Christian Forums

Quote from: marc on Sat Jun 12, 2010 - 20:54:52
I'm bumping this, although the first part is a bit out of order, because I get the idea that the emerging church idea has less sympathy on this board than it once die. I'm likely one of the few left who have emerging leanings, even though I'm a bit all-over-the-place on this. One result of the addition of the sub-boards, particularly the end times board, is that this board has become more fundamentalist.

What do you guys think?

Hi marc....well, my husband and I are going to a new emerging church and I love it at this point. I believe the thrust, at least in ours, is to be Christ to one another and to the world...what better? The Holy Spirit is there unlike I have sensed in years....yet, not in the charismatic way. The fruits of the Holy Spirit are already evident and the Pastor is fervant to pastor the flock.

One thing that I haven't seen, or at least in years, is he teaches how to love (in practical ways)...as he believes (I too) that Godly love is not natural to people, so we need to learn about biblical love so we can recognize what it is, in order to let it flow. He believes that Godly love has to be first and foremost...then everything is built on that.

Bless you...

Thanks.

I think it is deeper and gotten bigger than this thread tends to take it. To hear what I think about the emerging/Emerging/Emergent church, go to YouTube and listen to Mark Driscoll talk about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58fgkfS6E-0

Listen to John MacArthur on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH1yOmij7Q4

And listen to this panel on Brian McLaren: http://www.sbts.edu/resources/chapel/chapel-spring-2010/panel-discussion-a-new-kind-of-christianity-brian-mclaren-recasts-the-gospel/

I think the EC started with good questions but has taken their questions into convictions and doctrines that are harming the church.

Or even better....listen to Brian McLaren and other proponents themselves!

btw, Driscoll differentiates between emerging and Emergent. I did for a while, but everyone seems to use the words interchangeably.  If you're doing a theological survey, it won't make much of a difference, but if you're identifying Emergent as the organization with that name, that's another story. Having an organization automatically causes doctrines to be quantified and identified, something that is contrary to what I see as the heart of the movement.

Like I said, there are certain Emergent doctrines I disagree with, but I consider myself emerging/emergent in the general sense.

The church I am attending is considered an emerging church...and it is not a church of fluff...not at all. Our particular church is a pioneer church and the fruits of the Holy Spirit are evident and our heart is to be as Christ to the world. What I believe can be very damaging is to point fingers and to put down groups...as God takes churches and individuals within the body seperately.

We need to pray for God to do the setting apart, as only He knows the hearts of the people...

I see the emerging movement as a much-needed recalibration.  you know, after a couple of thousand years, you accumulate some excess baggage. you have to. Those who complain because people put these out are, for the most part, being made uncomfortable by what they hear--and i believe we all should be made uncomfortable from time to time.

Brian McClaren especially is pushing nothing more than good old fashioned liberal theology.  Most emergent theologians are taking off from the same tired starting point - reject the historicity and and the miracles of the Bible first - that Kung and Bultmann were pushing 50 - 70 years ago.  It's the theology that has practically reduced the mainline denominations to mere footnotes in church history.

Same old stuff, with a better marketing campaign and more hair product.

Have you read "The Secret Message of Jesus"?

Yeah - I read it after hearing him on Steve Brown's radio show a couple of years ago.

I was pretty disappointed with Brown's glowing recommendation after McClaren declared that the church had twisted what Jesus and Paul taught into a gospel of justification by grace through faith, the free gift of salvation, and had mistakenly taught that Christ was a substitutionary sacrifice for sin.

hmm. I liked Secret Message more than the other mcLaren books I've read. But then I have some tolerance of, though not agreement for, the non-penal atonement idea because the man who has influenced me more than just about anyone else to see who Jesus really is, Jim mcGuiggan, teaches something similar, and I trust his intellect and his relationship with Jesus to the point that i believe what he has studied out merits consideration.

otoh, I read through part of "The Last Word" in a bookstore and didn't buy it because i couldn't buy into McLaren's view of the Old Testament.

Well, I'm fully insert twist with the idea of penal, subsitutionary atonement... I alos had problems with Secret Message when he said that Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists would find their place at the feast at the end of the age.

Kinda gives new meaning to "by no other name."

My point about McClaren is that "emerge ing/ent" is a misnomer - maybe re-emerging would fit - because it's just old liberal theology from a fresh mouthpiece.

The rise of the Stone-Campbell Movement reverted back to the theology of Barton W. Stone which had been soundly repudiated by both the Disciples and the Churches of Christ.  One significant dogma which meant that there was never any connection after abougt 1849 even in joint meetings was Stones DENIAL of the Atonement.  This is where Lipscomb invites Stone to tell him why he should not be labeled as a HERETIC.

This is part of the new Lipscomb Dogma also promoting a broader role for women, premillennielism and instrumental music. John Mark Hicks has clearly articulates those as he attempts to rewrite Restoration History.

In 2008 Lipscomb fully associated with the emerging church and "spiritual formation" (witchraft)

http://www.piney.com/Lipscomb.Preaching.2008.html

Some of the "agents:

David Fleer
Walter Brueggemann: "those of us who think critically do not believe that the Old Testament was talking about Jesus, and yet we make the linkages.

Click for comments on Brian McLaren, pastor of the Cedar Ridge Community Church. Author of "Everything Must Change." He is the leader of the Emergent Church movement.   McLaren's first book, The Church on the Other Side is recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about postmodern ministry.  You may want watch him attack hell and Jesus' atonement--or maybe not
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOUfsX2fbk

Cleophus J. LaRue of Princeton Theological Seminary, a Missionary Baptist minister. He is the author of "This is My Story; Testimonies and Sermons of Black Women in Ministry."

Click for comments on Dennis Dewey, storyteller and minister of the Presbyterian Church USA.

http://www.piney.com/Lipscomb.Preaching.2008.html#Denni

Reclaiming the Imagination: The Exodus as a PATTERNISM for church organization and WORSHIP has long been a Rubel Shelly and John Mark Hick dogma: as usual, they all suck up the latest book for their "original stories"

The Exodus as Paradigmatic Narrative for Preaching

This conference proposes that WE allow the worlds imagined
        in the essential biblical narratives
        to dramatically shape our preaching and lives.

    We believe that preaching reconstitutes biblical paradigms when it engages Scripture's vision

       1. by REpresenting what is absent
       2. and making present what is inaccessible
       3. to the end that followers of God will live into a God-shaped reality.

Bible readers keep wondering where PREACHERS leeched onto the church which is absolutely defined as a school of Christ (the Campbells) where the direct command is to READ that which is written and private interpretation (further expounding) is outlawed and "corrupting the word" means "selling learning at retail or adultery.

They use David Lipscomb for their authority: On the contrary, I will let David Lipscomb speak for himself.

THEY think that they are as cute as a girl's Easter bonnet: WE wonder why they are not in some institution or making little rocks out of big rocks. The more OUTRAGEOUS a lie the easier it is to be believed.

Jer. 23:25 I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name,
         saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
Jer. 23:26 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies?
        yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart;
Jer. 23:27 Which think to cause my people to forget my name
        by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour,
        as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.
Jer. 23:28 The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream;
        and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.
        What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD.

The baptism of WIND and FIRE prophecy.

Jer. 23:29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD;
       and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?
Jer. 23:30 Therefore, behold,
        I am against the prophets, saith the LORD,
        that steal my words every one from his neighbour.
Jer. 23:31 Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD,
        that use their tongues, and say, He saith.
Jer. 23:32 Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD,
        and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness;
        yet I sent them not, nor commanded them:
        therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD.

.

Quote from: OldDad on Mon Jun 21, 2010 - 23:21:02
Well, I'm fully insert twist with the idea of penal, subsitutionary atonement... I alos had problems with Secret Message when he said that Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists would find their place at the feast at the end of the age.

Are you sure that was "secret message"? it sounds familiar, but I'm having trouble finding it in the book. I'm never 100 percent in agreement with McClaren, but I find him insightful and never afraid to question. "Secret Message" was the book of his I agreed with most.

Please excuse my lack of caps. I seem to be having trouble with my shift key.

btw, on the theology quiz i posted a few days back, I scored high on emergent and low on liberalism.

As to substitutionary atonement, i believe it and I teach it. It just gives me pause that someone I respect as much as McQuiggan doesn't. I would in no way suggest he was a heretic.

I know there are some here who don't believe in substitutionary atonement; that might be a good thread topic.

Secret Message on the church twisting the gospel and atonement - pg 91, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims at the feast - page 217 - of the edition I have.

Ah, okay, appendix 1. That's why it was familiar but not quite hitting what I remembered.

I read that a bit differently, not as a suggestion of salvation for these people as they are, but as the results of them discovering, or as McClaren says, rediscovering Jesus. i'd like to reproduce the paragraph here, but i don't have time. The idea that he includes "former atheists" in his list argues for a less radical interpretation.

Not that this isn't a controversial idea, it's just that I don't believe it's as straightforward as you think. I don't see it as a suggestion that Muslims, Buddhists, etc. will be saved as they are. McClaren makes it plain (Wouldn't it be fascinating if....began to take their places at the feast") but rather as something that could happen, just as the Jews saw the Gentiles take their place at the table while most of them were rejecting Jesus.

Here's the paragraph: I found it online

QuoteWhat was true for Jesus' contemporaries--that they could miss the kingdom while those from "east and west and north and south" would come in and enjoy the feast--could certainly be true for adherents to the Christian religion today. Wouldn't it be fascinating if thousands of Muslims, alienated with where fundamentalists and extremists have taken their religion, began to "take their places at the feast," discovering the secret message of Jesus in ways that many Christians have not? Could it be that Jesus, always recognized as one of the greatest prophets of Islam, could in some way be rediscovered to save Islam from its dangerous dark side? Similarly, wouldn't there be a certain ironic justice if Jesus's own kinsmen, the Jewish people, led the way in understanding and practicing the core teaching of one of their own prophets who has too often been hijacked by other interests or ideologies? Or if Buddhists, New Agers, and even former atheists and agnostics came "from east and west and north and south" and began to enjoy the feast of the kingdom in ways that those bearing the name Christian have not? Of course, because we have the "time-release capsule" of the New Testament, there is always hope that we Christians will not be the last to rediscover the truth that could change everything. Perhaps the blandly moralistic traditionalism of some of our churches and the angry, fearful, militant arrogance of others have become sufficiently distasteful that we are closer to a rediscovery than we might realize.

Here's the link. Gotta go move rocks now.

I have started a review of Brian's stuff: Truly, I don't think this man has ever read the Bible.

Brian D. McLaren: The Secret Message of Jesus

http://www.piney.com/Brian.McLaren.Secret.Message.Jesus.html

The promise of A holy spirit or A good conscience by request at baptism is what makes the SECRET written on PLAIN TEXT available but not to the doctors of the Law. In 2 Corinthians 3 turning or being converted which has the same meaning as Baptism is what permits even the Jews to read BLACK TEXT on BROWN PAPER.  I suspect that Brian would denegrate baptism as being fundamentalists and judgmental, and that is why Brian doesn't have a remote clue.

I am still waiting for a clergy people to give any evidence that they have ever read the story line between the animal sacrificers doing worship of the STARS and SERPENTS and the Godly people who attended church or synagogue each rest day.

I am astounded (should never be) that he thinks that he has had revealed the fact that the church is about the Kingdom of God rather than "how do we get to heaven."

I liken it to someone having disovered--and making merchandise of it--that if you throw a rock UP it will fall DOWN.  Jesus said doctors of the law take away the key to knowledge: that's their job, that's what they do for a living.

Have you discovered the SECRET Jesus is just now TIME RELEASING through Brian?

And yet a large number of Christians don't see the difference, so it would seem that someone does need to point it out. Maybe you need to check the heads of those people throwing rocks up in the air for bumps and bruises.

I have done a quick review of John D. McLaren on John 14:6

http://www.piney.com/Brian.D.McLaren.John.14.html

Johnny pretends that John 14:6 is the only evidence to make Jesus the only Saviour.

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

He says it would be too hypocritical to mean that Jesus is the ONLY way.  I have supplied a tiny few of a Bible full of statements that if you reject Jesus Christ you WILL burn.

Brian D. McLaren: Could it be that Jesus, always recognized as one of the greatest prophets of Islam, could in some way be rediscovered to save Islam from its dangerous dark side?

THEY ALSO say that Jesus was a muslim.

    Jesus in Islam  In Islam, the Prophet Jesus (Arabic: عيسى عليه الإسلام‎ `Īsā Alleh Islam) is considered to be a Messenger of God who was sent to guide the People of Israel (banī isrā'īl) with a new scripture, the Injīl or Gospel.[1] In sharp contrast to Christianity, Islam emphatically denies that Jesus was the Son of God, or that he was divine in any way. While accepting his Virgin Birth, Islam denies that Jesus was ever crucified or resurrected, or that he ever atoned for the sins of mankind; it especially scorns any notions that Jesus is to be worshipped or prayed to.

Denying the Atonement is one of the Stoneite dogmas which are peddled along with McLaren who must suffer muchly to have to quote some of the words of Jesus.

um, no, that's not what he says. he says that islam recognizes jesus as a prophet, not that Jesus was Islamic. That would've been quite a trick.  i quoted that whole section above, btw.

um, no, that's not what he says. he says that islam recognizes jesus as a prophet, not that Jesus was Islamic. That would've been quite a trick.  i quoted that whole section above, btw.

I quoted wikipedia. 

In fact, the muslim religion where ALLAH is the MOON GOODESS has its roots in Abraham but it is also a take off (as is lots of mormon writings) on the ancient Babylonian legends (history they would say) as well as contemporaneous writings.

Judaism is also Sabazianism because that is what God abandoned them to at Mount Sinai.

So, John makes up lots as he goes but if a Muslim converts he will be saved the same way as everyone else.

I am still trying to determing that SECRET which could not have been revealed before. He spends a lot of time on the Kingdom as if he has suddenly been aroused: probably been preaching the Core Gospel or the gospel of the gospel when Jesus and everyone else preached the gospel of the KINGDOM. 

He still hasn't found the most hidden secret: that church is a school (only) of the Word (only).