Recently I (finally) read Dan Kimball's book, They Like Jesus But Not the Church. I've never met Dan Kimball but I've now read all his books and really like him. I don't relate to many people within Christianity, but he is one of the easiest for me to idenity with.
Anyway, through his blog I became aware of a really interesting series of posts on another blog. Let me preface this by saying that I'm just not a theology guy. I'm probably just too simplistic but I try to focus on loving God and loving people (and the main way I try to love people is by helping them to love God). I spend the necessary minimum on theological issues and debates. (Yes, I realize some of this is necessary, that's why I said I "spend the necessary minimum" not "spend no time").
Anyway, this series of posts is on the emerging and emergent movements, and whether they are evangelical, orthodox, or something else altogether. It is a very intelligent and well-done series. So, if you have questions about these issues, or you're just into this stuff, you may want to check out this series: First post, second post, third post, fourth post, fifth post.
The most interesting of the series are the first and fourth posts, mostly because of the charts presented. The charts of the first post look like this:
So here's today's survey question: I'm not interested in debating theology with you, but I would be curious: Where on that chart would you put yourself? You can pick a group, or put yourself somewhere between two of them... So where are you on that chart?
- featured on newchurches.com
7 comments:
I'm in the Mclaren realm the subtitle for A Generous Orthodoxy fits me to a tee or maybe I'm schizophrenic
Probably schizophrenic. After all, you're name is anonymous. That doesn't indicate a strong sense of identity...
I started my life in a church farther to the Fundamentalist side than MacArthur (most of my relatives are/were Amish). But now in my 40's I guess I'm somewhere to the right of Kimball (although I've never read his work). Over time I've started to understand that it's hard to have a "hard-line" stance on many things (that aren't directly related to salvation), when many (more knowledgeable than myself) Christian leaders can read the exact same scripture and walk away absolutely sure of completely opposite things.
Even in the points defining Orthodoxy. For example, one point under CMP's "Historic Protestant/Evangelical Orthodoxy" is: "The infallible, inerrant inspiration of Scripture alone with final authority on all matters of faith".
As evidenced by some of the comments on his blog, many feel that it means that the Bible is completely 100% historically accurate. I feel it means exactly what it says. It tells us about God, and gives us an understanding about what matters to him. I don't care about the "historical accuracy". (As an aside, I happen to believe that the Bible is more than 95% historically accurate, when giving historical related things - but it just doesn't matter.) Does it matter if the story of Job is about a real person? Real or not, it explains God's unquestionable sovereignty in all he does. Was Noah's Ark (and later on, Lot) real, or just another culture's "Flood Fable". Doesn't matter. It shows that even when the world was filled with things that so despised God that he was willing to "start all over", he showed love and rescued the righteous from the destruction.
When Jesus told the parable of the sower, he didn't say, "Farmer Smith went out last week to sow". He said, "the kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed"... He never said that it actually happened, he was telling a story to explain something about God.
I find it humorous when people who claim that everything is 100% historically accurate, then turn around on prophecies and say, "well, there a 'day' means a 'year'".
Anyway, that was a LOT longer than I was planning.... I'll now go back to lurking.
Hope you're having a good hair day, everyone deserves a good hair day.
Lonnie you ever read Velvet Elvis? You'd like it I think. You sound like a trampoline type!(gotta read it to know the reference)
Good question, Vince. And that series of posts are really cool. I really appreciated how he distinguished between "emerging" and "Emergent".
I'm not super comfortable with the labels, but if I had to put myself somewhere, it would be a shade to the right (like, by a letter or two) of Mark Driscoll. According to the posts, I would be considered emerging ecclesiologically (I'm heading up a network of house churches) and sociologically, but not much else.
Driscoll does have an interesting podcast on this issue that just went up on iTunes recently.
I think the message of 1-3 John is extremely relevant when it comes to the Emergent church. The dudes he went after would have definitely been considered Emergent.
So Vince where are you?
I would say I'm about where Driscoll is. He's Calvinist, I'm not, but that's not what this chart is measuring. For what it is measuring I'm probably where he is, maybe one step to the right (towards Kimball).
Post a Comment