Back In The Saddle

Ah…a week away on a mission trip and another of vacation and I’m finally back in the office. This week our church is having VBS, but I ended up withdrawing from the class I was planning to take at Northern Seminary. My intent was to audit the class. One, it was much cheaper to audit, and two, there was a lot of weekly work to do, plus I was only taking it because of an interest in the subject, not the grade.

Nevertheless, I got the required reading and have actually finished one of the books - The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, edited by Kevin Vanhoozer. Reading that one got me interested all over again in a book I’ve had on my reading list for a while, but have never gotten around to: Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context, by John Franke and Stanley Grenz, so I’m one chapter into that one now. I suspect what I’ve read so far will generate a few posts over the summer. In addition, I have The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader which is edited by Graham Ward and I’ve gotten through one chapter of Stanley Hauerwas’ book A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity.

While all of that should provide some food for fodder, I’ll try not to get too technical in the discussion of them. It’s pretty heavy philosophy/theology and while I enjoy that sort of thing, I’m aware that many don’t. Hopefully there will be some practical things that come to the front that can be discussed here without us all feeling like we’re in a college class room.

Here are some things that are on my mind right now, some related to my current reading and some not: Read more

Blog Lite

Things have been sparse around here lately, I know. This is just a note to let you know that things may not change much on that front. This summer is going to be a busy one (which one isn’t, especially in church life?). Just to let you know what’s going on this summer:

Next week I’m going with our youth to Austin, Texas to evangelize the pagan Longhorns work in a soup kitchen and sing in some churches. It also sounds like the roofing experience of last week may get put to use again. I can’t imagine standing on a roof in Austin, Texas in June, but that may well be what we find ourselves doing. The following week I will be off on our summer vacation to the Branson, MO area where we’ll take it easy, relax and fish for a week.

Then we’ll be starting Vacation Bible School here at church and as soon as we’re done with that I will begin a summer online course through Northern Seminary on Readings in Postmodern Theology. That will go through the end of August. I’ll probably put up some photos every now and then and I may have a thing or two to share about my class or something else, but expect summer postings to be slow. Have yourself a great summer!

Site News

Welcome to my new blog home. I hope you like the redesign. Hey, at least it’s better than craigslist, huh? Give me your feedback, I’d like to know what you think.

Speaking of feedback, this template works a little differently than what you’re probably used to in a blog. To comment just click on the post title and it will take you to the full blog article. Then, at the bottom you will see the comment form.

I will still be tweaking things for a while, so check back for the changes.

Things You Need To Know About You

Today I want to point you to the blog of Ernest Goodman. Ernest is a missionary in Western Europe. I consistently learn oodles of stuff about myself, about how I approach my faith, about how I lead others in living out lives as followers of Jesus, and especially about things I need to quit doing and things I need to start doing in reaching out to others around me, by reading what he writes.

When you visit his blog, go with your defenses down. Go as a learner. And be ready to hear the heart of someone who can teach the church in America a lot about how to reach our own culture, as explained from the perspective of one who is reaching out to people in a not-so-different culture.

Writers Block

I obviously haven’t blogged much lately.  I told my brother I’ve lost a lot of energy for it.  I’m not quitting because I do enjoy it.  And I’m not on some spiritual "blog fast" retreat or something - either intentional or unintentional.  I’m just not much for saying something when I have nothing to say.

While our family was away in Branson for a few days during the Christmas break I was reading Chris Erdman’s book Countdown To Sunday.  It’s a great book for preachers, by the way.  In one chapter he says something to the effect that when you have nothing to say, say that.  Well, I don’t know about all of that.  In the next few days you may think that what I’m saying amounts to nothing.  That’s ok.  I figure there are about two of you left by now anyway.  [Hi, Mom.]

In the mean time I’ve read some really good books.  I finished Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism and I may reflect on that one a little bit.  I also finished Organic Community by Joe Myers.  It should be a must-read for pastors and others who are involved in organizational structure.  If you care about the kind of community your church is, the book is also for you.

Anyway, I hope to get back to more regular posting on here.  Stay tuned.  We’ll keep you advised.

iMonk On Joel Osteen

Michael Spencer pretty much sums up the problem with Joel Osteen here.

The Vile Wickedness of Schisms

I try to stay away from Baptist issues as much as I can on this blog. I hope that what I have to say today is not seen simply as a Baptist issue, but as a Christian issue, a church issue, and a ministerial issue.

Bart Barber pastors FBC Farmersville, TX. He and I went back-and-forth a little on a previous post here and we’ve gone back-and-forth on a related post on his blog.

Bart is at pains to show how I and others are inconsistent because we, as Baptists, separate from other denominations that baptize infants, yet refuse to call those who baptize infants “unrepentant sinners.” I and others are inconsistent, according to Bart, because we do not call infant baptism sin yet we still separate based on baptismal beliefs. It is a greater sin, in Bart’s mind, to separate over something that is a theological conviction, but which is not sin. It is a violation of Christian unity.

Now, don’t go thinking Bart is some ecumenist holding out his hands to his Presbyterian brothers and sisters. In fact, he casts doubt on the fact of those Presbyterians being brothers and sisters at all (my apologies to all of you who may not practice believer’s baptism. May God have mercy on your souls). That being said, however, Bart seems to have no trouble with a Baptist inviting a Gentile, tax collecting, unrepentant Presbyterian preaching in his Baptist church. He wouldn’t want to “accuse” that Baptist of anything. He’s only interested in accusing infant baptizers and those who refuse to call them unrepentant sinners. Are you following along, here?

Bart was pressed to be consistent himself. Let’s hang millstones around the necks of these infant baptizers in obedience to Christ. To this Bart could only reply that he does not believe in sinless perfection in this life. He must think that the apostle John did.

But to turn all of this completely on its head, Bart would have no objection to FBC Farmersville calling an unrepentant glutton or gossip to serve as the pastor or on staff at their church, though he believes they should meet Biblical qualifications. Of course, Titus tells us that two of the qualifications for church leadership are self-control and discipline. How one can be self-controlled and disciplined and also be an habitual glutton or an habitual gossip is apparently a matter for some new theory of Biblical interpretation. Actually, if you cannot with logic and a reasonable use of the English language figure it out then you are a legalist.

Now, all of this is to illustrate the dangers of being schismatic. It is no wonder that throughout much of church history schismatics were viewed in a very negative light. Schismatics would narrow the church down to themselves and all who believe as they do (excepting a few friends they do not want to “accuse” of anything, of course). I predict that schismatics will end up splitting the Southern Baptist Convention within my lifetime, unless something changes. These are some of the men teaching in our Baptist seminaries and leading in positions in our denomination. They should be opposed at ever turn. For the sake of the gospel. For the sake of unity in Christ. They wonder why movements like Emergent pop up and gather steam. Well, my brothers and sisters, wonder no more.

Christo-fascism?

I just recently ran across this post: The Jig is Up: American Evangelicals and Fascist Seduction by Paul Grabill, pastor of State College Assembly of God in State College, Pennsylvania.  He gives a strong challenge to consider our true allegiance as American Christians.  Check out a few salient quotes:

I’m saying it as clearly as I know how to say it. Christian patriotism
in America has crossed the line into clear idolatry. We evangelicals
are very close to apostasy, and I can tell you that many of our
brothers and sisters around the world can see it. I believe this
idolatry—not Sun Myung Moon, not the DaVinci Code, not Hillary
Clinton–is our our last-days deception. Those other things are bad,
but there’s little danger that evangelicals will be deceived by them.

It ain’t deception if it ain’t seductive.

and then this one:

It’s time for American Christians to repent (turn around). Yes,
liberals need to repent for selling out the core of the gospel, but
conservatives also need to repent of our nationalistic idolatry. Truth
will set us free, not leaders that promise us security by means of an
endless war and torture. Our rage toward the enemies of America has
blinded us. We don’t even recognize God’s Word when we hear it applied
to our times. Can it get worse than that? Jesus said, “My sheep hear my
voice.”

What’s worse, spiritually lost people in America see our hypocrisy when
we don’t. No wonder our evangelism efforts have flat-lined. How can we
convince them of the Truth of Jesus if we aren’t convinced ourselves
(i.e., “What Jesus taught doesn’t work in the ‘real’ world)?

Sadly I’ve actually heard long-time church members who would claim to be spiritually mature believers repeat that last phrase almost verbatim multiple times recently.  The church needs to wake up.

The Rant Is Back

For a while I was beginning to think the good old blog rant had been placed on the endangered list.  I was wrong.  Jared Wilson gives us a gospel rant that will have you scrambling to send the kids into the other room.  [Yes, he uses a few words you probably want to teach your children to avoid, so be warned.]

Here’s a little snippet:

You will not hear about dark nights of the soul from the likes of Benny
Hinn and Joel Osteen and Paula White (who, with her husband, is
treating their divorce this week like a hiccup that doesn’t matter much
to their "ministry" aims — which means keeping the gravy train
running). You will not hear about the real world and the real gospel in
response to it from these charlatans because they are afraid you might
actually become satisfied in Christ and tire of their lies. They need
you discontent so that you will still need them to pick you up.

And
if you think this crap is limited to the name-it-claim-it crowd, you
are mistaken. It has been creeping into our evangelical churches for
years, and you see this discontentment with the Gospel every time you
hear a message that treats the Bible like an advice column or a
self-help quote book or that treats worship like a performance. Any
time the purpose of worship is YOU, you might as well be getting the
holy spirit pixie dust from Rod Parsley. It’s the same false gospel,
just packaged for a different crowd.

That’s the tame part.  To read the full, uncensored firebomb go here.

[HT: Bill Kinnon]

What Does The Emerging Church Stand For?

Andrew Perriman has addressed that question at his Open Source Theology site.  It’s not the shortest of articles, but it’s good, and I like his answers.  If you’ve wondered about the "emerging church" this will give you a good description that isn’t a typical caricature.

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