I have been having a behind the scenes conversation with another community member about the "new generation." He makes the argument that the new generation processes information differently than he and I do, therefore we have to reach this generation differently than the way our generations were reached. This person happens to be older than me by nearly a decade.
-
Do you recall the line Jack Nicholson bellowed in the movie A Few Good Men? "You can't handle the truth." Well, this generation can't handle the truth. The generation that I'm talking about is the new generation of emergent pseudo-pastors and reluctant leaders (for good reason), who are trying to confiscate our minds and souls, and the minds and souls of our children.
-
To be honest, I can hardly stomach hearing how the "new generation" is so much different than all preceding generations. Come on, give me a break! Every generation is the "new generation." Every generation rebels against authority in general, past and present, and rebel against God in particular. Every generation thinks they are unique, and no other soul on earth or in heaven, past or present, has ever experienced life like they have.
Believe it or not, I was once part of the "new generation." Guess what -- I thought any type of authority was oppressive; Christianity was archaic or arcane at best and out of touch with the "me generation." My generation thought it was unique and no one on earth, past or present, experienced life like the "me generation." Wrong!
-
The book of Ecclesiastes (1:9) states "That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun."
-
Using flannelgraph characters and 3x5 memory verse cards to teach the bible in Sunday school and chalkboards in seminary classes probably aren't the most effective way to present the gospel. Technology makes the presentation prettier, but it cannot replace the gospel or serve as a surrogate. I am witnessing the dilution and delusion of the word of Truth as I have never seen before.
The people who evangelized (that's a bad word nowadays) me, who dared to share the simple gospel of Jesus Christ with me, did so straight from their bond-leather bibles with red letters and yellow highlighted text. They didn't have PocketBible on their PocketPC like I have, or an Internet connection on their iPhone to show me their cohort or enclave website. No, they were only equipped with the full armor of God.
-
These lay-evangelists (the purveyors of evangelism... ooh) looked like church geek's to me, men and women with horn rimmed and librarian glasses (very vogue today, ask Rob Bell, Tony Jones, and my daughters). They didn't look like me or talk like me. They were nothing like me, but they offered me something they possessed and I desperately needed and wanted. I needed, I wanted, and I received peace and fellowship with God, forgiveness of my sins, and assurance of my salvation and where I would spend eternity.
Comments
It is far easier to pass judgment than it is to actually try to understand.
The new generation may not be able to handle the truth, but without loving them, you'll never get the opportunity to try.
Sometimes love is tough.
That's a copout. An easy excuse for you to be holier-than-thou and look down your nose at a group of people who are experiencing God in different ways than you are.
For all the railing you do against the emerging church movement, you haven't done much to demonstrate what they're wrong about or why. Perhaps you should do so before saying anymore negative towards them.
Here's a familiar story...see if you can find yourself in it:
Luke 18:9-14: To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Wow, I am impressed you actually quoted scripture. Usually, all you do tell me is your personal opinion. Keep up the good work. I'll back to you gg.
I can't say that I expected anything more than a snide comment from you. Legalism typically takes people down that route.
Pastor Richard Dalhstrom wrote this blog article
http://www.conversantlife.com/et-why-is-the-church-so-alien. . Check it out. He writes something similar to what I wrote to you in one of our earlier threads. You might recognize it when you read.
I think the conversantlife forum (moderated) is a great place for the entire community to weigh in on this. I already made that suggestion to the Pastor, but I haven't heard back from him yet (it hasn't been long).
Here is a quote from Brian McClaren. There are plenty of other quotes like this one from this man. Do you believe this teaching/ideology/theology is correct?
"I must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts."---Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 260
By the by GG, I went out of my way to share my personal struggles with sin and included myself in what I stated. I would hardly characterize that as looking down my nose at anyone. If I were looking down my nose at you or anyone else, I wouldn't of disclosed my struggle with this sin or exposed it in a comment that the entire community could read if they wished to do so.
I liked that blog. He expresses something that both sides of the conversation need to hear. That said, I'm convinced that you didn't "get" it, otherwise you wouldn't have posted this blog in the first place...
In regards to A Generous Orthodoxy, have you ever read it?
My guess is that you haven't. My guess is that you came across that quote in a blog or article by someone who doesn't like McClaren (or the rest of the emerging/emergent folks) and is looking for ammo against him. Had you read the book, you'd know that in the introductory pages of the book he promises that those who are looking for this ammo will have no problem finding it.
The reason why? Well he says this: "...there are places here where I have gone out of my way to be provocative, mischievous, and unclear, reflecting my belief that clarity is sometimes overrated, and that shock, obscurity, playfulness, and intrigue (carefully articulated) often stimulate more thought than clarity." pg. 23
On that, I agree with him. And it is for this reason that so many find him refreshing. Personally, his writing style bothers me (at least in this book), but he is willing to wrestle, willing to question, willing to provider others the freedom to question, and willing to do so for the purpose of mutual learning and edification. And he seeks to do this intentionally by being vague. I know what you're thinking: being vague only creates confusion and leads us away from truth. On that note, I don't think you'd really like Jesus very much had he come today instead of 2000 years ago.
The funny part about your post is how out of context your quote is. And here is where this comes back on you, because not only is the quote out of context, it is in itself inaccurate.
Here's the whole thing:
We share the good news of Jesus, seeking to make disciples of all peoples - always inviting, never coercing. In Bosch's words: "We affirm that witness does not preclude dialogue but invites it, and that dialogue does not preclude witness but extends and deepens it."
I must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. This will be hard, you say, and I agree. But frankly, it's not at all easy to be a follower of Jesus in many "Christian" religious contexts, either.
Vincent Donovan captured exactly what I mean in Christianity Rediscovered: "'...do not try to call them back to where they were, and do not try to cal them to where you are, as beautiful as that place might seem to you. You must have the courage to go with them to a place that neither you nor they have ever been before.' Good missionary advice and a beautiful description of the unpredictable process of evangelization, a process leading to that new place where none of us has ever been before."
Obviously, McClaren is not saying what you think he is saying. "Christian religion" is not synonymous in McClaren's book with "Christian faith" - I hope you can see the difference. And "Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts" is not synonymous with those faiths - remember, McClaren chooses his words very carefully. And if you read anything other than the out-of-context excerpts that his enemies dig up, you might find that you actually like him. This doesn't mean that you have to agree with everything he says and nor should you (lest you would cease to continue learning), but it also doesn't mean that you condemn him outright or at the moment that you might yourself at odds with him.
As far as you listing your personal sin struggles, it doesn't mean a thing if you are only pointing out others' specks with the log still lodged in your own eye. Acknowledging your own sin doesn't give you a get-by-free card to denounce everyone else's actions as sin, too. In fact, it should have the opposite result.
So, I'll ask again: what within the emerging/emergent movement do you find heretical, John? What doctrine or ideas do they have that fly in the face of the Gospel, or, as Richard Dahlstrom suggests for a foundation, what do they believe that is in contradiction to the Apostle's Creed?
Relativism. There is no absolute truth. Truth is only relative to the context in which a person communes. Your truth, Bob's truth, Sally's Truth, are relative to the context in which they interact with their communities. I'm sure you'll appreciate the source.
An excerpt from Appropriate Response to the Emerging Church Movement
© By David Kowalski
David Kowalski is an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God. He has authored a number of articles, including two in the “Encyclopedia of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity,” published by Berkshire Publishing.
Postmodern epistemology has serious practical consequences as it leaves no foundation for objective beliefs – a position called “postfoundationalism.” In spite of the ingenious efforts of skilled, postfoundationalist theologians to construct a theology that “has universal implications,” all postfoundational thought eventually succumbs to some form of skepticism or relativism. Thus, within postmodern thought no truth or morality can be “normative.” That is, no person or “scripture” can authoritatively tell postmoderns what is true or right for them. “Truth” and “morals” are found in the context of a specific community and they vary from one community to another.
Listen to Dr. Walter Martin speak about relativism. http://www.conversantlife.com/the-church/whats-wrong-with-relativism.
I don't see that the emergent church has adopted this view of relativism. I think, just like the blog that Richards posted, they believe in holding their views with humility.
Christians can embrace postmodernism to a certain extent. Some have called this soft postmodernism. Essentially, and this is what I see the emerging/emergent movement doing, we can each hold our beliefs and convictions, but we must do so with humility.
Why? Because even whilst there may be some sort of objective or absolute truth, who is to say that you or I know this truth with any degree of objectivity or absolutism? The best we can do is be sincere in our efforts to arrive at what that truth is, but you or I cannot know for certain, for example, that Jesus rose from the dead. Is there evidence for this? Of course. But how can you prove that it is true on this side of the grave? How can you prove the existence of God?
Ah, but this is where faith comes into play. Faith is believing and trusting in someone even though their existence cannot be proven.
And not being able to prove something doesn't mean we shouldn't believe - that's stupid. But it is equally as stupid to say that someone acknowledging this inability to prove an absolute truth is heretical.
But, lets take this a step further, shall we? Whose community decides what will be true for everyone? Should it be the conservativism of the South? The liberalism of the West? China's norms? Surely there must be some standard (and this is where Scripture comes into play, but even then we must hold our interpretations with humility and always be searching for sincerity in our own hearts), but what is acceptable in one place may not be so in another.
This is a very complex issue and one that is worth exploring. You might find it worth it to do so because you're only getting very small nuggets at this point.
Imagine joining this conversation as a person with no context for Christianity or Christ.
Imagine happening upon this new faith in Jesus and enthusiastically embracing the notion that a love and hope and mercy beyond your comprehension were possible, but that it would require a willingness to sacrifice and the unimaginable humility to allow yourself to be completely transformed.
Imagine, having grown up in a secular home, coming to it with little context for what it means to go to church and no concept of the difference between an evangelical, post-modern, ana-baptist or pentacostal Christian. You just find yourself, after years of faith-hopping, atheism or agnosticism looking for a community of people with whom you can learn and grow and share.
But then you find out that there are delineations and factions.
You encounter rigid demographic distinctions and marketing plans. You feel like being a Christian in America means you have to somehow pick a team. You read MacLaren and see wisdom there, you read Swindoll and see wisdom there, you listen to Joyce Meyer and read Rob Bell, Charles Stanley, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Beth Moore, Julian of Norwich, Watchman Nee and a host of other people from every side of it and you take their thoughts and words back to the Bible and try to embrace the best of all of it. You pray and fast and ask God to inform your faith as you committ yourself to grow and change. And, when you hear the arguments and the debates and the one-upsmanship among your Christian brothers and sisters you are saddened--because you know that the perception of Christians as angry and contentious that you held when you were an atheist appears to have some legs--even now that you have become a sold-out Christian.
I don't have to imaging that scenario, since that's how it happened for me.
I was a 37 year old convert with a secular background. I sought in my 20s, landed on atheism into my 30s and found a "power greater than myself" in recovery before having a dramatic conversion to Christianity in my latter 30s. I've been at it for about 5 years and find that one of my biggest challenges as a Christian is not explaining/defending my new faith in Jesus to my non/other-believing friends, relatives and neighbors. They actually find my conversion and subsequent change of life to be quite interesting and they are willing to stretch themselves to try to understand why a happy, healthy PR executive from New York (married to my best friend, three healthy/happy kids, six figure salary, living in the dream house) would turn in a different direction to follow Jesus.
Instead, it is the factionalization and infighting in the church I find myself having the hardest time explaining and defending to them. While churchgoers have become comfortable with the evangelical/emergent he says/she says -- many outsiders looking in see it as countermanding (and therefore calling into question the validity of) the principles of love, faith, forgiveness, etc. that the faith claims to be built upon.
I wish I could solve this apparent disconnect, but I do not have the answer. I just thought you might want to know how this kind of a debate can appear to the sick and suffering people out there for whom, I believe, this faith could be a life line.
I wish both of you the best.
Thanks for the healthy reminder, Joan.
There are some things you should know. First, John and I have a history. I cannot say that it has always been the most pleasurable or that we agree on everything or even that we are necessarily "friends", but we have interacted with each other elsewhere. That history, and the conversations we have had previously, give us the freedom to disagree and yet to love one another. That may sound weird, but keep reading.
Second, while I can understand the confusion that one might be caused by the disagreement within the church, you should also know that this is not the worst part about Christianity. It is not the fact that Christians disagree about x or y that causes so much confusion, it is the fact that Christians cannot seem to make allowance for this disagreement and, yet, still love one another. For many Christians, disagreement with them, on nearly all levels, means that you must not be a Christian. "If you don't believe x (like me) you are not a Christian."
Third, it is precisely that mindset that I am fighting against. Or to frame it differently as I do in my mind: loving against.
I don't agree with John on a whole lot, but I've never once called into question the authenticity of his salvation. I hope...I hope...that he can say the same for me. And this is what is love. Not whether we can agree on x, y or z, but that in the thick of our disagreement we can still say "I love you, I respect you, and I still call you my brother in Christ!"
You may think that this is not a fight worth having - I respectfully disagree. In fact, I think that this fight is perhaps one of the most important. We NEED to have this fight - otherwise, Christianity is liable to continue down this road of arrogance and pharisaism and I fear what that Christianity will look like in 5, 10, or 20 years.
Disagreement and love are not enemies. They can be very close friends and this is certainly the case with many of my friendships. But arrogance and love, condemnation and love, these cannot co-exist.
So, I say three final things to you:
1. Thank you for sharing your story and for being sensitive to how others perceive us - that is often a quality that many Christians simply do not care about
2. Know that it is your love for poeple, ESPECIALLY those whom you disagree with, that is your biggest testimony.
3. Agreement is no substitute for love and truth. In fact to instist on agreement as the real or actual love is to miss the point entirely. But we can still disagree and be unified. Because unity is not the same as agreement, unity is far more profound and beautiful than that. Unity is the embracing of one another in the midst of our disagreement, not because we want people to think that we love each other. No, we embrace because we know that our unity is found in Christ. He is our mutual Savior, our mutual Lord, our mutual Father. He is the basis for our salvation, not whether we agree or disagree on any other number of things.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Just to clarify--I have no objection to discussion or even disagreement. I've just come to believe that one of the things that sets us apart as Christians is the charge to do it differently. To take a stand with kindness and gentleness. To be quick with patience and slow to anger. To keep no record of wrongs and the rest of the 1 Corinthians 13 description of what it means to love. To put relationship over winning and love when it makes no sense and doesn't feel good.
A tall order, for sure...but I am grateful for the opportunity (by grace) to be on a journey in that direction...
Peace,
Joan
You're absolutely right. And to be honest, I lose my patience sometimes. I keep records of wrongs. I keep debating just so I can win.
We all do...I hope! I hope its not just me! Haha...
Seriously, though, you're absolutely right and we all need to figure out how to do that better.
Thanks again.
***Technology makes the presentation prettier, but it cannot replace the gospel or serve as a surrogate.***
I hear you on this! It seems to me that belief in the power of the presentation often supersedes belief in the power of the gospel.
<<16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith.">> Romans 1
I wonder if there is not a specific reason that God commanded the gospel to be PREACHED? Maybe so there would be nothing to distract from the message? Can the power of the gospel reach through the trappings of a rock concert or a multi-media extravaganza or whatever else is used to lure people in? Absolutely! But do any of those things ENHANCE the power of the gospel? IMO, absolutely not!