Extreme Theology

The Promise-Driven Life

Here is a snippet from a article recently published in Modern Reformation. It provides a good Biblical critique of the ‘Purpose-Driven’ phenomena. It is worth the read.

What are you driven by? The last time I was sick, it was a Saturday and I flipped on the TV for an extraordinary long time. The whole day was exercise equipment, how to become real-estate rich with no money down, and Suze Orman gave me her steps to financial security. As much as we all make sport of this sort of thing, it attracts us. That’s because we are “wired” for law: tell me what to do and I’ll get it done. That is not just the American spirit, but it is human nature. God’s law is inborn, in our conscience, part of our moral makeup. The average person on the street will tell you that the role of churches and other religious institutions is to provide moral instruction—practical suggestions for successful living for the spirit, just as Suze Orman and Jake are there to help us out with our banking and bodies.

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Church franchise a hit, but hostile take-overs rattle congregations

Here is a bit of church satire that seems to be more than just humor. This is a snipet of the piece from LarkNews.com

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — As the Podesta family traveled from Kentucky to Maine on vacation last summer, they stopped every Sunday and Wednesday at their favorite national franchise: Evergreen Christian Center.

"It was like we never left home," says Albert Podesta, 38.

For 12 years Evergreen Christian Center was just another mega-church in Tennessee. Then the church radically changed its ministry approach. It began franchising itself.

The franchise scheme was cooked up by several retired CEOs who landed on the church board at the same time.

"They asked for our input, so we didn't hold back," says one.

In 2001 Evergreen began gobbling up churches across the nation and turning them into Evergreen clones, with identical features, down to the doorknobs, ushers' jackets and sermons. Even the pulpits and Sunday school rooms are the same.

"We're like Burger King or Subway — a solid, trustworthy business," says Evergreen brand manager Stefan Borcht.

But ECC's growth strategy has caused alarm among many churches who fear being targeted in hostile take-over bids. After scouting a target church, ECC recruits a slate of church members to run for election to the church board. ECC woos church members with direct mailings, phone calls and pleasant emails. If ECC's slate is elected the church becomes an Evergreen franchise. Oftentimes the pastor is removed or demoted.

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Emerging Uncertainty vs. the Book of Acts

I’ve recently discovered another popular Emerging Guru by the name of John Armstrong. This guy sings from the same song sheet as Brian McClaren regarding certainty. Here are a few choice quotes from Armstrong on the topic:

"Certitude is often idolatrous. I have been forced to give up certainty."

"If there is a foundation in Christian theology it is not be found in Scripture. Theology must be a humble attempt to hear God never about rational approaches to text."

“The most dangerous plans in history were carried out by people who were very certain of both themselves and their actions. Do you recall Saul of Tarsus persecuting devout Christians?”

It is very odd that Armstrong would mention Saul of Tarsus (Paul). Let’s look at Paul and see if he jettisoned all pretenses of certainty and rational approaches to scripture after he became a follower of Jesus.

The book of Acts Chapter 17 records Paul’s method of evangelism while he was on his Missionary Journeys. Here is what history records on this matter.

Acts 17:1 When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. 2 As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he said.

This hardly sounds like behavior of an ‘Uncertain” Postmodern Emergent. In fact, it sounds completely contrary to the advice that Emerging gurus like Armstrong and McClaren are offering us.

Rather than being “uncertain”, Paul was absolutely certain of the truth of the Christian faith. He was so certain that he reasoned with potential converts from the Scriptures. He used the scriptures to explain and prove propositional truths. Paul is not the only Christian to use this approach.

The book of Acts also records the evangelistic practices of a Christian convert by the name of Apollos. Here’s what the Scriptures tell us about him:

Acts 18:27 "When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. 28 For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.”

Apparently, Apollos had never read McClaren’s books or heard Armstrong’s lectures. Thank God, or the church wouldn’t be here today!

Apollos was very certain of the fact that Jesus was the Christ. He was so certain of that truth that he ‘vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate’ and He used the scriptures to PROVE his point.

Over and over again the advice and teachings of the Emerging Church flat out contradict what we read in Scripture. If we were to follow the advice and teachings of the Emerging Church we’d lose the certainty of our faith and the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus death on the cross. Even worse, we’d stop sharing the message of the gospel and Scriptures to our un-believing friends and neighbors.

I can think of only ONE spiritual being who wants to rob us of our certainty, silence God’s Word and silence our evangelistic efforts. That being is the Prince of Darkness himself.

Maybe If I Said it With Marbles in My Mouth

The Emerging Church is one of the greatest sources of comedy today.

Since, uncertainty is the highest spiritual virtue among the Emergents, they have no choice but to endlessly converse about all kinds of theological theories (many of them are nothing more than old heresies). Rather than discuss whether these theories are ‘true or false’ they instead focus on the ‘Narrative Value’ of these diverse ideas. The end result of all of this is conversations that get farther and farther away from rational thinking and sanity. The comedy of all of this is that otherwise ‘rational’ people think this stuff is ‘profound’.

Case in point.

A recent "conversation" on “The Passion as Story For Us” on an Emerging blog site, led off with a nearly incomprehensible point about the Atonement. See if you can decipher this quote from the conversation:

In the third section of Alan Mann’s book, Atonement for a ‘Sinless’ Society, Mann deals with the Passion narrative of the Gospels as a narrative that invites the postmodern self into the text in order to find ontological coherence through Jesus’ own coherence…

“The reader is beckoned into the narrative by the hope that, perhaps, here is the narrative possibility of liberation from his or her own ontological incoherence, here is a counter-story with which to retell his or her own story in a coherent way without the fear of shame that comes through exposure” (113).

Judas, whom Mann treats with sensitivity, is an example of narrative incoherence. In other words, the reader is challenged to be like Jesus or like Judas — to have a real self or a shamed self. “Judas experienced the total and utter collapse of his personal narrative — psychologically, socially and spiritually” (124).

Jesus, as the real self, goes to the cross by his own choice. It is his commitment to give his life for others — and having others is the only way to have the real self.

Did that make any sense to you? Could you imagine Peter standing up at Pentecost and preaching a sermon about finding ‘Ontological Coherence through Jesus own coherence and its impact on the real self'?

I think those in the Emerging Church should try preaching about the collapse of Judas’ personal narrative and Jesus ‘as the real self’ at homeless shelters in the inner cities of America. I’m certain that the homeless and the poor will find this message invigorating and liberating.

As for me, I have no idea what any of that was supposed to mean. I guess I’m just not ‘enlightened’. Therefore, I’ll just have to continue in my simple and crude theological understandings.

Silly me, I thought that scripture taught that Jesus died for me, that he paid the penalty for my sins on the cross of Calvary.

Apparently, that’s way too simple. Plus, that way of talking about the atonement can lead to ‘certainty’.

Hmmmm…. Maybe if I said it with marbles in my mouth it would achieve incoherence and create ‘uncertainty’.

Seeking God

This week's edition of the White Horse Inn radio program is is a must listen!

The topic is Seeking God and it is a good followup to this week's Extreme Sunday School lesson on 'Original Sin'. Does anyone seek God? What does scripture say?

Click here to listen to this broadcast using Windows Media Player

Original Sin

Click Here to Download the MP3 Audio File

The notes for this class are available by clicking here.

Originally taught at Capo Valley Church, San Juan Capistrano, California on Sunday, March 26, 2006.

What is the Emerging Church Movement and Why I’m Post-Emergent

Technically speaking, the Emerging Church Movement is a re-packaging and re-imagining of liberal and Neo-Orthodox theology and thinking in a post-modern context. Put more simply, it is a reaction by liberal fringe theologians against the mass marketing and commercialization of Christianity by the mega-churches and the church growth movement.

If the Emerging Church Movement were a political party, they’d be the ‘Green Party’; having vaild complaints about commercialization but whose solutions are actualy worse than the problems their trying to correct.

The hallmark of their doctrinal and theological position is that it is fluid and indefinable. They spend a lot of time conversing about and nuancing theological theories. The more novel, creative and abstract the theory, the more they love it and converse about it.

Emerging is a great term for them because in reality they never arrive anywhere. In fact, one of the primary leaders within the movement is Brian McClaren. He is the author of one of the main books in the Emerging Movement called, A Generous Orthodoxy. One of McClaren’s key ‘talking points’ is that certainty and faith are mutually exclusive concepts. I call this, “McClaren’s Principle of Uncertainty.” This ‘principle’ is at the very heart and center of the Emerging Movement.

It would not be an overstatement to say that Mclaren is vehemently hostile to the idea that we can claim any degree of certainty about any point of truth. (And this hostility is mirrored by many followers of the Emergent Movement)

McClaren states over and over and over in his books and lectures that he despises every hint of certainty or assurance. He claims that it is arrogant and unspiritual to speak dogmatically about any point of spiritual truth.

McClaren’s favorite whipping boys are Radio Preachers. He says it makes him angry to listen to Christian radio and hear preachers who seem so sure that the doctrines they believe and teach are really true.

Brian McLaren's opinion is that “Authentic humility”, must start with a refusal to insist on the absolute truth of any given proposition.

I don’t know how anyone can miss the blatant contradiction in McClaren’s position. On the one hand, he despises anyone who seems sure that the doctrines they believe are true. Yet, McClaren is absolutely certain that his doctrine of uncertainty is absolutely true.

It is precisely this principle of uncertainty that makes the Emergent Movement so seductive and dangerous. On the one hand, the Emergents appear loving, tolerant, and open minded to all religious views. On the other hand, this uncertainty robs Emergents of the promises held out to us in the scriptures for our salvation.

The saddest and most dangerous example of this is seen in how the Emerging Church deals with Christ’s Death on the Cross.

Emergent leaders and followers openly attack the doctrine of Christ’s sacrificial atonement for the sins of the world in their writings, lectures and websites. The Emergents argue that, the penal substitionary theory of the atonement is only one of many explanations for Jesus’ death on the cross. Because Emergents value uncertainty, anyone making the exclusive and certain claim that Jesus died for our sins, is rejected and ridiculed.

When I’ve tried to discuss the scriptural support and evidence for Jesus’ death on the cross as a sacrifice and atonement for our sins with Emergent followers, I was told that, “Scripture simply does not propose a theory of cohesive theology of atonement.” That “it’s only one theory and only one aspect of the atonement.” While other Emergent followers were openly hostile to the idea that Jesus died for them by saying things like, “I don’t want to have the guilt of having someone die for me” and, “the idea that God punished Jesus for my sins is repugnant to me because it sounds like cosmic child abuse.”

The Bottom Line: The Emergent Movement claims to be a church movement, but the fruit of this fad is utter uncertainty and an absolute denial of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus death on the cross for our sins.

These two facts alone are enough to brand the Emerging Movement as heretical and anti-Christian. This is also why I’ve started the Post-Emergent Movement. People in the Emerging Movement need a real alternative to the lies and uncertainty that their being fed by leaders such as McClaren and McKnight.

For those within the Emerging Church, I would assure them that scripture offers humanity a sure and certain faith in Jesus Christ. The scriptures tell us plainly and clearly that God is offering all of humanity salvation and peace with Him through the victorious death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. These promises are true, these promises can be believed with certainty and these promises can set you free from the tyranny of uncertainty. In short, Jesus Christ died for YOU. Repent and believe the Gospel!

Post-Emergent View of Scriptural Authority

The Post-Emergent Church Movement has already arrived at some critical decisions. The first is its view of Scriptural Authority and Truth. This is quote is taken from THE leading 'Post-Emergent' blog site.

In any quest for the truth we must find a transcendent truth. An authority that we can appeal to whose word is final. Without that were are relegated to an endless and indecisive world of opinions, nuance, subjective and the relative.

It has been said that “Humanity is a race without a memory.” We don’t intuitively know how we got here, where we came from or where we are going. People seek these answers in many ways; the stars, mystery-religions, and oracles. But Post-Emergent Christianity agrees with our fathers in the faith that the only place to find true answers to these questions is in the Bible.

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Post-Emergent

I’ve spent a significant amount of research time over the past few weeks studying and conversing with the Emergent Church Movement.

Five, Four, Three, two, one...

Okay, I’m over it. I am now officially “Post-Emergent”

In fact, I’m now starting the “Post-Emergent Church Movement”

Hey, their time is up. Sorry, but the cutting-edge needs to keep moving. They’ve had their time and their time has passed. It’s nothing personal but that’s just how it goes. We need to keep moving forward. If you are part of an Emerging Church and have taken pride at the novelty of your church and its comfy couches and candles then you are out of vogue and are about as relevant as Britney Spears and REO Speed Wagon.

Aside, from that it is just too ridiculously boring to engage in endless nuanced Emergent conversations that never arrive at anything. Sorry but I have ADHD and this is just not able to keep my attention.

So... I've started a new web-site that will be at the vangaurd of the new Post-Emergent Movement. You can find it at postemergent-us.com.

Join the New Movement!

Illegitimate Children

Lutheran Theologian, Francis Pieper, In his systematic theology “Christian Dogmatics” wrote about the cause of divisions within Christendom. According to Pieper, THE reason why new sects and ideas keep cropping up in the visible church is a denial of Sola Scriptura, and a refusal to continue in the Word of Christ’s Apostles.

Said Pieper, “Divisions in the Apostolic Church arose because men refused to recognize the Word of the Apostles as the Word of God and offered the Church in place of the Word of God their own human notions.”

These ‘human notions’ as Pieper calls them, deny the power of the cross and the atonement of Christ for the sins of the whole world and instead teach that we are saved by our own efforts to appease and please God. These notions inevitably bring us back to legalism as expressed in the two great commandments, love God with your whole heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

Those who deny scripture are powerless to see that sinful humans are incapable of generating true love of God and neighbor. Instead, love of God and neighbor only come about as a result of faith in Christ. Pieper said it this way, “The love of God and of the neighbor is the daughter of faith.”

Therefore, seeking to love God without trusting in Christ is the spiritual equivalent of desiring to give birth to and raise an illegitimate child. (It is important to remember that God doesn't keep any mistresses.)

In other words, it is an immoral and false religion that teaches us that we can have communion with God apart from Christ. Love for God and Neighbor is the fruit of faith. Without faith, true love of God and neighbor is impossible. Jesus himself hits on this topic in John 8:34-47.

Here is what that passage says, “John 8:34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

John 8:39 “Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did. 40 As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the things your own father does.”

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”

John 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

I hope those who follow Joel Osteen, Rick Warren and the Emergent Church take heed of these words.