The Emerging Church

I'm glad we agree. I never said there could be Christianity without right doctrine and I'm not sure what dichotomy I presented except that sometimes doctrine gets misplaced.

I agree that it is more evident in those churches but evangelical churches are not free from this mentality. Neither are ECs for that matter.

Agreed. I never said scripture was the problem, but our attitudes and heart towards it.

Then we are in agreement. Although this scripture does add an interesting dimension to that thought.

Agreed.

When we make statements like "Their solutions are not always biblical solutions", are we willing to dialogue and ask if they are biblical? Are we open to the possibility that we could be wrong and they could be biblical? Are we willing to explore scripture together to see whether something is biblical or not?

[ February 25, 2005, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Gold Dragon ]

 

El_Guero, it seems like we got off on the wrong foot here.

I don't want to argue with you over words. But I hope we can foster a Christ-like relationship and respectfully disagree once in a while as we journey together to discover what Christ has to say to us in his sacred scripture.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

 

The reason I can make that statement is because I have "dialogued" with them.

I have already addressed that.

Why do we need to explore it together?

 

I'm glad you have been open to dialogue. I'm sad that you feel the dialogue is over.

Maybe so we can learn from each other and follow the examples of the apostles and the early church in addition to Paul's instruction for how to deal with disagreements.

In the first major disagreement in the church, the different sides got together and listened to each other on the issues before Peter and James decided on the matter.

 

I don't feel the dialogue is over. As I said from the beginning, there are things we can learn from the EC. Unfortunately, their doctrine make it difficult to learn much.

Paul's answer for dealing with disagreements was measure them by the word, and separate and expose when they digress. That is necessasry for us to do with much of the EC movement.

And did so under direct revelation from God. We no longer have that. We settle disagreements by appealing to the Word.

 

I'm relieved to hear that. Sorry if I presumed too much.

What doctrine would that be? I thought most in opposition to EC would say they have no doctrine. And why does that make it difficult?

I'm not sure where the idea of separation is evident in this passage. But I do acknowledge that Paul advises to separate under certain specific situations in other passages. An interesting study would be to compare and contrast the passages talking about unity versus the passages talking about separation. Both their frequency and contexts.

I agree that we don't have Paul and James around and we do need to appeal to the bible. But I also recognize that he has also promised us his Helper, the Holy Spirit.

But there is nothing stopping us from having the dialogue and discussion aspect of the council of Jerusalem.

 

I said it on page 1

The lack of doctrine is a doctrine. But they do have doctrine. It is just abberant in many ways. For instance McClaren has undermined the doctrine of salvation in Christ alone. He has undermined the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. Many of them have a low view of Scripture. When you start with a low view of Scripture, it is hard to have a discussion about authority.

We have done that many times here. Rom 16:17-18 is a good starting point. Unity is always on teh basis of truth. There can be no unity without it. And that is why the unity between us and the EC movement is lacking. We do not hold the same view of truth. But in most cases, we don't have much opportunity for participation anyway.

 

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** accidental submit **

 

I would like to be made aware of these alleged abberrant doctrines if you have the time. Thanks.

I'm not sure what you mean by undermining the doctrine of salvation in Christ alone or undermining the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. It would be nice to hear where McLaren allegedly does this and have an opportunity to clarify if such clarification is needed. Thanks.

Also note that Brian McLaren's personal positions on any one particular issue does not speak for the whole emergent church movement.

I would suggest that when someone disagrees with us theologically, it is easy to suggest that they have a low view of scripture. When the reality may be that it is ourselves that has the low view of certain scriptures at the expense of other parts of scripture that others emphasize.

I understand your difficulty. Which is why I addressed the issue of authority right off the bat. I don't believe you will ever share the postmodern view of authority. But my purpose was to give a more complete representation of the general EC view of authority from what I have observed.

Agreed. But sometimes it is the "them" that has the truth and not the "us".

That should never stop us from having dialogue.

May the peace of Christ be with you, PL.

 

dialogue dialogue dialogue

You are hung up on that word.

Sad things is Larry has made it abundantly clear that he does dialogue with EC and will continue to do so.

Drop the "we need dialogue" line...we get it, and we all agree.

 

Oh, BTW...

Read his book "A Generous Orthodoxy", in there he clearly denies the exclusivity of the gospel.

That is at least one instance that illustrates Larry's point.

 

Read his book "A Generous Orthodoxy", in there he clearly denies the exclusivity of the gospel.

That is at least one instance that illustrates Larry's point. </font>[/QUOTE]Some quotes within their context would be nice, thanks. I've never read A Generous Orthodoxy but from reviews tha I've read, he looks at many different doctrines and sees how all of them have contributed to the story of Christianity.

As I have stated before, any particular views on a teaching that Brian McLaren holds does not speak for all of the EC.

I'll be sure to pick up A Generous Orthodoxy since I've heard many objections to it and I think it comes back to the postmodern view of authority that modernists reject or at least they reject their impression of it. Before I comment any further, I should either read the book or quotations from it.

 

Excellent! God bless you.

 

McClaren's comments in Sweet's "The Church in Emerging Culture" were troubling and Horton pointed this out. That was was pretty indicative of the overall weakness, IMO&gt; The EC is a pretty broad place as I have said and one person doesn't speak for them all. I don't have time to get in a deep conversation about it. I hope you will pardon me.

 

[/QUOTE]Read his book "A Generous Orthodoxy", in there he clearly denies the exclusivity of the gospel.

That is at least one instance that illustrates Larry's point. [/QB][/QUOTE]

So are we to say that the only way the God has, in the last 2000 years, connected with man is through the bible...that there have no other writings by anyone else that could've been inspired by God?

 

Yes that is correct and the fact that some in the emerging church movement (not you particularly) question it is a prima facie evidence of my point above.

Whether we like it or not, all opinions do not deserve a hearing. We should not equally consider every point that someone might make. Not all questions are good questions. Some of them are just plain stupid. (Again, not referring to this one. It can be a legitimate question, but must be answered biblically).

 

The canon is closed and no other writings have been inspired to the point of being acceptable for inclusion into that canon since the late AD 90s. (And yes I know the selection process dating and such but I still maintain that no book of the Bible was written outside of the first century.)

Does God inspire people to write things which will help other's lives? Sure, but the Holy Spirit has not empowered anyone to write documents of normative revelation for all of mankind which are inerrant and inspired to the point with those within the accepted canon of 66 books are.

Rick Warren, while led by God to write Purpose Driven Life, did not write a text worthy of canonicity...just an example

 

Jacob,

From what little I have read, it is a theology to worry about.

 

Was surprised to see separate section devoted only to EC is some metro baptist associations newsletter. Evidently, they must believe it's kosher!