Scot McKnight has announced that he is the general editor of a new commentary series to be based on the NIV 2011 translation. The series “will focus on explaining the New Testament books in the context of the Bible’s Story and discerning how to ‘live the Story’ in our world today.” It sounds similar to what Zondervan did with the NIVAC series but will surely have a different structure.

Mike Bird mentions that Joel Willitts of North Park University will be authoring the Galatians volume. Willitts has only published a couple of articles on Galatians, both dealing with the connection between the OT and Galatians:

Willitts, Joel. “Context Matters: Paul’s Use of Leviticus 18:5 in Galatians 3:12.” Tyndale Bulletin. 54:2 (2003): 105-122.

Willitts, Joel. “Isa 54,1 in Gal 4,24b–27: Reading Genesis in Light of Isaiah.” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche. 96:3/4 (2005): 188-210.

My father-in-law is a beekeeper, and not that long ago I was forced at gunpoint to help round up honey from billions of seriously angry insects.  As fun as this sounds ( and getting stung is the FUN part ), I also had the opportunity to talk with a few of the “younger” church folk who where also in his employ.

When you’re around me, the subject is going to go one of three ways…politics, religion, and pop-culture.  That’s why I go solo most of the time!

So we talked about the Emergent church.  What it is and what it’s becoming.

I also talked with people in my own church who are/were associated with the movement.  Putting the two together, I’m starting to get a foretaste of what is surely to come:

The emergent church is dying.

To illustrate, think of a young, idealistic University student who goes out and votes NDP ( or Democrat ), is politically active and wants to tax the rich imperialistic fat-cats.  Time passes. They graduate, get a job, vote Conservative/Republican, buy a Dodge Caravan and bitch about their taxes.

So it is with the Emergent movement.  What is killing it is simple…it is maturity.

Sitting in coffee shops reading poetry, meditating on the “face of Jesus”, and having theology more watered down than American beer will only keep you going so long.  Idealism rocks when you’re young.  It totally sucks as an adult.  Emergent ideology runs contrary to basic logic and is becoming just another damn headache nobody needs.  While absolutes are toxic to a younger mind, they are the only reason we old late 30-ish farts get up in the morning.

More and more, people who used to be gung-ho for the movement would now rather not talk about it in much the same way some guy would like to forget that the pretty girl at the bar he was winking at was actually a dude.  Flirting with a counterfeit has no payoff.  Like the 60’s movement, it’s all coming to nothing.

So what next?  The post-emergent movement is beginning to look much like the evangelical Christians they took up positions against.  Growing up, having kids and a job will do that to you.  Sure, we play more overdrive guitars in church now ( I’m hip with that jive.  That’s what the kids say right?  Totally dope. Word up. ), but the theology is coming home to a well balanced and rooted doctrine based on the Bible, not subjective experience.

The 15 minutes of fame of Brian McLaren, Scot McKnight, Rob Bell, and countless other Emergent wagon-jumpers is just about over.  Whereas a few years ago a rallying cry of “Who’s with me?!” would get and stadium of cheers, it won’t be long before all that is heard are the sounds of crickets to the backdrop of a rolling tumbleweed.  The theology-de-jour of the emergent movement has paved the path to its own demise.

The prodigal son is returning home.

Thanks to http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/posters.htm for the Emergent motivational posters!

What we are looking for in reading the Bible is the ability to turn the two-dimensional words on paper into a three-dimensional encounter with God, so that the text takes on life and meaning and depth and perspective and gives us direction for what to do today.

- Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking how you read the Bible, Zondervan, Grand rapids, MI, 2008, pp.41-42

This is from a post on Scot McKnight’s blog that can be found originally here.  My only question is whether or not enough emphasis is placed on the value of teaching from those that are capable of doing so. I agree that the church would be better off if more people tried to live a life that emulated what Christ taught, however if no one is their to teach and guide people towards that life, can it happen?

 

 

What is most needed is a complete spiritual formation approach to the entire church and for each person; outcomes need to be formulated by the leaders and the church so that the whole approach is embraced. Within the overall approach to realizing outcomes, which I would say are loving God, loving others and a life of holiness, sermons play a role and sometimes an important one. But serious formative changes occur when the individual and the group participate in, activate, and integrate what is being taught. (By the way, that last sentence requires pages of discussion.) And these formative changes take place within a set of outcomes. And, perhaps most importantly, they take place with spiritual directors, pastors, teachers and friends who come alongside to help a person.

The biggest issue here is not preaching; the biggest issue is the weight given to preaching in the overall mission of the local church. Emphasizing the weight of preaching is the Third Way.

 

All of this, of course, within the parameters of the work of God’s Spirit through Word and Eucharist, which means respect for the Great Tradition of the Church. There is no Third Way preaching until we get beyond the Sunday morning service as the primary form of education and formation in the church.

Tim Keller, pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York and author of many outstanding books such as The Prodigal God and The Reason for God, has just published a new book entitled Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters.

Keller is one of the pastors I respect the most for approaching crucial life and cultural issues from a deeply biblical and intellectual basis, and communicating them in ways that are widely relevant.

Listen to Tim Keller talk about his new book via the embedded video below.

You can also read some of Scot McKnight’s early comments on the book here.

Noted Prof. and blogger Scot McKnight just posted the following @ his Jesus Creed blog, which is an actual spin-off of In Defense of Virtual Church:

1. 18 Questions for a Church Planters Soul (from Acts 29). Great thoughts as the busyness of church can often eclipse our souls.
2. Tony Morgan on Ministry is messy. This is the beauty and heartache of church. Real life.
3. Barna’s latest study on generational perspectives of the Bible.
4. C.J. Mahaney on What precisely is the gospel?
5. How staff and leaders can set volunteers up for success.
6. Scot McKnight on OMG and taking the Lord’s name in vain. Is it still a sin if you abbreviate it?

I was happy to read this comment from Scot McKnight at Jesus’ Creed this morning, “This weekend I attended a conference at Lipscomb University on Reclaiming the Imagination and the focus was on Wisdom, wisdom literature in the Bible, and preaching. It was the best conference I’ve attended ever.”

That is quite a statement from a world renowned New Testament scholar who has been to and presented at numerous conferences around the country and beyond. I am very glad to hear this in reference to one of our Christian colleges from a Restoration Movement background. Read more of Scot’s comments on the conference here.

In my last sermon at Brooklife on 1 Corinthians 12 about the body of Christ and each members’ place in it, I mentioned what is in my opinion the best book on the church and true Christian community.

That book is Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian, professor, and author who resisted the Nazi regime during World War II. He paid for his resistance with his life at the age of 39 near the end of the war in 1945.

Scot McKnight, an excellent commentator on the faith, has recently written six reflections on Bonhoeffer on his blog that I think are insightful, as well as a helpful introduction to this great book.

If you have the interest and time, why not take a visit to his blog to read more here.

Happy Helloween! Next year forget the books and burn the heretics!

We are proud to state that Pastor Grizzard is an honorary graduate of ODMU!

If we ODM’s had a patron saint, Don Quixote would be the one. But because we ODM’s know everything that the Roman Catholic Church believes in and do is heretical we don’t have a patron saint. But if we had one it would be Saint Don Quixote.

To Don Quixote’s his truth is all that counted. If he saw a giant that had to be slayed he charged forth in almost holy anger to meet the windmill in battle. Reality and people trying to tell him about reality didn’t take away from his focus to valiantly fight the dangerous giants of his imagination.

Today we ODM’s have to face similar giants just as the brave Don Quixote did. We should never be swayed by the facts of reality so that we lose focus of our imaginarydangerous foes. People may question where we get our proof from about these giants but we don’t answer to nobody so we don’t have to tell them that we dreamed it all up.

In this tradition of imaginary giants one ODM stands out above the rest and therefor deserve the Don Quixote Award. The ODMafia is honoured to present this prestigious award to Discerning The World. The bravery and determination with which DTW storms the spiritual windmillsgiants of our time is truly inspiring. Posts like this one* raises the bar of tenacity to stick to an argument no matter if the facts show otherwise. This is a great example of how links should be made where none exist and DTW is an expert in this field.

We congratulate DTW and encourage all ODM’s to follow this excellent example of following Don Quixote’s footsteps. Let us charge forth in ignorance!

*NOTE: In another ODM tradition I have not read this piece fully and just assumed it said what I think it says by scanning through and pick what I want to say it means what I say it means. I am never wrong so I am right in my assessment of the piece.

Will FarelXV
Fighting for the Truth

Hat tip to Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog for this little “food for thought” nugget.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” This injunction is mentioned once in the Old Testament (Lev. 19:18) and seven times in the New Testament (Matt. 19:19, 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8) It is the core Christian ethic for relating to others.

The thing about these New Testament references is that love for others is intrinsically related to love for God. In fact, Jesus can’t seem to separate the two, at least not in the way we sometimes would like. It seems there is no place in the Gospel of Jesus for a love for God that does not manifest itself in love for neighbor.

I read a Dorothy Day quote in Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace? that has always stuck with me. She said, “You really only love God as much as you love the person you love the least.” I hope that isn’t true.

But I think it might be.

Love your neighbor.

Have you ever been asked this question? Have you ever asked it? I have. Here is a great post from Scot Mcknight’s Jesus Creed that really gets to the point of application of Scripture.

The Dark Side of Bible Reading

I was thrilled to receive this book in the mail from Zondervan.

As a Christian, I am always looking for method’s of Bible Study that work.  Needless, to say in the past I’ve tried many only too soon to realize that they were not for me.  They were more of a legalistic ritual used to check off my to do list.  I didn’t know anymore about God and His Word than before I started.

The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight is a breath of fresh air when it comes to Bible Study.  His method is for anyone from a beginner to a seasoned Bible scholar.  Scot’s writing style is easy to understand and very easy to implement without feeling as if you are following a set of instructions.

After reading The Blue Parakeet and practicing the method shared in the book, I have found God’s Word to be a fount of words that touch my heart and soul.  I actually for the first time in 10 years of reading God’s Word, hunger and thirst to search its pages.

I was amazed by the title, but you have to read the book to find out why Scot McKnight used the title The Blue Parakeet.  Which is part of the journey he takes you on each page.

The references and background are excellent researched.  They lead you on a search that hopefully will never end until we are with Jesus.  I love his writing style, I think I may read his other books.

So I can’t say enough about this book.  If you have struggled with the Bible and applying it to your life, this is just he book for you.

M

1. Nancy Ortberg on 3 steps to creating momentum where you are. Momentum is a leaders best friend, it takes time to create, it is easily lost, but it is so important in a church. You can tell when it is or is not there.
2. Perry Noble on Leading a team. A must read for all leaders.
3. Wayne Daley on Being a man of action and Having integrity.
4. Greg Despres on the Uniqueness of the Bible.
5. Mark Batterson on What success is. Everyone is trying to accomplish it, but how do you define it?
6. Bill Hybels on the state of the church.
7. Scot McKnight on Thoughts on a pastor’s schedule. This is a huge resource for leader’s in any organization, but specifically pastors.
8. Paul Ingram laid out what God has been doing at Revolution in the first year of life. Love what God is doing and that Paul and Jennifer are part of making that happen.
9. Ed Stetzer on Why missional churches don’t do global missions and how they can fix that. This is a very challenging article, it definitely clarifies the definition of missional.

I’m a great admirer of N.T. Wright.  For those who have only read his popular works, I’d cautiously recommend his scholarly stuff—particularly Jesus and the Victory of God and The Resurrection of the Son of God. Cautiously, because this is real scholarship, 800 pages with all the requisite footnotes and the detailed arguments that can make you cry, Uncle! It’s worth it, at least to me. These books have changed the way I read the Bible.

He is a brilliant mind, and (what is almost but not quite the same thing) an original mind. I was thinking of that when I saw the ads for his recent book Justification. For some time a small group of conservative Reformed pastors have had it in for Wright because he doesn’t follow classic reformed doctrine of the atonement. They’re very vocal and quite articulate, and of course they’re concerned about a very important theological matter.  I confess that I haven’t kept up on this debate, so I can’t pronounce on a winner. (I’m sure you’re disappointed.) What I like, though, is seeing such excitement over what seemed, until recently, a very sleepy subject. Suddenly there is fire on the blogs.

Best of all, the argument is fiercely scriptural.  Scott McKnight is quoted this way in the ads for Justification: “Tom Wright has out-Reformed America’s newest religious zealots—the neo-Reformed—by taking them back to Scripture and its meaning in its historical context. Wright reveals that the neo-Reformed are more committed to tradition than to the sacred text. This irony is palpable on every page of this… study.”

McKnight put it in a rather incendiary way, but he’s on to something. The neo-Reformed are committed to a tradition of scriptural interpretation. They’re sure it’s right and they read the Bible by looking through those lenses. And what drives them nuts is that Wright is as fiercely scriptural as they are. He doesn’t quote scholars, he quotes the Bible. He has a new way of reading Paul, and he defends it not on the basis of its usefulness or its responsiveness to modern needs, but on the basis of the Bible itself. He may be right or he may be wrong, but to argue with him you have to read those texts and think them through again.

That’s exactly what I have appreciated about his scholarly works. He has a way of looking at biblical texts with fresh eyes, of exposing the unexamined assumptions you bring to the them, and shining light on words that you have glossed over. At the very least, he’s a great stimulus to renewed Bible study.

By the way, there’s a good N.T. Wright website (http://www.ntwrightpage.com/#) that collects articles and interviews and media presentations. You could get lost in this stuff. Wright is amazingly prolific.

Which brings me to my favorite N.T. Wright story. I was interviewing him a few years back about his book Simply Christian. I asked him how he came to write it. He told me that several publishers had been urging him to write an updated version of Mere Christianity, more or less. He never could get to it. “And then Maggie [his wife] said, ‘Tom, I’ve booked the cottage for the week, and we’re just going to go up there and get it done.”

After a short pause I said, “Tom, you don’t mean to say you wrote Simply Christian in a week.”

He said, “All but the last two chapters.”

And I’m quite sure he thought that was the most ordinary thing in the world. I guess so, for him.

Review Part 1: Atonement.

Review, Part 2: Hell.

——–

Final thoughts.  The book’s been a big hit in the anti/emergent literature subcultures, leveling it to the category of “one of those books you should read just to be aware of what’s being said, if for no other reason.”  But people ask what I liked about the book. I actually do have such a list.

Pros and Cautions I found helpful for the emergent conversation:

-Be the action you say you believe. A lot of people on one side tell emergents they need to do more theology, while those on the other say “you’re just a bunch of young white guys talking theology.  Get out there and practice what you idealize.”  So while if you’re getting criticism from both sides then it often means you’re doing something right, take note: faith without works is dead.

-Don’t be a rebel, and don’t be arrogant.  Which is easy to be when you think you know more than everyone.  But then you’re brash and nobody will listen to you anyways.  There’s always something to tear down, but humility is the key to winning people.

-Don’t just be a new Left.  A common trend with emergents is having been raised in a conservative home and church (and as a voting block for a political party).  But going Left as a reaction to being right is just as lame as being Right because you think the left is foolish.  The church has long been in bed with the Republican party, but hopping into bed with the Democratic party just because you think you’ve seen the light that your parents or church were blind to is just as sinful.  To me, the drive should be to become post-Left/Right.  And be generous while you are being orthodox.

-It’s popular to search for God, but not so cool to find Him.  Mystery and philo/theological humility is huge, but mystery and ambiguity for there own sakes can lean toward sloppy theology or flat-out confusion.  Be careful not to take too much of a good thing.  And be ok with admitting that, yes, I actually am quite sure of a lot of theological positions which I tend to remain vague on because I fear the reaction from people. That’s something which I, because of flack I’ve taken in a couple of different church settings before, struggle with a lot.

Now for a few thoughts I scribbled down while reading, thoughts that I wished very much I could call up and talk to DeYoung and Kluck about:

- I’m still not sure why DeYoung and Kluck feel, as the title suggests, that they should have been emergents.  Is it because they are youngish and Christian?  Is that their take- that it’s purely a conversation of youngish idealists thinking out of youthful ignorance?  I can’t tell for sure, because they didn’t really explain the title all too well.  But if this view of emergents is, in fact, their characterization, then that could be very telling of the undergirding philosophy behind the book.

-Emergents don’t reject knowledge or real truth- that is while they generally read so prolifically. I think this is a lot easier to see than people make it.  Emergents genuinely are searching for truth, but they generally have a lot more informed perspective on the word Truth, largely because of the education they are packing behind those ears (and yes, it is true that the average emergent generally tends to be much more educated theologically than their average Evangelical counterpart, hence much of the disconnect).

-emergents don’t reject teaching or preaching- that’s why podcasting and reading and blogging have taken off and driven much of the conversation.  If they aren’t getting stretching teaching at home, they go home and subscribe to 20 pastors from around to globe to meet that need.  I’m what I like to call a podcast-whore, and learning from a global community of pastors, writers, and leaders has given enormous fuel to my spirituality.

-on Hell: it really, it isn’t a clear subject in scripture (hence the debate throughout the ages), so please don’t throw the heresy card just because someone knows enough to be uncertain.

-It’s not that “social action gets priority over the Gospel.”  Instead, emergents see social action as part of the Gospel.  If you care for the poor, you really aren’t leaving Jesus behind.

-“Emergents don’t care about theology,” is a bad way to confess “Actually, I’ve just never heard it put that way before.”

-When criticizing Emergent Village, please quit quoting Piper,  Driscoll, Al Mohler or D.A. Carson.  I don’t know what else to say; they just don’t get EV and show little desire to.  Quote Scott McKnight or others that are inside or show understanding of it.  Quoting Carson makes me instantly think “Oh, you mean that guy that’s never even talked to an emergent?”  Consulting with Mohler for perspectives on emergents is like consulting with Sarah Palin for advice on… newspapers.

-If your religion is all about dying well, you may be a gnostic.  It is very telling that DeYoung feels (p.120) that if your faith doesn’t get you into heaven, then it’s irrelevant.  I’m not saying this is an important question, but it is very telling when this is the primary lens by which you see the world of faith and philosophy.

-If you quote someone like McLaren, who uses profuse hyperbole throughout, don’t pretend like a two sentence quote actually communicates his belief on something.  In fact, don’t do that with anyone, ever.

-Thank you for parroting Driscoll’s slander that Emergent Village promotes sexual promiscuity.  I’m still not sure how that even started.

-DeYoung and Kluck seem in way over their heads with Peter Rollins.  I’ll admit, he can be a hard writer to grasp, but I got the feeling they were merely looking for things to criticize without even trying to understand.  He’s a big name, and not that much easier to read that the brilliant philosophy giants like Derrida and Levinas.  You really have to let the writing work on you, and be willing to read the same page five times over.  If you don’t get it at all, then better to leave it alone than to criticize in ignorance of his point.

-DeYoung mistakes a lack of heavy criticism of certain sins for “tolerance of sin.”  And, of course, he only seems to care about certain sins here.  You know the ones; they are always the same.

-My question: is Emergent just getting attacked because it’s becoming a big thing in the broader, global Christianity?  Would the Neo-Calvinist camp’s attacks be the same against another group if there was a resurgence of Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, the Coptic’s, etc.?  I suspect so.

-Do we usually attack theology in person the way we lash out at writers behind the safety of a book’s page? Why the difference in attack?  Because it looks easier to attack when you aren’t face-to-face.  Is any of this helpful?  Intellectual disagreement is a good thing that, quite honestly, this whole conversation needs more of.  But misrepresentation and slander only set emergents up for pain and ostrasization, furthering the “us” and “them” divide in a faith community.

-I think the strong artistic correlation with Emergent probably says something about who “gets it” and who is left saying “that’s stupid.”  You may simply just not have the type of mind that sees things this way.  Note>> I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it’s worth noting.  It really doesn’t surprise me that these two guys, given their background, don’t get into the philosophical rhetoric.  Not trying to be insulting, just honest. (Weak analogy alert) I don’t understand sports at all (no, I seriously could not name a single NFL team that Kluck spends all day writing about at ESPN; I just don’t care), but you won’t see me trying to pretend like I do and bring the hell-bound heresy charge against people who are really into it and think this team or that team is going all the way this year.  That would be beyond ridiculous, and that’s because it’s just imprudent to criticize what you don’t know or try to understand.  If only we applied that understanding to conversations that matter.

-DeYoung, when you say we should avoid ambiguity, that the Apostles we’re vague when giving answers, I think Good thing too, because if the Apostles had ever been vague, then there might be all sorts of different interpretations of Scripture out there.  Er… wait…

—–

For those of you who have asked for a recommended reading for an introduction to the emergent church conversation:

-For a fantastic introduction that may change your life, as well as a simple primer for what postmodern Christianity may look like:  A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren.

-For a very short synopsis of the broader, global Emergence we are seeing in Religion/Culture/Politics/Economics/Etc., read The Great Emergence, by Phyllis Tickle.

-For a history: The New Christians, by Tony Jones.

-For a postmodern philosophical and theological primer: How (Not) To Speak of God by Peter Rollins.

With the recent controversy over the NIV and TNIV translations (if you don’t know, don’t ask), Scot McKnight decided to match translations to types of Christians.

NRSV for liberals and Shane Claiborne lovers;
ESV for Reformed complementarian Baptists;
HCSB for LifeWay store buying Southern Baptists;
NIV for complementarian evangelicals;
TNIV for egalitarians;
NASB for those who want straight Bible, forget the English;
NLT for generic brand evangelicals;
Amplified for folks who have no idea what translation is but know that if you try enough words one of them will hit pay dirt;
NKJV and KJV for Byzantine manuscript-tree huggers;
The Message for evangelicals looking for a breath of fresh air and seeker sensitive, never-read-a-commentary evangelists who find Peterson’s prose so catchy.

What about the –

ASV (19th Century American Standard Version still used in some Churches of Christ)?

RSV?

The Living Bible?

The NETBible?

Phillips translation?

Others?

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself.” -Jesus

As fall stares tired youth pastors in the face, weary from summer trips and fun-in-the-sun adventures, we try to take a deep breath, grab a mini vacation before ramping up for another year of bringing the good news of Jesus and the realities of the Kingdom of God to our students. What keeps me going and fuels my ministry attempts is plain and simple: I really believe truth matters, eternal life is at stake and the world bombards our teens (and all of us) with many messages that lead us in the opposite direction of the “abundant life” found in a right relationship with the true and living Creator God. 

I am preparing to teach out of Paul’s Letter to the Romans this fall.  I will be focusing on some of the similarities between the ancient culture of pagan Rome that Paul is confronting with the message of the gospel and our own 21st century world growing rapidly more pagan and religiously pluralistic. 

The gospel confronts all rival truth claims. The gospel unmasks all attempts to create our own religion in our own image. But the gospel is being softened and twisted by the dominant philosophies of the day. Believers and unbelievers alike have been drinking deep from the waters of modernity and postmodernity. We are swimming in their ideals and interpreting the world through their ideas. Like the proverbial fish in the aquarium, we are so immersed in the water that we don’t see it — but rather we see everything else through it. 

Scot McKnight had a piece in Our Of Ur blog recently called “Self in a Castle: How Modernity and Postmodernity Have Conspired to Warp the Current Generation.” He describes one deep influence of our current postmodern landscape. He speaks of the toxicity of self-serving (and we might say “self-enslaving”) individualism and the elevation of self as the final authority on personal faith and belief. As you read this lengthy excerpt join with me in asking yourself how we (especially youth pastors) can speak the truth of the gospel in love to students who themselves are the most passionate believers (though often unknowingly) of this new kind of self-made faith in the gods of our own culturally-shaped images.  

Modernity’s singular contribution to the history of ideas is individualism. David Bentley Hart gets this exactly right in his new rant against the flimsy ideas in new atheism when he writes: “We live in an age whose chief value has been determined, by overwhelming consensus, to be the inviolable liberty of personal volition, the right to decide for ourselves what we shall believe, want, need, own, or serve” (Atheist Delusions, 21-22). That is, “it is choice itself, and not what we choose, that is the first good.” Personal freedom, which both Kolakowski and Hart understand far more profoundly than most, has become getting to do whatever I want, when I want, and how I want – and government’s job is to make sure it happens now. That’s, of course, an exaggeration, but it’s the exaggeration that is causing our problem in gospel work today. Perhaps the most important words in Hart’s lines above are “by overwhelming consensus.” The consensus is so overwhelming that the emerging generation – each of us – believes we can form our own religion. A religion of our own making, however, never leads to transcendence or worship of God or anything like the ancient Hebrews’ “fear of God.”

So, here we are. Staring at a unique cultural product: humans turned inward to invest sanctity in the Self and who have constructed a postmodern castle wall that informs that, because that Self is so sacred no one can violate your choice – you determine what to believe and what is right and wrong. The Self is protected the Wall of Individual Relative Choice.           

The tragedy of the “self in a castle” is that we are blind to it – blind to see it in ourselves every time we choose to think we are the most progressive and wisest of all generations, every time we fool ourselves into thinking we have achieved levels of love that we call tolerance, which is a vapid imitation of what genuine love is, and every time we think our moral struggles rival the profound struggles of an Athanasius or an Augustine, a Luther or a Calvin, a Bonhoeffer or a Martin Luther King, Jr.. 

The Self is so large because our walls are so high, blinding us from seeing the Morning Light. That Light is the Light of All Light.

How do our ministries come against the worship and service of Self?  How might we unfortunately contribute to this individualistic kind of thinking in our ministries?  How does Jesus’ command to “die to self” speak to this issue?  If you had to speak to teens about this issue this coming week, what main point(s) would you want to drive home?   

There’s a lot of material on the Internet about neo-Calvinism, much of it quite good. And we could go on for months talking about it. But it’s time to come to some conclusions.

You don’t have to be a Calvinist to agree with most of neo-Calvinism.

That’s me. In fact, it seems to me that neo-Calvinism fits more comfortably in a non-Calvinistic theology. You see, Calvinism presents a God who predestines most of the world to damnation, and neo-Calvinism presents a God who provides a good Creation and common grace to all people because he loves them and wants what’s best for them. I have trouble reconciling those two Gods.

Narrative theology is essential to a proper understanding of the Bible.

We covered the basics of narrative theology back in the Blue Parakeet series. Let me explain it a bit differently here. Those of us who grew up in the Churches of Christ were taught a dispensational theory of the Bible. God dealt with mankind in different ways, by different rules, at different times. Therefore, we were taught, the Old Testament has been repealed and we are “New Testament Christians.”

The Old Testament, therefore, has great stories that are good for children’s stories, and has valuable prophecies of the Messiah, but is otherwise a dead letter. We even have preachers who argue over whether the ministry of Jesus was part of the Mosaic or Christian dispensation and so whether the Gospels should be treated much the same as the works of Old Testament prophets.

However, while there certainly are differences between the times, this approach has hidden much more important commonalities — themes that run throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, leaving us woefully ignorant of the Old Testament and therefore clueless about much of the New Testament.

A proper hermeneutic studies the great themes of the Bible from beginning to end. We don’t “rightly divide” the word by throwing away the first 39 books! Rather, the goal is to recognize that it’s the same God throughout, working a common plan for his own purposes.

And one of these major themes is the Creation, Fall, and Redemption, that is, God’s work through Abraham, Israel, and the church to undo the damage done by the Fall in Genesis 3. And the Fall did more than damn humanity. It also adulterated the entirety of the Creation.

(Rom 8:19-23)  The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Paul’s language of the “firstfruits” of the Spirit means that the receipt of the Spirit is a first step toward being with God, just as Adam and Eve were. It’s a sign that we are returning to the Garden, because we see God with us through the Spirit.

Utter sovereignty

Kuyper’s famous line is –

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!”

Most in the Churches of Christ would agree with this — in the abstract. But in fact, like most evangelicals and fundamentalists, we don’t teach or act this way. For example, when the preacher or elders start talking about our giving, or our decisions to have children or not, or how many children to have, the church is quick to declare such decisions as “personal,” as though there might be some zone of privacy into which God cannot intrude.

In American political theory, we believe in limited government and checks and balances and separation of powers — which is fine for politics but has nothing to do with God. God made us, and actually has quite a lot to say about our money, our time, and even our sexuality and marriages.

(Psa 96:10-13)  Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.” The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity. 11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; 12 let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; 13 they will sing before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.

God reigns over the Creation, and over the people in it, in every way possible. This means that our understanding of God affects our thinking about the government, about business, about marriage and parenting, about sex, about education, about … everything.

And that means that a theology overly focused on ”spiritual” or “religious” things, such a worship and church organization, is woefully incomplete. Christianity is about much more than going to church and getting doctrine right. It’s also about changing the world –

(Psa 146:5-10)  Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, 6 the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them– the LORD, who remains faithful forever. 7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free, 8 the LORD gives sight to the blind, the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down, the LORD loves the righteous. 9 The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. 10 The LORD reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the LORD.

Christians are, by definition, Christ-like. That’s what the word means. And Christ is a part of God; he’s God the Son. Jesus is — and always has been — concerned with the planet, the oppressed, hungry, imprisoned, blind, the alien, the orphan, and the widow — and in opposing wickedness. God reigns, but not all knees bow to God.

When we are saved, we are not only promised a home with God, we become a part of Christ’s body on earth, charged with his mission to a fallen world.