Over the past year and increasingly over the past 6months, I’ve become more and more concerned about what it is and why even I should be concerned.  The movement, or conversation as many call it, is hard to define…but basically it is a rising concern of many in the church itself to “minister to the postmodern culture”.

The poster-child of this movement is a pastor named Brian McLaren, who has published most and is most popular and vocal in growing this movement.  Much controversy has risen because of the over-emphasis of orthopraxy over orthodoxy and the Emergents’ de-prioritization of the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture.  Hermeneutics of humility is uplifted, while the doctrine of perspecuity of God’s word and Biblical inerrancy is neglected.

What makes me significantly more concerned recently is that our church’s Young Adults Smallgroup is reading McLaren’s “A Generous Orthodoxy” and my Pastor is reading more and more McLaren.  At first glance, McLaren’s writtings are acceptable by the Christian mind, as reaching our culture with God’s love is our mission indeed.  However, this man-centeredness and lack of Biblical foundation througout is ultimately what scares me.  In reading emergent literature, we must also review it in light of the Bible and the traditional reformed doctrine that was derived from His Truth and transcended culture and time.

I do not assume to have fully wrapped my head around the emergents, nor would be so bold to say that they are wrong–but from what I’ve read and listened to, we missional evangelicals MUST continually filter this movement through the infallible, authoritative Word of God. And as this movement gains in popularity, we should indeed be increasingly concerned.

(Please note my bias as outlined in my bio)
 

Some resources I’ve found helpful:

The Master’s Seminary-2006 Faculty Lecture Series on “The Emerging Church Movement”
http://www.tms.edu/audio.asp?ministry_id=3&dlyear=-1&dlcat=Faculty+Lecture+Series&dlcat2=-1

A critical look at the emerging church movement, by Phil Johnson.
2006 Shepherds’ Conference:
http://emergentno.blogspot.com/2006/03/phil-johnson-critical-look-at-emerging.html

Review of Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy
by Dr. John M. Frame
http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/2005McLaren.htm

The Emerging Church
by D. A. Carson
Modern Reformation Magazine, “Faith a La Carte?”  (July / August 2005 Issue, Vol. 14.4).
http://www.modernreformation.org/dac05emerging.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_church
http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=510
http://www.emergingchurch.info/
http://www.emergentvillage.com

“In holy and divine matters one must first hear rather than see,
first believe rather than understand,
first be grasped rather than grasp,
first be captured rather than capture,
first learn rather than teach,
first be a disciple rather than a teacher and master of his own. 
We have an ear so that we may submit to others,
and eyes that we may take care of others. 
Therefore, whoever in the church wants to become an eye and a leader and master of others,
let him become an ear and a disciple first. 
This first.”

(Martin Luther, First Lectures on the Psalms II, Works II.245-246).

~I’m waiting for class to start right now, and in trying to pass time I just came across this article my Pastor John Samson of Faith Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona on 10 FAQs on Election:

1. What is meant by “Divine Election?”
2. Isn’t the idea of election just another word for fatalism?
3. Isn’t predestination based simply on God foreknowing those who will believe?
4. What would be the point of evangelism if some people are “elect” and some are not and don’t have the free will to choose Christ?  Doesn’t this make evangelism a farce?
5. Can you explain John 3:16? Doesn’t this imply no election, but rather free choice?
6. We are all conscious of having our own free wills. How are we to understand the human will?
7. Doesn’t John 12:32 teach that Christ is drawing everyone to Himself?
8. How can I know if I am one of the elect?
9. When all is said and done, isn’t Divine election unfair?
10. If Election is true, can you explain 2 Peter 3:9, which says that God is not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance?

If you’ve ever struggled with these questions, or the like, I highly encourage you to have a read!  It’s Biblical and reformed–definitely strong foundational thruths for our faith.

Doris Day sang a popular song entitled “Que Sera, Sera,” “What will be, will be.” At first glance this theme communicates a kind of fatalism that is depressing. Islamic theology frequently says of specific events, “It is the will of Allah.”

The Bible is deeply concerned about the will of God—His sovereign authority over His creation and everything in it. When we speak about God’s will we do so in at least three different ways. The broader concept is known as God’s decretive, sovereign, or hidden will. By this, theologians refer to the will of God by which He sovereignly ordains everything that comes to pass. Because God is sovereign and His will can never be frustrated, we can be sure that nothing happens over which He is not in control. He at least must “permit” whatever happens to happen. Yet even when God passively permits things to happen, He chooses to permit them in that He always has the power and right to intervene and prevent the actions and events of this world. Insofar as He lets things happen, He has “willed” them in this certain sense.

Though God’s sovereign will is often hidden from us until after it comes to pass, there is one aspect of His will that is plain to us—His preceptive will. Here God reveals His will through His holy law. For example, it is the will of God that we do not steal; that we love our enemies; that we repent; that we be holy. This aspect of God’s will is revealed in His Word as well as in our conscience, by which God has written His moral law upon our heart.

His laws, whether they be found in the Scripture or in the heart, are binding. We have no authority to violate this will. We have the power or ability to thwart the preceptive will of God, though never the right to do so. Nor can we excuse ourselves for sinning by saying, “Que sera, sera.” It may be God’s sovereign or hidden will that we be “permitted” to sin, as he brings His sovereign will to pass even through and by means of the sinful acts of people. God ordained that Jesus be betrayed by the instrument of Judas’s treachery. Yet this makes Judas’s sin no less evil or treacherous. When God “permits” us to break His preceptive will, it is not to be understood as permission in the moral sense of His granting us a moral right. His permission gives us the power, but not the right to sin.

The third way the Bible speaks of the will of God is with respect to God’s will of disposition. This will describes God’s attitude. It defines what is pleasing to Him. For example, God takes no delight in the death of the wicked, yet He most surely wills or decrees the death of the wicked. God’s ultimate delight is in His own holiness and righteousness. When He judges the world, He delights in the vindication of His own righteousness and justice, yet He is not gleeful in a vindictive sense toward those who receive His judgment. God is pleased when we find our pleasure in obedience. He is sorely displeased when we are disobedient.

Many Christians become preoccupied or even obsessed with finding the “will” of God for their lives. If the will we are seeking is His secret, hidden, or decretive will, then our quest is a fool’s errand. The secret counsel of God is His secret. He has not been pleased to make it known to us. Far from being a mark of spirituality, the quest for God’s secret will is an unwarranted invasion of God’s privacy. God’s secret counsel is none of our business. This is partly why the Bible takes such a negative view of fortune-telling, necromancy, and other forms of prohibited practices.

We would be wise to follow the counsel of John Calvin when he said, “When God closes His holy mouth, I will desist from inquiry.” The true mark of spirituality is seen in those seeking to know the will of God that is revealed in His preceptive will. It is the godly person who meditates on God’s law day and night. While we seek to be “led” by the Holy Spirit, it is vital to remember that the Holy Spirit is primarily leading us into righteousness. We are called to live our lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. It is His revealed will that is our business, indeed, the chief business of our lives.

-Sproul, R.C. (1992) The Will of God.  Essentials Truths Of The Christian Faith.
Chapter 22, pages 67-69, Tyndale House.

The doctrine of justification by faith alone does not imply that you are justified before God because you managed to work up enough faith in and by yourself to believe in Christ, which is impossible in the first place.  Rather, the doctrine contrasts faith against works, emphasizing that we are justified by God through faith apart from works. This faith is itself not a work — that is, not a work of man, but a work of God IN man.  FAITH IS A GIFT OF GOD purchased by Christ for all those whom God has chosen for salvation. It is a gift even though it has been purchased by our Mediator because it is God who sovereignly decreed to save us through this Mediator in the first place.  It is God who has sovereignly chosen those whom He would save by His grace through Christ, so that all of salvation is a gift of God — it is a sovereign gift of God, unmerited by man, that at the same time fully satisfies divine justice, since it has been merited by Christ. Thus salvation is from the grace of God alone, through the work of Christ alone, and by means of faith alone (that is, in contrast to works).

Therefore, when discussing the doctrine of justification by faith, we must NOT portray faith as a condition for salvation that God requires from us, as if we could produce faith in and of ourselves prior to regeneration and apart from the Spirit’s power. So, although it is correct to speak of faith as our necessary response to the gospel, this “response” of faith is in fact one of the very things that Christ’s atonement purchased for his elect, and that God bestows upon his chosen ones by his Spirit. In other words, God is the one who produces this response of faith in his elect.