Going all theological on ya again! At one point Jesus says that the one sin which will not be forgiven is the sin against the Holy Spirit. But no one seems to know what the sin against the Holy Spirit is. I would say that first of all, the sin must be one that is not repented of. If we ask for forgiveness, it is … Continue reading Sins against the Holy Spirit
A couple of days ago, I started writing about the ending chapters of the Book of Job. As I said then, the end of Job has always bothered me. It doesn’t make sense that this man would lose everything have God show up and go, “who do you think you are?” and then Job would be satisfied and comforted. It doesn’t make sense for God … Continue reading Book of Job – Looking at our animal friends
A couple of years ago I started blogging about the Book of Job, thinking I would blog through the whole thing. Thankfully, God called me off that task because I now think that I was headed in the wrong direction. However, I have always been puzzled by God’s words to Job and Job’s response to them. They just never made sense to me. Job didn’t … Continue reading Book of Job: It’s a guessing game
I’m about to go all theological on ya here . . . So, I don’t know why, but I was thinking last night about how the bible says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. (Why, what do you think about as you’re drifting off to sleep if it’s not random bible verses? LOL) Aside from … Continue reading Heads or Tails?
I came across a post just now on the first chapter of the Book of Revelation that was so wonderful, I wanted to share it with y’all. It’s on a blog called Into The Subversion. The whole thing is worth reading, but here’s the part that hooked me: It was the year A.D. 96 in the province of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), the region … Continue reading Book of Revelation
Over the last couple of months, I have been looking into something called the “Emerging Church” movement. This movement seems to be seeking to reform the evangelical church in light of the failures of the evangelical movement to bear transformational fruit in the lives of individuals and the larger community.
There are things that are happening, being talked about and experimented with in the Emerging Church movement which I think are very, very good for the church body as a whole. I can easily see a time when the work and ideas germinating today in the Emerging Church movement will become extremely influential in Christianity. However, I am also concerned that ultimately, they are setting themselves up for failure. Their influence, it seems to me, may end up being one of style rather than the radical transformation of the Christian life and church which they seek and which the gospel exhorts us too.
Before I get to what I think are the seeds of their failure, I want to discuss what I think they are getting right. The Emerging Church movement tends to be focused on two areas: praxis and doxology. Praxis being how we live as Christians. Doxology being concerned with how we “do” church through our services, prayers and other communal activities. In Evangelism attention to these two areas of Christianity has tended to be thin gruel. Praxis meant don’t sin and doxology meant sing, listen to a sermon and pass out grape juice and bad bread once a month. As the black sheep offspring of the Evangelical movement, Emerging Churchers are taking these areas apart and trying to completely reconstruct them into gourmet meals using both experimentation and borrowing from ancient wisdoms.
I am going to do a three part series on what I think the Emerging Church movement has to teach us as Christians, what I think the seeds of their undoing are and a new vision which could turn the Emerging Church movement into the transformational power I think the church needs today.
In Part 1 I will cover praxis. Part 2 will be on doxology and Part 3 will cover the flaw and new vision I have spoken of above.
In my experience I think it’s fair to say that conventional evangelism presents praxis as a series of rules for personal morality which we should be motivated to follow out of loyalty to God. Continue reading “Emerging Church – Promise and Failure Part 1”
There’s a very interesting (although slightly technical-language heavy) essay on theology and search for truth at Focus on the Family’s TrueU.org sight for college students. The author, Michael Bauman, makes a point which I have often thought/observed myself – that too often Christians become servants of their theology to the point where they are unable to acknowledge or deal productively with anything which is contrary … Continue reading Theology and Truth
The Upside Down World 