Rob Bell doesn’t seem to think so. Or does he? Maybe he does, and I’m just confused at his evasive indirectness. If he does believe in a literal hell, he’s seems very quiet about it — especially for somebody who apparently has graduated from seminary. At least, that is what I gather after reading this recent interview where he simply dodges answering the question in a very Emergent kind of way: Read the rest of this entry »

Emergent pastor Dan Kimball questions the validity of Dr. Albert Mohler’s quote about the complete ban of consuming alcohol in the SBC.  What Mohler said was as follows:

“I can assure you of this: if you are associated with the use of beverage alcohol, I think I dare exaggerate not to say that 99% of all doors of ministry in the Southern Baptist Convention will be closed to you.”

Dan wonders, “If Jesus came to apply for a job as a Southern Baptist pastor, would He have 99% of the doors shut?”

My dear Reformed and SBC friends, feel free to attack the real issues at hand here in the article’s comment section

Erwin McManus has had a significant impact on my church. My pastor reads him a lot and takes a lot of theological insights into ministry from this emerging pastor and “cultural architect”. So after reading this sobering review of his latest book “Soul Cravings“, I am left very disturbed by the emerging missional theology that Mr. McManus preaches and writes. I know my pastor has read this page-numberless book, has lent it out to many high schoolers in our congregation, and thus I am scared that the understanding of sin and salvation our young generation has could very well be skewed and incomplete.

Just because a book is labeled as “Christian” and sold in a Christian bookstore does not ever mean it fully bears the marks of true, Christianity — the historic, Christian orthodoxy kind.

In Soul Cravings, McManus has thrown out the doctrine of original sin, human depravity, and completely missed the mark at trying to share the Gospel with non-Christians through this bok — a half-Gospel masquerading as the whole Gospel that has become a complete un-Gospel (along the lines of J.I. Packer’s vernacular).
Read the rest of this entry »

This news is a few days old, but Myers Chair of Ministry at Northern Seminary, Dr. Robert E. Webber, who died Friday, April 27 at age 73 at his home in Sawyer, Michigan, after an eight-month struggle with pancreatic cancer.

While Robert Webber is clearly an emerging type and hence my disagreement with his theology, his works in integrating worship and ministry has been a valuable resource to the church - in spite of his emphasis on non-Christian ancient religions.

May the Lord have mercy and give him and his family peace.

I have a number of concerns with narrative preaching. First, it does not emanate from those churches, seminaries, and theologians that hold to the doctrine of inerrancy and have a high view of preaching and teaching. It tends to emanate from the more liberal and mainline churches with a low view of the Bible and of Jesus.

Second, the call for narrative preaching can indicate a move away from propositional truth in favor of relativism and perspectivism, as if transformation were possible without information.

The trend today is away from propositional truth: “We don’t need propositional truth. We need narrative truth and embodied truth.” Actually, if we’re going to be multi-perspectival, we need all of it.

Propositional truth tells me who God is, who I am, why I’m here, how I’ve fallen short, who Jesus is, and what he has done. I can’t have a good Christology with a finger painting. You need to tell me something. Someone might say, “I’ve read Wittgenstein, and he said that there are limits to language and words.” I understand that. But God has chosen to speak through his Word and the same Holy Spirit that inspired the words to be written illuminates the understanding of the children of God. We’re not stuck in the cul-de-sac of Wittgenstein. The Holy Spirit is the great variable that makes the Word of God known to the people of God. We believe in the miraculous. We’re not just a natural people relying on the three-pound, fallen brain to make revelation clear. We also have God who loves us. And like John Calvin said, God is willing to stoop down and speak baby-talk, so that we would understand who he is and what he’s trying to say.

Read the rest of this entry »

I will always remember this day and age in the future, when I look back at my (pre-) seminarian life. When I consider what battles I am facing in evangelicalism right now, I shiver at the mere thought of the war we are in right now. I gulp and swallow hard at what Paul wrote to his young pastor-disciple Timothy a long time ago:

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (1 Tim. 4:3-4)

Unfortunately, that time has come again (though some would say it’s always been here). I have not even started my seminary education yet, and already there is so much in Christianity being questioned that I never, ever would think would be doubted. As John MacArthur has continually noted, the battleground in the church will always be centered around truth. It is still the same today on April 25, 2007.
Read the rest of this entry »

On the July 15, 2005 episode of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on PBS, Brian McLaren was interviewed on the emerging church.

When asked, “Are there truths related to the faith that we can know, that we can be certain about?” — McLaren dodges the question completely and responds with the following (*this is his complete, unedited response):

Well, first of all, when we talk about the word “faith” and the word “certainty,” we’ve got a whole lot of problems there. What do we mean by “certainty”? If I could substitute the word “confidence,” I’d say yes, I think there are things we can be confident about, and those are the things we have to really work with. This is one of the concerns that some people who are critical of my work have, and I understand their concern. Their concern is they feel you have a choice between certainty and a lack of confidence. Well, I think that there is a proper level of confidence. For example, the people who are sure that white supremacy was justifiable based on the Bible — they were certain about it. I don’t think they had many second thoughts about it. The Europeans who spread around the world and stole lands from the first nations, the native peoples of Africa, North America, South America, Asia — they had no shortage of confidence. They were certain that they were allowed to go and take everybody’s lands and, I mean, the results were horrific for hundreds of years.

So certainty can be dangerous. What we need is a proper confidence that’s always seeking the truth and that’s seeking to live in the way God wants us to live, but that also has the proper degree of self-critical and self-questioning passion. And that’s not a passion for being wishy-washy or, what was the word in the last election, to be a “flip-flopper.” It is a passion to say, “We might be wrong, and we are always going to stay humble enough that we’ll be willing to admit that.” I don’t see that as a lack of fidelity to the teaching of the Bible. I see that as trying to follow the teaching of the Bible. It has a lot of positive things to say about humility.

Read the rest of this 2year old emerging ooze here.

(If you didn’t know, I think I should make it clear: I strongly disagree with McLaren–for there are many things in our faith that we can know for certain. For starters, Christ’s death and resurrection in our place, and Scripture as God’s own breathed, inerrant word. Without even these 2, our faith falls to pieces.)