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SOME QUOTES FROM THE 'EMERGING CHURCH CONVERSATION' IN SOUTH AFRICA
To give an idea of the ideas being entertained often by leaders in the so called 'Emerging Church conversation' in South Africa, read the following quotes and follow the links. Many older pastors simply don't know the unorthodox ideas and viewpoints being discussed within the South African 'Emerging Church' movement - and thus fail to take action to speak up against and correct false teachings being spread by the movement. Should you have any other unorthodox quotes you wish to contribute to this blog, please post them as a comment below, with internet links please to authenticate. The quotes below should help everyone to see the dangerous consequences of using the ideology of postmodernism to interpret scripture.
Now some may say that most of the quotes below are not clearly taking a position, but just discussing ideas. That is one of the problems with debating postmodernists - they tend to evade making propositional statements of belief - meaning that they are very slippery to try debate against. For them truth is seen as subjective and personal rather than absolute and objective. Doubt of truth is a virtue or sign of sophistication and 'tolerance' rather than a sin. Therefore they tend to put most of their effort into undermining/erroding others absolute concepts of truth rather than proposing or defending any clear set of believes of their own. For this reason, one cannot defeat'postmodernism' simply by arguing against their defined positions - because they have few if any to argue against. Neither can one defeat them by simply 'engaging in conversation' because then one simply becomes another subjective voice in a conversation which is promoting doubt of truth. One cannot defeat postmodernism by using logic, because they do not believe in a unitary system of logic. One can only argue logically with someone who values logic and believes in objective truth. What one has to do is to show those who have not gone too far down the road of postmodernism, where their presuppositions lead by exposing their spreading of doubt in the clarity of scripture.
I have put names of those who have taken a high profile and can be deemed public figures and just initials of those who have not, although with their permission I would be happy to add their names. If anyone is offended by me quoting them here, please delete your statement referenced elsewhere and I will delete it here.
UNIVERSALISM AND HELL
"I think that even if a Christian didn't believe in universalism, they should want to! In other words, they'd want everyone to know and love God, because that's best for, well, everyone.
Is universalism, in itself threatening? I don't think so. What it *does* threaten is hermeneutics, theology and eschatology. And it can't be divorced from those, so that any discussion of the one necessarily leads to, and is influenced by, the others. Some of these are sacred cows, some are good theology. This is why it's fascinating to think about it :)" [Roger Saner]
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/topic.php?uid=2419328874&topic=3142
"That's a good summary of the various positions and they can all be argued. I would think that a loving God/-ess who does distinguish the "sheep from the goats" actually annihilates opposition rather than tortures them eternal." [T.V.]
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=3142&post=27425&uid=2419328874#/topic.php?uid=2419328874&topic=3066
"I personally believe that one can only come to God through Christ though I also believe that devout Jews will also go to Heaven if they live good lives. I know that that's a little bit dodge but that's what my heart feels." [SVO]
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/topic.php?uid=2419328874&topic=3142
ON THE GENDER OF GOD
"The NT notion is one of a herald or envoy who announces the reign of God/-ess/Christ and brings it into effect." [T.V.]
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/topic.php?uid=2419328874&topic=3142
"That's a good summary of the various positions and they can all be argued. I would think that a loving God/-ess who does distinguish the "sheep from the goats" actually annihilates opposition rather than tortures them eternal." [T.V.]
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=3142&post=27425&uid=2419328874#/topic.php?uid=2419328874&topic=3066
"As historical person Jesus was male, as risen LORD Jesus is transformed and remains embodied but just as S/He transcends the limitations of our bodies so too does S/He transcend the male gender S/He had prior to the resurrection. Jesus’ humanhood continues but Jesus’ manhood does not...
It is inappropriate to continue using masculine references for Godde if by doing so we are relegating feminine references to an inferior or worse, e.g. ungodly, place. It is especially in light of this that we ought to take up the contribution from our culture, the contribution of gender-inclusive language, as a vehicle for communicating Godde clearer."
http://timvictor.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/de-gendering-god-en-gendering-godde/
I respond in more detail to some of Tim's arguments at
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=5905&post=27662&uid=2419328874#/topic.php?uid=2419328874&topic=5905
HOMOSEXUALITY
"Every single text dealing with homosexual activity in the Bible also refers aggravating circumstances such as inhospitality, idolatory, shrine prostitution, adultery, promiscuity, lust, violence and rape. Not one of these verses has a monogamous relationship in mind. Not one! Condemning someone to eternal damnation on such tenuous evidence would therefore seem a very dangerous thing to do..." [Graeme Codrington]
http://www.futurechurch.co.za/item/what-the-bible-says-about-homosexuality
"In my own discussion I put forward that if we represent a God who loves(agape) unconditionally...then shouldn't we be inclusive and affirming in our approach to homosexual relationships." [A.V.]
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/topic.php?uid=2419328874&topic=2891
"Therefore, I have to ask you again, to explain how homosexuality hurts people who are not homosexual. Because only by affirming that there are real victims can you rely on most of the arguments you've put forward here." [DB]
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/topic.php?uid=2419328874&topic=2891
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Why Postmodernism and the Emerging Church threaten Missions and World Evangelism
Why Postmodernism and the Emerging Church threaten Missions and World Evangelism
Many Christians view Postmodernism and the Emerging Church movement as a somewhat intellectual issue or otherwise the domain of young high-tech bloggers and not really relevant to the issues facing the core objectives of the church. In this article I argue why acceptance of postmodernism in the church threatens to undermine the task of world evangelism in the areas of: the meaning of the gospel; our right to proclaim the gospel; our response to persecution for evangelism; postmodernists misunderstanding of the gospel; and our approach for presenting the gospel.
Postmodernism is not a faraway threat. It has already deeply infiltrated the Evangelical Church, influenced the way we do church especially amongst the youth and especially the American church – but since the American church is often a centre of influence for the rest of the world, through publishing and, high profile speakers – many in South Africa are following the trend. The ‘Emerging Church’ is the formal expression of these beliefs. But informally, millions of Christians who don’t identify themselves as ‘emerging church’ already believe the same things.
How is Postmodernism influencing missions and evangelism? Ask the average Christian to stop a stranger in the street and explain the gospel, and firstly he will probably struggle to present it clearly. Secondly, he will probably question whether he has a right to stop a stranger in the street to explain the gospel. Both of these responses are influenced by postmodernism.
Firstly, it has changed the way most Christian youth view the meaning and purpose of the gospel – our core message. The traditional biblical gospel is that we have all sinned against God and are thus under his wrath and so deserve to burn in hell for eternity. But the good news is that Jesus has died and suffered in our place and if we believe this, repent of our sins and confess him as Lord, then he will save us and give us eternal life. But now we have a variety of alternative gospels based on postmodernism. An example of a new gospel is this: We all have problems which upset us and make us unhappy. Christianity offers a better alternative lifestyle and to do so, we should believe in Jesus and follow his example. If we do we will have a much more successful, happy and fulfilling life. There are many other variations on this example postmodern gospel. Basically, the gospel becomes user-friendly and here to help us. What is missing? The cross, hell, sin, repentance, eternal life. Sin, if mentioned at all is seen in terms of the harm it does to us, rather than the offence against God. The differences between the traditional biblical gospel and the new postmodern gospels are massive. Needless to say, if Christians are missing out the ‘politically incorrect’ parts in their presentation of the gospel, they are not presenting the true gospel and this is unlikely to result in many true conversions.
Secondly, Postmodernism has shifted the approach to evangelism and missions. The traditional approach to evangelism, used to be a confrontation with absolute truth and a demand to repent of sin against God (see the example of Acts 2). Now before Postmodernism arrived, the seeker-sensitive church movement began looking for ways of attracting people to come to church without offending them. This is a legitimate approach to evangelism and has resulted in some salvations. Nevertheless, there are problems. Firstly, if this is used as the only approach to evangelism, then a lot of people who are not interested in church are never going to hear the gospel. Secondly, if the gospel message itself is softened to avoid offending non-Christians then the problems mentioned in the previous paragraph arise. But now Postmodernism and the Emerging Church have taken another step away from traditional evangelism. They advocate instead the ‘conversational’ approach of dialogue. In other words, just talk to people to try to find common points of agreement and try to both understand eachother and maybe some might convert – if they don’t then you will have maybe done some other good such as promoting world peace. Christianity is then presented as an alternative lifestyle of the individual rather than absolute truth. It becomes another ‘choice’. Thus the presentation of the gospel is progressively weakened by the approach used. Traditional Christianity presented the Jesus as ‘The Way’, ‘The Truth’, ‘The life’. Postmodernism presents Jesus as ‘A Way’, ‘A Truth, ‘A Life’. The difference is massive. No more demand for repentance from the sin of rebellion against God. Just a conversation about personal religious beliefs. This is happening on a global scale as Emergent church leaders seek dialogue with other religious leaders – and sometimes some of their seeker-sensitive friends have joined them. It also happens on the local scale where Christians just ‘converse’ about religion instead of trying to convert their unsaved neighbours. Now there is nothing wrong with conversation as a prelude to evangelism, but often ‘dialogue’ substitutes for genuine ‘evangelism’. A risk is that Christians can be giving missions money to charitable works and ‘missions’ led by postmodernists, who are not using the money to present the gospel at all, but simply to do good works and engage in fruitless ‘dialogue’.
Thirdly, Postmodernists don’t see an automatic right and duty to preach the gospel to all creation (Matthew 28). Rather, they believe one has to ‘earn’ the right to present the gospel to someone without offending them by first doing good works and building relationships to present a good image of Christianity and avoid offending them. Now there is nothing wrong with doing good works and building relationships to help win people, but if we have to first ‘earn’ our credibility in these ways, then will we ever have done enough to earn the right to speak? The result is that Christians are timid and afraid to present the gospel, because like trying to earn God’s approval, we are always insecure. No. We tell people the gospel for their good because the Lord commanded us to. He has given us authority to do so – we do not need to earn it or get anyone else’s permission to do so.
Fourthly, Postmodernism is affecting Christians attitudes towards other Christians being persecuted for preaching the gospel. Since they are themselves unwilling to suffer for their faith or even present the gospel to their close friends, they find it hard to understand why Christians in other countries are willing to endure jail and torture in Islamic and Communist countries for breaking the law to preach the gospel. Therefore they fail to lobby governments such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia to stop such persecution. Persecuting government officials can happily visit and trade with free countries in the west without being confronted with their human rights abuse by Christians in the free countries. This new postmodern attitude to persecution means that the gospel can be restricted by ideologically opposed governments with impunity.
Fifthly, Postmodernism has changed the way that unconverted people interpret the gospel in Postmodern countries, such as North America, Europe and the educated class in South Africa. When Modernism was popular, people generally derided the gospel as ‘unscientific’ or ‘backward’ and did not want to hear it. Now with Postmodernism, they are quite happy to listen, but re-interpret the gospel through a postmodern lens. They view the presentation of the gospel as just an account of someone’s personal preference and experiences – not a challenge to repent of sin against a Holy God. Therefore we have to emphasise and repeat those aspects of the gospel which are politically incorrect until they hopefully get the idea that this is THE TRUTH, THE ONLY WAY no ‘a truth’, or ‘a way’. We have to emphasise that the gospel is absolute and the only truth. Sadly, I believe that much media presentation of the gospel is wrongly interpreted by the listeners and thus they miss it.
Modernism/Liberalism gutted the missions efforts of the mainline Protestant Churches in the 1920’s and 30’s. Postmodernism and the Emerging Church threaten to do the same to modern missions. Therefore as part of the task of world evangelism and missions, the ideology of postmodernism and the Emerging church must be fought and defeated at home.
Many Christians view Postmodernism and the Emerging Church movement as a somewhat intellectual issue or otherwise the domain of young high-tech bloggers and not really relevant to the issues facing the core objectives of the church. In this article I argue why acceptance of postmodernism in the church threatens to undermine the task of world evangelism in the areas of: the meaning of the gospel; our right to proclaim the gospel; our response to persecution for evangelism; postmodernists misunderstanding of the gospel; and our approach for presenting the gospel.
Postmodernism is not a faraway threat. It has already deeply infiltrated the Evangelical Church, influenced the way we do church especially amongst the youth and especially the American church – but since the American church is often a centre of influence for the rest of the world, through publishing and, high profile speakers – many in South Africa are following the trend. The ‘Emerging Church’ is the formal expression of these beliefs. But informally, millions of Christians who don’t identify themselves as ‘emerging church’ already believe the same things.
How is Postmodernism influencing missions and evangelism? Ask the average Christian to stop a stranger in the street and explain the gospel, and firstly he will probably struggle to present it clearly. Secondly, he will probably question whether he has a right to stop a stranger in the street to explain the gospel. Both of these responses are influenced by postmodernism.
Firstly, it has changed the way most Christian youth view the meaning and purpose of the gospel – our core message. The traditional biblical gospel is that we have all sinned against God and are thus under his wrath and so deserve to burn in hell for eternity. But the good news is that Jesus has died and suffered in our place and if we believe this, repent of our sins and confess him as Lord, then he will save us and give us eternal life. But now we have a variety of alternative gospels based on postmodernism. An example of a new gospel is this: We all have problems which upset us and make us unhappy. Christianity offers a better alternative lifestyle and to do so, we should believe in Jesus and follow his example. If we do we will have a much more successful, happy and fulfilling life. There are many other variations on this example postmodern gospel. Basically, the gospel becomes user-friendly and here to help us. What is missing? The cross, hell, sin, repentance, eternal life. Sin, if mentioned at all is seen in terms of the harm it does to us, rather than the offence against God. The differences between the traditional biblical gospel and the new postmodern gospels are massive. Needless to say, if Christians are missing out the ‘politically incorrect’ parts in their presentation of the gospel, they are not presenting the true gospel and this is unlikely to result in many true conversions.
Secondly, Postmodernism has shifted the approach to evangelism and missions. The traditional approach to evangelism, used to be a confrontation with absolute truth and a demand to repent of sin against God (see the example of Acts 2). Now before Postmodernism arrived, the seeker-sensitive church movement began looking for ways of attracting people to come to church without offending them. This is a legitimate approach to evangelism and has resulted in some salvations. Nevertheless, there are problems. Firstly, if this is used as the only approach to evangelism, then a lot of people who are not interested in church are never going to hear the gospel. Secondly, if the gospel message itself is softened to avoid offending non-Christians then the problems mentioned in the previous paragraph arise. But now Postmodernism and the Emerging Church have taken another step away from traditional evangelism. They advocate instead the ‘conversational’ approach of dialogue. In other words, just talk to people to try to find common points of agreement and try to both understand eachother and maybe some might convert – if they don’t then you will have maybe done some other good such as promoting world peace. Christianity is then presented as an alternative lifestyle of the individual rather than absolute truth. It becomes another ‘choice’. Thus the presentation of the gospel is progressively weakened by the approach used. Traditional Christianity presented the Jesus as ‘The Way’, ‘The Truth’, ‘The life’. Postmodernism presents Jesus as ‘A Way’, ‘A Truth, ‘A Life’. The difference is massive. No more demand for repentance from the sin of rebellion against God. Just a conversation about personal religious beliefs. This is happening on a global scale as Emergent church leaders seek dialogue with other religious leaders – and sometimes some of their seeker-sensitive friends have joined them. It also happens on the local scale where Christians just ‘converse’ about religion instead of trying to convert their unsaved neighbours. Now there is nothing wrong with conversation as a prelude to evangelism, but often ‘dialogue’ substitutes for genuine ‘evangelism’. A risk is that Christians can be giving missions money to charitable works and ‘missions’ led by postmodernists, who are not using the money to present the gospel at all, but simply to do good works and engage in fruitless ‘dialogue’.
Thirdly, Postmodernists don’t see an automatic right and duty to preach the gospel to all creation (Matthew 28). Rather, they believe one has to ‘earn’ the right to present the gospel to someone without offending them by first doing good works and building relationships to present a good image of Christianity and avoid offending them. Now there is nothing wrong with doing good works and building relationships to help win people, but if we have to first ‘earn’ our credibility in these ways, then will we ever have done enough to earn the right to speak? The result is that Christians are timid and afraid to present the gospel, because like trying to earn God’s approval, we are always insecure. No. We tell people the gospel for their good because the Lord commanded us to. He has given us authority to do so – we do not need to earn it or get anyone else’s permission to do so.
Fourthly, Postmodernism is affecting Christians attitudes towards other Christians being persecuted for preaching the gospel. Since they are themselves unwilling to suffer for their faith or even present the gospel to their close friends, they find it hard to understand why Christians in other countries are willing to endure jail and torture in Islamic and Communist countries for breaking the law to preach the gospel. Therefore they fail to lobby governments such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia to stop such persecution. Persecuting government officials can happily visit and trade with free countries in the west without being confronted with their human rights abuse by Christians in the free countries. This new postmodern attitude to persecution means that the gospel can be restricted by ideologically opposed governments with impunity.
Fifthly, Postmodernism has changed the way that unconverted people interpret the gospel in Postmodern countries, such as North America, Europe and the educated class in South Africa. When Modernism was popular, people generally derided the gospel as ‘unscientific’ or ‘backward’ and did not want to hear it. Now with Postmodernism, they are quite happy to listen, but re-interpret the gospel through a postmodern lens. They view the presentation of the gospel as just an account of someone’s personal preference and experiences – not a challenge to repent of sin against a Holy God. Therefore we have to emphasise and repeat those aspects of the gospel which are politically incorrect until they hopefully get the idea that this is THE TRUTH, THE ONLY WAY no ‘a truth’, or ‘a way’. We have to emphasise that the gospel is absolute and the only truth. Sadly, I believe that much media presentation of the gospel is wrongly interpreted by the listeners and thus they miss it.
Modernism/Liberalism gutted the missions efforts of the mainline Protestant Churches in the 1920’s and 30’s. Postmodernism and the Emerging Church threaten to do the same to modern missions. Therefore as part of the task of world evangelism and missions, the ideology of postmodernism and the Emerging church must be fought and defeated at home.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Are aspects of the Emerging Church compatable with Christian faith?
I changed the heading of this post following some detailed and interesting comments below, to better describe the topic of the comments received. Please read comments below.
Baptist Union responds to Codrington's homosexual article
The Baptist Union of South Africa (BUSA) has recently responded to the publication of Graeme Codrington's article in their magazine by reaffirming their position against same-sex partnerships and saying that it was a serious error of judgment to publish a “perspective” that is neither evangelical nor representative of the Baptist Union.
Their statement passed by unanimous resolution with no abstentions at the recent 2008 General Assembly meeting stated:
SCRIPTURE AND “LOVING GAY PARTNERSHIPS
The BUSA reaffirms its conviction, based on the authority of Scripture, that God ordained marriage as a unique heterosexual union between a man and a woman. The Bible does not recognise the legitimacy of “same sex marriage”. On the contrary, the physical expression of same gender sexuality is condemned as sinful in both the Old and New Testaments.
We confess that the church has often failed to display the love of Christ in ministering to gay people. However, our conviction about homosexual practice isn’t motivated by a loveless legalism or homophobia but rather by our obedience to the clear teaching of Scripture. We believe that the re-interpretation of the Biblical texts, so as to allow for a “loving gay partnership”, is a distortion of what the Bible consistently teaches.
Their statement passed by unanimous resolution with no abstentions at the recent 2008 General Assembly meeting stated:
SCRIPTURE AND “LOVING GAY PARTNERSHIPS
The BUSA reaffirms its conviction, based on the authority of Scripture, that God ordained marriage as a unique heterosexual union between a man and a woman. The Bible does not recognise the legitimacy of “same sex marriage”. On the contrary, the physical expression of same gender sexuality is condemned as sinful in both the Old and New Testaments.
We confess that the church has often failed to display the love of Christ in ministering to gay people. However, our conviction about homosexual practice isn’t motivated by a loveless legalism or homophobia but rather by our obedience to the clear teaching of Scripture. We believe that the re-interpretation of the Biblical texts, so as to allow for a “loving gay partnership”, is a distortion of what the Bible consistently teaches.
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