend our views because our jobs and reputations are at stake. I confess that I am a sinner whose motives are never entirely pure, but does Brian really think that he does not stand in danger of the very same thing? He has made a very nice living from his “new kind of Christianity,” and he stands to lose much if evangelical Christians conclude that his “third way” forward is actually a fast track back to liberalism.

It would be nice if Brian felt confident enough in his views to discuss their merits without resorting to ad hominem attacks. Writing that we may “politely notify the thought police that we don’t fear them anymore” may score points with some readers, but its “us vs. them” mentality simply poisons the conversation. Even his fictional God thinks he can do better.

A heretic by any other name (2)...

Mike Witmer continues to review and comment on Brian McLaren's latest book "A New Kind of Christianity." The discerning reader will understand that what McLaren is promoting is not a new kind of Christianity but an old kind of heresy.

He does not believe that there was a Fall (or original sin or total depravity or hell) but that what we have traditionally called the Fall is actually “a coming-of age story” which—wait for it—describes “the first stage of ascent as human beings progress from the life of hunter-gatherers to the life of agriculturalists and beyond.” I have quoted him verbatim so you know I am not making this up. I asked my Old Testament colleague where Brian may be getting this from, and he said that this sounds like modern Judaism (which doesn’t believe in a Fall or original sin), except that even it wouldn’t say that Genesis 3 represents a step up.

Brian says a lot of other things in Part 1, but as you can see, he is no longer having a Christian conversation. He prefers the Hebrew God Elohim over the Greco-Roman God Theos, for the former prefers the messiness of story and evolution while the latter is a “perfect—Platonic god” who “loves spirit, state, and being” and is “perfectly furious” with his fallen creation and just wants to smash it all to hell. Theos may be popular with the “fire-breathing preacher” (does anyone know anyone like this?), but he “is an idol, a damnable idol.” Brian writes that he would rather be an atheist than believe in the God that most of us think is found in the Bible.

Four other observations:
1. Brian seems to be offering a modern Jewish rather than Christian perspective on the opening chapters of Genesis. His flat-out denial of a Fall, original sin, and total depravity and his dismissal of Theos raises questions about his view of Paul, who clearly teaches the former in Romans 5, and the New Testament, which refers to God with the Greek term Theos.

2. Brian does not seem to believe that there was a first man and a first sin, but that Genesis 3 is a myth which describes how the entire human race became farmers. This view fits with his acceptance of evolution, as most who embrace evolution find it hard to believe that there was a first man who rebelled in a cataclysmic Fall. I don’t know how the farmer bit fits, but it is funny.

3. The fourth question which Brian will address in this book is “Who is Jesus and why is he important?” Given that Brian doesn’t believe in a Fall, original sin, or hell, that is a very good question. I can’t wait to hear why God would come and die for a world that didn’t need his help.

4. Brian seems incapable of writing a book without taking repeated cheap shots at seminary education. He often reminds us that he missed out on seminary and is better for it, that he would not see what he sees in Scripture if he had gone to seminary. On that we agree.

Read the entire post HERE.

A heretic by any other name (1)...

I have had my fill of Brian McLaren. I have read his books up through "Generous Orthodoxy" which is neither orthodox or generous. But I am glad that others are still reading him with a clear eye so that those who have drunk from the bitter stream of error can know that there still is a voice for God's truth alive and well in the church.

Mike Witmer is reading McLaren's newest tome, "A New Kind of Christianity" (get it?). Not content to give us a new kind of Christian, McLaren now wants to reshape, re-imagine, and remake the whole thing. The church has always had hangers on like McLaren - Arius, Pelagius, Servetus, Finney, etc. Nevertheless, McLaren continues to promote the notion that somehow he is new. In reality McLaren and the rest of his emergent cohorts are as old as heresy itself.

I am going to be posting links to Dr. Witmer's series of posts reviewing McLaren's new book because it's important to not ignore the mischief of heretics. Jesus and the apostles had some very ungenerous words for those who spread error and confusion among the people of God.

In commenting on the introduction to "A New Kind of Christianity" Witmer writes:

I read the introductory three chapters of A New Kind of Christianity, and so far it’s an updated version of the Brian we’ve seen before. He claims to be “a mild mannered guy” who is only looking for a new way to be a Christian that will boost the declining numbers in our churches, and he can’t understand why his critics respond with “fear,” “clenched teeth,” and “suspicion and accusation.” Brian’s really good at winning sympathy, and soon I was loathing myself for ever politely disagreeing with such a nice man.

But then I remembered that this debate about the Christian faith—which he and his friends started—is not a personality contest. You can’t dismiss what Christians have always believed and then expect a free pass because you’re likeable. And just below the surface of Brian’s humble, can’t-we-all-just-get-along vibe is an accusatory tone that repeatedly compares his critics to a religious Gestapo whose leaders defend their conservative beliefs because they don’t want to lose their jobs.

That doesn’t sound like me. I am an easy-going guy who just wants to love Jesus. But to love Jesus, I have to know and believe something about him. Jesus is not an elastic symbol for whatever we happen to value (e.g., inclusive love), but is an actual person who can be known, trusted, and loved.

So why doesn’t Brian want me to know and believe the truth about Jesus? He says that his new kind of Christianity is led by Doug Pagitt, who isn’t sure that Jesus is God; Marcus Borg, who argues that Jesus is dead; and Harvey Cox, a Harvard Divinity professor who wants to blow the whole thing up and construct a new view of God that will connect with our secular age.

Read the entire post HERE.

More on Rob Bell's latest goof

Phil Johnson has weighed in on Rob Bell's notorious Boston Globe interview with characteristic straighforwardness.

One thing is clear: Bell himself is no true evangelical in any historic sense of the term. The Boston Globe's headline ("Bell aims to restore true meaning of 'evangelical'") is exactly backward. Bell has no agenda to "restore the true meaning" of the term evangelical, much less encourage a revival of true evangelical belief. In fact, Bell has made a career of attacking historic evangelical convictions—laying siege to the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the wrath of God against sin, the authority and perspicuity of Scripture, the necessity of the virgin birth, the coherence of the biblical testimony about the Resurrection, the exclusivity of Christ, and whatever other historic Christian doctrines Bell finds politically incorrect.

In fact, if you have the stomach to read the complete version of The Boston Globe
interview, don't miss Bell's arrogant skepticism about the sovereignty and omniscience of God: "For a lot of people, dominant questions center around, 'Why is this happening? Why me? Why now?' Unfortunately, the religious voice often enters into the discussion at an inappropriate time—'God just planned this.' Really? Your God planned this, not mine."

If any popular figure "in the evangelical movement" (or on its copious fringe) deserves the label "heretic," it is Rob Bell. The guardians of evangelical politeness don't like that kind of candor, but when a secular newspaper like The Boston Globe is publishing pieces implying that the best, most promising alternative to right-wing civil religion is a mish-mash of Open Theism and performance art—and that whatever "evangelicalism" is, it must be one or the other of those two abominations, it's time for people with historic evangelical convictions to speak up clearly and make the biblical message heard again.

Read the entire post HERE.

One expects Phil Johnson to speak with clarity on this issues as he has many times before. It gets a bit surprising when Scott McKnight expresses concern for the direction, not only of Rob Bell but of the emergent church in general. This is surprising because Scott McKnight has been famously in support of the emergent church movement. He has often defended the movement and its leaders against charges of heterodoxy. Nevetheless Dr. McKnight now seems to be understanding what many of us have been saying for serveral years now.

But what he said about "evangelical" is not enough, and it fits in with a trend, a rather flippant one, of folks thinking they can determine what an evangelical is or not. Before I get to the trend, a good definition.

To define "evangelical" we need to pay attention to those who have made it their life study to come to terms with this movement, and two scholars have done just that: Mark Noll in the USA and David Bebbington (The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon And Moody (History of Evangelicalism) ) in the UK. They agree on this: an evangelical is a Christian Protestant for whom the central ideas are the leading authority of Scripture, the necessity of personal conversion, the centrality of the death of Christ on the cross as a substitutionary atonement, and the importance of a life of active following Jesus, seen in such things as Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, and deeds of compassion and justice. That is the standard definition of evangelical. This definition summarizes those who care about getting this term accurate. It is not a definition designed to exclude some of whom they are worried. It's big tent definition, but it bears no ill-will toward others.

Now my observation today: I'm seeing a baffling desire by many who almost never talk about any of the above four ideas (as central to what they believe) but for some reason want to be called "evangelical." They make a point to say they are evangelical. To be committed to justice or compassion as the central pursuit in life does not make one an evangelical, though evangelicals should be committed to justice and to compassion -- and shame on those who aren't. But what makes an evangelical is a commitment to the above four ideas (Bible, conversion, cross, discipleship).

My question: Why do these folks want to be connected to the evangelicals?

It would have been helpful, I think, if Dr. McKnight would have come out and said who are the "many who almost never talk about any of the four ideas." They are the very ones he has defended. They are the very ones who have used him for theological cover. They are the emergents.

Rob Bell Finds Himself in the Weeds Again

This time Rob Bell is redefining "evangelical." And why not? He has already redefined "Gospel" to suit his preferences. Once you tinker around with the Gospel is anything sacred?

Bell was interviewed by Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe's online site.

In the interview Paulson asks Bell for a definition of evangelical. Now, that's a bit of a slippery term these days. The problem is not with the word but with the way it has come to be used. In the past few decades it has been defined so loosley that almost anyone with any affiliation with any Protestant church can claim to be evangelical. But as Lord Shaftsbury once said, "Evangelical. What does it mean? If everyone is one, then no one is."

Bell offers a quite exotic description of what it means to be evangelical:

I embrace the term evangelical, if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That’s a beautiful sort of thing.

I have no doubt that, for Bell, what he describes is a beautiful thing. It just has absolutely nothing to do with the evangel, the message of the cross. The term evangelical is taken from a Greek word for the Good News or the Gospel. Historically then evangelical has refered to a person or church that is committed to the message of Christ and Him crucified. But apparently that is too restrictive a message for the reverend Bell.

This is a window into Bell's thinking and theology. To be a Christian does not have much if anything to do with the cross. It has more to do with environmentalism than atonement. The Gospel is about what we do rather than what God has done in Christ Jesus. This of course is a terrible reversal. It is a neutering of the Gospel itself. What is left no longer resembles biblical Christianity so much as it does Buddhism, deism, and yes, even atheism. Bell preaches the religion of man; the religion of self-salvation whereby we are partners with God helping Him to make a better world. In this framework God is not much more than "man writ large."

Unfortunately the interview does not get any better. When Paulson says, "I’m struck by the fact that I don’t hear a lot of explicitly religious language, or mentions of Jesus, from you," Bell responds:

I think we have enough religious people who are going around trying to convert people. My guard is up when somebody is trying to convert me to their thing. Are you talking to me because you actually are interested in this subject, because you care about me as a human, or am I one more possible conversion that will make you feel good about your religiosity? I don’t have any embarrassment about my religion, and it’s not that I’m too cool, but I would hope that the Jesus message would come through, hopefully through a full humanity.

Of course Bell gets no points for not being embarrassed of his religion. What is embarrassing about helping God make the world a better place? The cross is embarrassing. Jesus dying in the place of sinners is the stumbling block. Bell's religion is what man always tends toward. He could announce his definition of evangelical in any cocktail party in Boston or New York and have no fear of anyone choking on their shrimp puff. That would only happen if he brought up a bloody cross and a Savior bearing the wrath of God for sinners.

What is more, since Bell makes clear that he is not seeking anyone's conversion he can be assured a place at the world's table for as long as he likes.

More on McLaren and Ramadan

From Denny Burk:

Commenting on McLaren's post...

This explanation is so filled with dangerous and damning error, it’s difficult to know where to begin. For starters, one cannot observe Ramadan as a “deeply committed” Christian. Fasting in the Christian tradition is irreducibly Christocentric. It involves praying to the Father of Christ (Mt 6:18) and longing for the return of Christ (Mt 9:15). The meaning and aim of the Muslim fast has nothing to do with Jesus. How can one observe Ramadan in any meaningful sense and do a Christian fast? The answer is that you can’t. If you try, you will end up distorting the Christian fast with syncretistic gobbledy-goop that is no longer recognizably Christian.

I would warn that McLaren is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but he has dropped the ruse. The wolf is prowling about openly.

Read the entire post HERE.

From Doug Wilson:

It is not as though McLaren just announced this, leaving us to figure out why. He 'splains it himself.

"Ramadan is the Muslim holy month of fasting for spiritual renewal and purification. It commemorates the month during which Muslims believe Mohammed received the Quran through divine revelation, and it calls Muslims to self-control, sacrificial generosity and solidarity with the poor, diligent reading of the Quran, and intensified prayer."

And all God's people say ohhhh, their voices trailing off at the end. Then their faces bunch up that funny way that faces have. And then a cluster of hands go up, and the looks on some faces indicate that this might turn into a town hall meeting or something.

"This year, I, along with a few Christian friends . . . will be joining Muslim friends in the fast which begins August 21. We are not doing so in order to become Muslims: we are deeply committed Christians. But as Christians, we want to come close to our Muslim neighbors and to share this important part of life with them."

That is, deeply committed Christians who believe that what matters is the deeply committed part, and not the object of the commitment. For, as we have just learned, being deeply committed to a diligent reading of false Scriptures, and intensified prayer to a false god, and sacrificial generosity as a means of ginning up some works righteousness around here, is something that deeply committed Christians can "come close" in order to "share." Sharing, that is, in the experience of getting all the fundamentals wrong. It is as though deeply committed adherents of the notion that the square of the hypotenuse was equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides decided to "come close" to those who thought that it wasn't even close to the sum of the square of the other two sides. But what the heck. What matters is being deeply committed to drawing what you think are triangles on a piece of paper. Is that not what really matters? We have pencils and papers in common. Come on, people. Don't you want to end wars?

"Just as Jesus, a devout Jew, overcame religious prejudice and learned from a Syrophonecian woman and was inspired by her faith two thousand years ago (Matthew 15:21 ff, Mark 7:24 ff), we seek to learn from our Muslim sisters and brothers today."

In other words, we learn from a woman who came to Jesus the lesson of why coming to Jesus is totally not necessary.

"Muslims observe Ramadan in the same basic way world-wide: they fast from food, water, sex, etc., from dawn to dusk. We Christians who are joining in the fast will share these four common commitments . . ."

The dot dot dot at the end of the quote means that it gets even riper.

"We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness. Each of us will have at least one Muslim friend who will serve as our partner in the fast. These friends welcome us in the same spirit of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness."

In exchange, each one of these Muslim friends will come over to our houses this Easter for our traditional Easter ham, the kind with the brown sugar glaze . . . oh, they won't come? Curious. Why not? Something about believing their religion . . .

Read the entire post HERE.

Brian McLaren Celebrates Ramadan

From Brian McLaren's blog:

We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness. Each of us will have at least one Muslim friend who will serve as our partner in the fast. These friends welcome us in the same spirit of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness.

We will seek to avoid being disrespectful or unfaithful to our own faith tradition in our desire to be respectful to the faith tradition of our friends. For example, since the Bible teaches us the importance of fasting and being generous to the poor, we can participate as Christians in fidelity to the Bible as our Muslim friends do so in fidelity to the Quran.

Among the core values of Ramadan are self control, expressing kindness, and resolving conflicts. For this reason, if we are criticized or misunderstood by Christians, Muslims, or others for this endeavor, we will avoid defending ourselves or engaging in arguments. Instead, we will seek to explain ourselves humbly, simply, and briefly when necessary, connecting with empathy to the needs and feelings of others as we express our own.

Our main purpose for participating will be our own spiritual growth, health, learning, and maturity, but we also hope that our experience will inspire others to pray and work for peace and the common good, together with people of other faith traditions.

May God bless all people, and teach us to love God and love one another, and so fulfill our calling as human beings.

So what do you think? Is this syncretism, nice-ness, or just silly?