Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Mormonism & Christianity

My Take: This evangelical says Mormonism isn’t a cult
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/09/my-take-this-evangelical-says-mormonism-isnt-a-cult/?hpt=hp_t2

October 9, 2011

Editor’s note: Richard J. Mouw is President of Fuller Theological Seminary, an evangelical school in Pasadena, California.

By Richard J. Mouw, Special to CNN

Some prominent evangelical pastors have been telling their constituents not to support Mitt Romney’s bid for the 2012 presidential nomination. Because Romney is Mormon, they say, to cast a vote for him is to promote the cause of a cult.

I beg to differ.

For the past dozen years, I’ve been co-chairing, with Professor Robert Millet of Brigham Young University - the respected Mormon school - a behind-closed-doors dialogue between about a dozen evangelicals and an equal number of our Mormon counterparts.

We have talked for many hours about key theological issues: the authority of the Bible, the person and work of Christ, the Trinity, “continuing revelations” and the career of Joseph Smith, the 19th century founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), better known as the Mormon Church.

We evangelicals and our Mormon counterparts disagree about some important theological questions. But we have also found that on some matters we are not as far apart as we thought we were.

I know cults. I have studied them and taught about them for a long time. It’s worth noting that people have wondered whether I belong to a cult, with a reporter once asking me: “Evangelicalism, is that like Scientology and Hare Krishna?”

Religious cults are very much us-versus-them. Their adherents are taught to think that they are the only ones who benefit from divine approval. They don’t like to engage in serious, respectful give-and-take dialogue with people with whom they disagree.

Nor do they promote the kind of scholarship that works alongside others in pursuing the truth. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, haven’t established a university. They don’t sponsor a law school or offer graduate-level courses in world religions. The same goes for Christian Science. If you want to call those groups cults I will not argue with you.

But Brigham Young University is a world-class educational institution, with professors who’ve earned doctorates from some of the best universities in the world. Several of the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have PhDs from Ivy League schools.

These folks talk admiringly of the evangelical Billy Graham and the Catholic Mother Teresa, and they enjoy reading the evangelical C.S. Lewis and Father Henri Nouwen, a Catholic. That is not the kind of thing you run into in anti-Christian cults.

So are Mormons Christians? For me, that’s a complicated question.

My Mormon friends and I disagree on enough subjects that I am not prepared to say that their theology falls within the scope of historic Christian teaching. But the important thing is that we continue to talk about these things, and with increasing candor and mutual openness to correction.

No one has shown any impulse to walk away from the table of dialogue. We do all of this with the blessing of many leaders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some of whom have become good friends.

While I am not prepared to reclassify Mormonism as possessing undeniably Christian theology, I do accept many of my Mormon friends as genuine followers of the Jesus whom I worship as the divine Savior.

I find Mormons to be more Christ-centered than they have been in the past. I recently showed a video to my evangelical Fuller Seminary students of Mormon Elder Jeffrey Holland, one of the Twelve Apostles who help lead the LDS church. The video captures Holland speaking to thousands of Mormons about Christ’s death on the cross.

Several of my students remarked that if they had not known that he was a Mormon leader they would have guessed that he was an evangelical preacher.

The current criticisms of Mitt Romney’s religious affiliation recall for many of us the challenges John Kennedy faced when he was campaigning for the presidency in 1960.

Some well-known Protestant preachers (including Norman Vincent Peale) warned against putting a Catholic in the White House. Kennedy’s famous speech to Houston pastors clarifying his religious beliefs as they related to his political leadership helped his cause quite a bit.

But the real changes in popular attitudes toward Catholicism happened more slowly, as Catholic Church leaders and scholars engaged in a new kind of dialogue with each other and representatives of other faith groups, most dramatically at the Second Vatican Council during the early years of the 1960s.

Cults do not engage in those kinds of self-examining conversations. If they do, they do not remain cults.

Those of us who have made the effort to engage Mormons in friendly and sustained give-and-take conversations have come to see them as good citizens whose life of faith often exhibits qualities that are worthy of the Christian label, even as we continue to engage in friendly arguments with them about crucial theological issues.

Mitt Romney deserves what every politician running for office deserves: a careful examination of his views on policy and his philosophy of government. But he does not deserve to be labeled a cultist.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Richard J. Mouw.


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Mitt Romney Responds To Anti-Mormonism:
‘Poisonous Language Doesn’t Advance Our Cause’
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/mitt-romney-responds-to-anti-mormonism-poisonous-language-doesnt-advance-our-cause/

by Frances Martel | 1:02 pm, October 8th, 2011

After half a weekend where the top news story was a debate whether his own religion was a “cult,” Mitt Romney took the stage at the Values Voter Summit today and shot back at those who would undermine his political prowess based on his religion, decrying “poisonous language” and, particularly, “one of the speakers who will follow me,” referring to anti-Mormon American Family Association representative Bryan Fischer.

RELATED Anti-Mormon Pastor To Anderson Cooper: Romney May Belong To A ‘Cult,’ But He Is Better Than Obama

Romney, preceded by a speech in which Bill Bennett explicitly shamed pastor Robert Jeffress for calling the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a “cult” and hurting the Rick Perry campaign by proxy, thanked Bennett for his speech– “talk about hitting it out of the park,” he joked, a comment Perry had made about Jeffress. During his speech, Romney took a respite from political issues to remind the crowd that “decency and civility are values, too” and to note in particular that “one of the speakers who will follow me today has crossed that line, I think.” Attacking his “poisonous language,” he argued that it “does not advance our cause; it’s never softened a single heart or changed a single mind.” While he did not mention Jeffress, Fischer has made similar comments about the LDS church.

A report on Romney’s comments Fox News below:




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Bill Bennett: Jeffress comments on Mormonism 'bigotry'
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65475.html

By ALEXANDER BURNS | 10/8/11 9:40 AM EDT Updated: 10/8/11 6:58 PM EDT


Conservative commentator Bill Bennett, speaking at the Values Voter Summit, rebuked the Texas pastor who described Mormonism as a “cult” here Friday afternoon.

Bennett, the former education secretary and conservative author, said that Baptist church leader Robert Jeffress had given “voice to bigotry” in his remarks.

Jeffress gave a fiery speech endorsing Rick Perry for president and later told reporters he did not believe Mitt Romney is a Christian.

“Do not give voice to bigotry. Do not give voice to bigotry,” Bennett said in his speech Saturday morning. “I would say to Pastor Jeffress: You stepped on and obscured the words of Perry and Santorum and Cain and Bachmann and everyone else who has spoken here. You did Rick Perry no good, Sir, in what you had to say.”

Bennett’s remarks came less than half an hour before Romney was scheduled to take the stage at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65475.html#ixzz1aT2zFOYJ


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For More Information on Mormonism

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism

Theopedia - http://www.theopedia.com/Mormonism

MormonInfo.org - http://mormoninfo.org/

Scot McKnight's Website: Comments - http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/10/10/romney-a-mormon-is-he-a-christian/#comments


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Jeff Goldberg, a Jew: “Mormonism isn’t Christianity”
http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/11/02/jeff-goldberg-a-jew-mormonism-isnt-christianity/#more-21854

by Scot McKnight
November 2, 2011

Jeff Goldberg thinks he needs to step into this “is Mormonism Christianity?” issue:
One reason why is that Mormonism isn’t, in fact, Christian. Today’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn’t resemble a cult in any meaningful way. But its relationship to Christianity is similar to Christianity’s relationship to Judaism….

Just so we’re clear, I couldn’t care less whether Mormons are Christian, for two reasons: 1) I’m Jewish, so both Christianity and Mormonism (not to mention Islam) are a bit too arriviste for my taste; and 2) religious tests for public office are profoundly un-American. It says so in Article VIof the Constitution: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”…

Neither does Mormonism offend me aesthetically. I don’t particularly care about what secular culture — on Broadway and off — sees as evidence of its essential ridiculousness: the early dalliance with polygamy; the belief that every righteous Mormon gets his own planet; the sacred underwear; the off-putting absence of both acne and irony among Mormon youths. Christians believe in a virgin birth, after all, and members of my faith remove the foreskins from 8-day-old boys, just as our Bronze Age ancestors did (which bothers me not at all)….

Mormons themselves contend that “Christ is at the center of our worship, study, service and faith,” as a statement released by the church after Jeffress’s comment put it.
But theological honesty demands that we recognize that Romney would be the first president to be so far outside the Christian denominational mainstream.

There is much in Mormonism that stands in opposition to Christian doctrine, including the belief that the Book of Mormon completes the Christian Bible. Christianity had an established creed about 1,500 years before Joseph Smith appeared in upstate New York with a new truth, codified in the Book of Mormon, which he said was revealed to him by an angel named Moroni.

“The Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed settled the basic ideas of Christianity,” said Michael Cromartie, an evangelical who is vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Centerin Washington. “The canon was closed, and then Joseph Smith comes along and says that there’s a new book, an extra-biblical addition to the agreed-upon canon.”…

Nothing in Mormonism is quite as alien to Christian thought as the core assertion that God and man are of the same species.

“This is a canonical belief of Mormons, and it stands in radical opposition to the beliefs of the monotheistic religions,” Richard J. Mouw, the president of the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary in California, told me. “Your people” — that is, Jews — “and my people would say that the fundamental sin here from the biblical point of view is that God is God and we’re not. There’s an ontological gap between creator and creation.”

When confronted by such questions about his religion, Romney shouldn’t defend its doctrines. He should defend the right of a Mormon to be president. And those Mormons drafted to defend their faith on the political battlefield shouldn’t argue that they are merely misconstrued Christians, a claim that won’t fly with pivotal Christian constituencies. Instead, they should assert that theirs is a legitimate and moral system of belief, and that a country that elected a black man named Barack Hussein Obama as president is certainly ready to elect an adherent of what [Mr.] Land calls the "Fourth Abrahamic faith." (sic, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Mormonism, as used in this sense - skinhead)



Monday, October 3, 2011

Rob Bell - Sermons on Philippians


Teaching Archives of Rob Bell on Phillippians
http://marshill.org/teaching/past-teachings/

*Each .mp3 file may be found on the Internet but are here linked to their originating source at Mars Hill Church (for a small donation).

*If there are any Google bloggers who are technically proficient and willing to link each .mp3 file below to this site page, this help would be appreciated. Each line will need its own embedded code and a reasonably stable link that will be available for years and years. Or, perhaps there is an Internet channel that can be used. Comments may be made below.



Philippians pt 01: Grace And Peace - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 02: A Good Work - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 03: All Of You - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 04: Abound - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 05: What Has Happened To Me - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 06: But What Does It Matter - Kent Dobson
Philippians pt 07: My Deliverance - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 08: Exalted In My Body - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 09: I Do Not Know - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 10: Progress And Joy - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 11: Boasting Will Abound - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 12: A Worthy Manner - Brian Mucci
Philippians pt 13: Same Struggle - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 14: One Mind - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 15: Others - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 16: Grasping And Giving - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 17: The Crux And The Hyperhypsosem - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 18: God Works In You - David Livermore
Philippians pt 19: Shine Like Stars - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 20: A Life Poured Out - John Ortberg
Philippians pt 21: Examples - Leroy Barber
Philippians pt 22: Beware The Dogs - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 23: Skubalon - Greg Boyd
Philippians pt 24: Blocks And Boards - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 25: I've Got You Hanging Around My Neck - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 26: I Will Say It Again, And Again, And Again - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 27: An Odd But Ancient Way To Live - Tim Brown
Philippians pt 28: The Right Kind Of Contentment - Richard Mouw
Philippians pt 29: Who Doesn't Want In On That? - Rob Bell
Philippians pt 30: Letter On A Letter - Rob Bell








Rob Bell - Sermons on the "Letters to the Seven Churches of Revelation"



Teaching Archives of Rob Bell on the "Letters to the Seven Churches of Revelation"
http://marshill.org/teaching/past-teachings/ ( ~ 2010 - 2011 )

Yet again, an  e-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t   series. Profound, convicting, motivating. - res

*Each .mp3 file may be found on the Internet but are here linked to their originating source at Mars Hill Church (for a small donation).

*If there are any Google bloggers who are technically proficient and willing to link each .mp3 file below to this site page, this help would be appreciated. Each line will need its own embedded code and a reasonably stable link that will be available for years and years. Or, perhaps there is an Internet channel that can be used. Comments may be made below.



Letters To The Seven Churches pt 1: Rev 2: First Love - Rob Bell
Letters To The Seven Churches pt 2: Rev 2: Lighting The Wick - Shane Hipps
Letters To The Seven Churches pt 3: Rev 2: The Agony Of Explanation - Rob Bell
Letters To The Seven Churches pt 4: Rev 2: Thyatira - Richard Mouw
Letters To The Seven Churches pt 5: Rev 3: Fool's Gold - Shane Hipps
Letters To The Seven Churches pt 6: Rev 3: Sardis - Rob Bell







Rob Bell - Sermons on the Kingdom of God


Teaching Archives  of Rob Bell on the Kingdom of God
http://marshill.org/teaching/past-teachings/

Here is another  e-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t   series. Profound, convicting, motivating. - res

*Each .mp3 file may be found on the Internet but are here linked to their originating source at Mars Hill Church (for a small donation).

*If there are any Google bloggers who are technically proficient and willing to link each .mp3 file below to this site page, this help would be appreciated. Each line will need its own embedded code and a reasonably stable link that will be available for years and years. Or, perhaps there is an Internet channel that can be used. Comments may be made below.



Kingdom pt 1: Suffer The Kindness - Dan Allender
Kingdom pt 2: Within You - Shane Hipps
Kingdom pt 3: Weeds - Rob Bell
Kingdom pt 4: Sleeping - Shane Hipps
Kingdom pt 5: Returning To The Field - Shane Hipps
Kingdom pt 6: Ten Virgins - Rob Bell
Kingdom pt 7: The Learner - Shane Hipps







Rob Bell - Sermons on the Sermon on the Mount


Teaching Archives of Rob Bell on the "Sermon on the Mount"
http://marshill.org/teaching/past-teachings/   ( ~ 2009 - 2010 )

This is an  e-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t  series. My all time favorite. Profound, convicting, motivating. - res

*Each .mp3 file may be found on the Internet but are here linked to their originating source at Mars Hill Church (for a small donation).

*If there are any Google bloggers who are technically proficient and willing to link each .mp3 file below to this site page, this help would be appreciated. Each line will need its own embedded code and a reasonably stable link that will be available for years and years. Or, perhaps there is an Internet channel that can be used. Comments may be made below.



Resurrection - Rob Bell







Thursday, September 29, 2011

The Emergent Spectrum of Evangelicalism


Below I have provided a copy of Baker's Book review of the book, The Spectrum of Evangelicalism. One of its authors, Dr. Roger Olson, whom we follow regularly on this site, was a contributor and had notated the absence of an important evangelical position missing in this book, that of paleo-orthodoxy, which he then further explains below in two subsequent articles here copied and wishes that it would have been included. For without it there is a serious gap in the completeness of understanding what evangelicalism is, a completeness that the book misses.

To that observation I would add a sixth, crucial, evangelical view that is also missing... that of Emergent Christianity, which may at first seem more akin to Dr. Olson's post-conservative moniker but is fast outgrowing the old wineskin's of Evangelicalism's theologic boundary markers and ideological sets of containment. Thus stretching it beyond its breaking point with the new wines of its promise from its earlier days of infancy and forwarned by Christ. Let me explain....

Where once the Emergent Church movement was evangelically birthed and considered the unwanted step-child of Evangelicalism (consider its missing chapter in this most recent book), it has now gained a more rapid series of expansion in the hearts and minds of its adherents seeking for a more serious, more rounded form of fellowship that is less restrictive, less dogmatic, less vocal in its evangelical assurances of the faith. To the point of breaking ranks with Evangelicalism altogether by pushing back beyond its defining Reformational theologies begun 500 years ago unto the Early Church era itself. Rebirthing itself as it goes into the studied awareness and conviction of expanding without limit God's Word to all of mankind who are now shunned by Evangelicalism's off-setting dogmas and traditions that go beyond "Jesus as Savior and Lord" beliefs. Causing the Emergent movement to become no longer known as an outgrowth from Evangelicalism but a different kind of movement altogether. Hopefully one more biblical in its diversity and less reliant on dogmatic Christian traditions.

And though at first it felt like a movement that was pushing itself between Protestantism, on the one hand, and Roman Catholicism on the other, declaring itself as an alternative-form of Protestantism more akin to Anabaptism. Now, in reflection, this observation seems to be both inaccurate and not far reaching enough.  Rather, it seems more true that Emergent Christianity is more than a simple outgrowth from modernistic Evangelicalism. More than a movement of believers wishing to delineate themselves from select Reformational Calvinisms and Reformed doctrines (where and when those dogmas remove the Church from careful biblical scholarship and observance). Wishing to reach even further back, reaching all the way beyond the Reformation 500 years ago, beyond pre-Reformational medieval scholarship of a 1000 years ago, beyond even the careful councils of the Early Church Fathers, to the very historic era of the early church itself 2000 years ago. To hear afresh the Word of God in its native constructs and propositions rather than adhering to a set of denominational (and cultural) distinctives and theologies far removed from the Bible's historical settings (cf. sidebar "Pauline Theology").

Statedly, all of biblical scholarship from all over the world - in its universities and seminaries, in its churches and fellowships - is seeking to hear the Bible in its original compositions through newer post-Enlightenment discoveries about ourselves, our epistemologies and philosophies, our form of symbolic communications and forensic language development, our reasoning and psychological makeup, our forms of societal constitutions and conventions. Bringing to bear all the tools of accumulated knowledge at our disposal, amassed over the past many hundreds of years, to create a more complete, a more accurate reflection upon who God is in his cosmogony, who we are in our societies, and what our future can look like when less divided by a multitude of restrictive customs and heritages.

So that Emergent Christianity is not so much a fifth (or even a sixth) view of Evangelicalism but a completely new outgrowth from the pedantic isolationisms of Evangelicalism in its Westernized form unto a new entity globally birthed unformed and pregnant with possibilities. Something which may set a new pace for the entire spectrum of Christianity - whether Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodoxy, etc., - in its promise that all religious barriers may be removed in light of a rigorous desire to return to the Scriptures themselves (sola scriptura). Where the only barriers that could refuse it would be religious fear, uncertainty and pride; denominational money, media and fiefdom; and personal greed, avarice and deceit.

Where, in the process of collaboration and unity, individualism is retained, cultural identity applauded, diversity openly regarded. Where the Church may become strong within the fractals of its faith fellowships; within its very-necessary chaotic quantum environments; and, within its infinite colours and compositions. Swirling around as one living organism complete within its spectrums of regional diversities. The Church is not a call to conform, to blend in, to leaven our institutional and belief structures, but to communicate better with one another, to listen and share our faiths with one another in a richer tapestry of fellowship that only the human spirit can bear out. We are not seeking evangelic, denomination unity but a unity of spirit bent on preserving the varieties of biblical (not cultic) faith-expressions flowing from the Church's ancient Christological heritage unto the wider spectrum of global mankind. In short, diversity is God's gift to us and we should praise Him for it.

And within this evolutionary birthing process, perhaps be more able to reach-out and bring-in those non-Christian, monotheistic religions of Judaism and Muslimism which stand alongside the fold of God's divine flock. For Jesus is both prophet and significant historical personage to both these Eastern religions. And through the promise of Emergent Christianity's broader scope and sense of God's salvation to all men, in all times and places, the barriers to reaching these belief systems seem more possible, more sure. For the focus is on Jesus, the Good Shepherd of man, the Holy Lamb of God, the Incarnate One who makes covenant and by His own covenant cuts it by His blood. Who would be King and Lord, Alpha and Omega, and not simply a historical personage some consider but mere prophet or revolutionary. In Him is the distillation of the Ten Commandments. In Him does Israel find its exilic summation, its exilic rebirth, its flesh-and-blood Messiah who bears the sins of the nation.

And not only Israel, but all nations, be that blood brothers, or half-brothers, or brothers at enmity with one another. Specifically, Islam. In Jesus is there found Peace. For He Himself is that Peace of the New Covenant made with all men; that removes enmity between men and God, between men with each other, and men with themselves, their families and their friends. Jesus is THE Peace Covenant and this is the message of Emergent Christianity and the promise of its message.

...At least that is the promise in light of Inauguration Eschatology's New Testament hope of seeing the Kingdom of God renewed and restored among men. It is a legitimate promise, until that Day when Christ shall come fully in his Parousia. For it is not a day that can come apart from Christ's return lest in its coming man may deceive himself and rise up and call himself g/od almighty to discover himself prophetically within the early days of Revelation so declared.

The Church is not called to remake another temple of Babel in its own image. But it does mean that we can begin to hear God in his Word and seek his holy Being until that Day when in a shout of triumph Christ Jesus shall descend over the kingdoms and fiefdoms of mankind, and bring all men to His final peace. To rule in the hearts and minds of all men everywhere committed to a renewed earth where sin and death have been cast into the fiery lake and His glory and presence rules forth forever more. Amen and Amen.

This then would be the true spectrum of Christianity: one without boundaries and barriers, stateless and universal, color-blind, gender-neutral, disavowing all human limitations to its mission and charter.

RE Slater
September 29, 2011

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“Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism”

Baker Book House
September 23, 2011

Yesterday we received our first copies of the latest multiple-views book from Zondervan. It is the Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism. The contributors and positions are:

Kevin T. Bauder – Fundamentalism

R. Albert Mohler – Confessional Evangelicalism

John G. Stackhouse – Generic Evangelical

Roger Olson – Postconservative Evangelical

It may appear there is quite a spectrum but Roger Olson has said on his blog that he feels the positions between Bauder and Mohler Stackhouse. With those observations aside he believes the “book is very good as it is.”

As I scanned through it quickly I was struck by Bauder’s comments on Roman Catholicism. He writes:
“Fundamentalists believe that Roman Catholicism also denies the gospel. Catholicism attacks the gospel in at least two ways. First, it undercuts biblical authority by subjecting the Scriptures to an authoritative tradition and magisterium, not to mention an infallible papacy. Second, by confounding justification with progressive sanctification, it attacks the root of a gracious gospel and denies that salvation can be applied through faith alone. The result is a system of religion that mixes faith with works in the application of salvation.

Granted, Roman Catholicism, unlike Arianism or Mormonism, affirms Trinitarian orthodoxy. The Roman gospel, however is false. Catholicism represents an apostate, rather than a Christian, system of religion. Christians cannot rightly extend Christian recognition or fellowship to those who endorse and proclaim the Roman Catholic gospel.” (31-32)
Readers of this blog know how much I have learned and enjoy reading Catholic scholars. This kind of fundamentalism is hard to understand yet I encountered it first hand this week. I had a customer remark that he was just about to buy a book on exegesis but then he noticed the author taught at a Catholic seminary. He said to me, “Catholics are wrong on so much what could they possibly teach us about exegesis? Clearly their exegesis is wrong.” He didn’t purchase the book. I offered a couple of thoughts which he simply brushed aside as mindless gibberish.

I look forward to reading this book. I was once very comfortable with calling myself an Evangelical. I’m wondering if I’ll still be as comfortable after finishing the book.

Four Views on The Spectrum of Evangelicalism is from Zondervan. It is a paperback with 224 pages and sells for $16.99.

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Announcement of a new book on evangelicalism
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/09/announcement-of-a-new-book-on-evangelicalism/

by Roger Olson
September 4, 2011

It’s just out: Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism published by Zondervan. Edited by Andrew David Naselli and Collin Hansen in the series Counterpoints edited by Stanley Gundry. The authors of the four views are:

Kevin T. Bauder (Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Minneapolis)

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)

John G. Stackhouse, Jr. (Regents College)

Roger E. Olson (Baylor University)

Bauder writes on Fundamentalism; Mohler writes on Confessional Evangelicalism; Stackhouse writes on Generic Evangelicalism; Olson writes on Postconservative Evangelicalism. Each author responds to the others.

Fireworks.

After participating in this project for the past two years and now reading the entire book (including all the responses) I can only say that this book proves there is no one “evangelicalism.” The continental divide is between Bauder and Mohler, on the one hand, and Stackhouse and Olson, on the other hand.

Yes, of course, there are differences between Bauder (who represents separatistic fundamentalism) and Mohler (who does not push “biblical separationism” as strongly as Bauder). But overall and in general, Bauder and Mohler represent a narrow, exclusivistic brand of evangelicalism that highlights correct doctrine as the essence of what it means to be evangelical.

Stackhouse and I find it difficult to locate our differences. I’m sure we have them, but like Bauder and Mohler, it’s somewhat difficult to see how our visions of evangelicalism are very different. I’m sure John thinks of himself as more conservative than I, but I don’t really think so. I’m pretty conservative; I just don’t think you have to be as conservative as I am (e.g., premillennial) to be an evangelical. John’s evangelical “tent” is just as broad as mine, so far as I can tell.

My biggest complaint is that Mohler just doesn’t get it. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why. He continues to insist that evangelicalism has boundaries. Really? Who sets them? Oh, of course, he does! (Excuse the sarcasm.) He refuses to acknowledge the obvious fact that evangelicalism is a movement and movements CANNOT have boundaries. Yes, of course, we can talk about who’s “in” and who’s “out,” but not in terms of firm, recognizable boundaries. Without a magisterium there cannot be boundaries. All we can do is appeal to the historical center of common conviction and experience and ask whether a person is moving away from it or towards it. I fear if Mohler has his way evangelicalism will be narrowed down to people who believe in a literal six day creation (twenty-four hour days) about six thousand years ago. (Oh, and of course, people who don’t practice yoga in any form!)

This book demonstrates quite conclusively that there are now at least two evangelicalisms (in terms of theology). They are separated by:

1) whether or not biblical inerrancy is necessary for authentic evangelical faith (which even Carl Henry denied!),

2) whether a foundationalist epistemology is necessary for authentic evangelical theology (there would go Calvin!),

3) whether theology’s constructive task is ever ongoing until Christ returns (I might mention here an excellent article by Mohler’s associate dean Bruce Ware in JETS some years ago arguing for a revision of the traditional idea of God’s immutability [but apparently that kind of creative thinking isn't allowed others]) and,

4) whether doctrine or experience (conversional piety) is the sine qua non of authentic evangelical faith and life.

Buy the book. Read it. Decide which evangelicalism you belong to. I don’t think it’s possible to belong to both and I don’t see any middle ground between them.

NOTICE! I am not arguing that Bauder and Mohler and their ilk are not evangelicals! I’m arguing that, demonstrably, there are now two evangelicalisms (at least). Bauder and Mohler and those who agree with them are evangelicals–just of a different kind. John and I are evangelicals of a different order (I won’t even say “higher”). All of us (both types) can trace historical, theological and sociological roots back to the Reformation. But apparently we can’t get along. How sad.

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A final comment on Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/09/a-final-comment-on-four-views-on-the-spectrum-of-evangelicalism/

by Roger Olson
September 19, 2011

Quick review: Zondervan has just published an excellent new book entitled Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism edited by Andy Nasselli and Collin Hansen. The four authors are:

Kevin Bauder (fundamentalism)

Al Mohler (confessional evangelicalism)

John Stackhouse (generic evangelicalism)

Roger Olson (postconservative evangelicalism)

I hope you will purchase the book and read it; it reveals much about the current state of evangelicalism in America.

Long before the book was written, my editor at Zondervan contacted me about the idea. I gave her some advice and later gave the same advice to the editors. I think the final product is fine, but I think it could be better had they taken my advice.

My advice was to include a chapter by an evangelical proponent of paleo-orthodoxy. Here I use that term to describe theologians such as Thomas Oden (who, I think, coined the term), D. H. Williams and Christopher Hall–all men I highly respect even thought we have our differences of opinion about authority for theology.

Personally, I think their perspective is better called “confessional evangelicalism” than Mohler’s. At least it is different and I think leaving their view of evangelicalism out of the book was a mistake. (However, I admit that it’s possible they asked one or more of these paleo-orthodox theologians to contribute and they declined. So I’m not criticizing the editors or publisher; I’m just saying the book lacks a perspective that I think is a very powerful one among evangelicals today.)

I think Bauder’s view and Mohler’s are too much alike to really represent fundamentally different approaches to defining evangelicalism. I think the same of Stackhouse’s and mine (with apologies to John if he disagrees!). IF you want to fill in the gap, read one of Dan (D. H.) Williams’ books on tradition. Then read my critique of his approach (and Oden’s) in "Reformed and Always Reforming (by Roger Olson)."

Williams, Oden, Hall and company wish to point evangelicals to the ancient Christian consensus as an authority for belief. (I could mention the late Robert Webber as a proponent of this approach as well.) These evangelical theologians think contemporary evangelicalism is doctrinally and liturgically shallow and needs enrichment from the church fathers. For them, this is more than a mere suggestion (as it would be from me). They treat the ancient Christian consensus as THE authoritative lens through which Scripture must be interpreted. For them, we have no right to read Scripture apart from that.

One thing these traditionalists (I use that term in a neutral or positive and not a negative sense) have in common with Mohler is appeal to tradition as authoritative. But the difference is that for Mohler the authoritative tradition is a received evangelical tradition stemming mainly from the Reformation.

The paleo-orthodox theologians reach further back to the church fathers and like to argue that the mainline Protestant (read “magisterial”) reformers did not fundamentally disagree with the church fathers and even relied heavily on them (especially Augustine).

Now, both Mohler and company and the paleo-orthodox theologians seem to me to agree that the constructive task of theology is finished. All that remains is to express the tradition in ways that make it relevant to contemporary culture without in any way accommodating it to contemporary culture. I argue that in matters of theological controversy among evangelicals tradition gets a vote but never a veto. I think they give it a veto.

However, there is a richness and depth to Oden’s, Williams’, Hall’s and Webber’s approach to evangelical theology that I find missing in Mohler’s. Mohler seems to me to be a simple biblicist who interprets the Bible through the lens of, say, Charles Hodge (and his student Boyce who founded SBTS and wrote its Abstract of Principles). The paleo-orthodox traditionalists, on the other hand, plumb the depths and riches of the ancient church fathers and bring those riches to us today. The only area where I disagree with them is the level of authority they invest in them.

One thing that bothers me about these paleo-orthodox evangelicals is a certain inconsistency that I think I recognize in them. For example, in my reading of Augustine’s theology (e.g., his doctrine of predestination), it departs radically from anything that went before. When did the constructive task of theology end? Some would say with the seventh or eighth ecumenical council. But why? That seems so arbitrary. The magisterial reformers seemed to end it with the Council of Chalcedon (the fourth ecumenical council).

I regard the church fathers as guides rather than guards (e.g., of a chain gang).

Anyway, the book is very good as it is, but I think it would be better with a chapter by one of these paleo-orthodox evangelicals. But then it would be “Five Views” and maybe that’s too many for most people; it might hurt sales of the book. If I were given the opportunity to change it, I would combine Bauder’s and Mohler’s chapters into one and add a chapter by Williams.

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September 28, 2011 at 11:00 am
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/09/a-final-comment-on-four-views-on-the-spectrum-of-evangelicalism/#comments

Russ says,

[Dr Olson,] I love your humor! Thanks for the insights. One question I have is over something I recently read… It relates to Sanders, Dunn, Wright’s discussions on the New Perspectives of Paul (NPP) vs. the Reformational Church’s apprehension of Augustine by Lutheran and Reformed theologians who saw Paul in legal justification terms. When comparing the two (one a biblical approach, the other a Church Fathers approach) it seemed to me that Augustine’s understanding of the New Covenant (NC) in Christ was hijacked by the Reformers. That is, his doctrines of grace and love were re-interpreted into doctrines of sin and depravity. That the NC was extrapolated into terms of man first, not God first… so that it bent all previous theistic interpretations (such as Augustine's) of the NC into terms of anthropology and harmatology. And thus words like election and foreordination are revised away from their covenantal understanding to a soteriological understanding. And it seemed that this all began for the Reformers from their revisionism of Augustine’s conceptions of God’s love to man.

As reference, see Scot McKnight’s review in vanguard under Section V (Augustinian Anthropology and Criticism of New Perspective) – http://www.vanguardchurch.com/mcknight_npp.pdf. If correct, I found this early example of paleo-Orthodox revisionism by the early Reformational Fathers quite formative in their impact on Church History over the last 500 years. Which gives subsequent need for theologians to examine the original biblical texts through early extant Jewish sources (and other tools) to re-right popular mis-understandings of the “Gospel of Paul” as presented by the evangelical church today, as is being done through the NPP. Thanks.




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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Difficulties in Translating the Bible: ESV Video Session


I too would ask the same question as Kyle does when reviewing this video. Parsing the Bible by committee vote is never sexy and the overall conclusion we should draw from this example is that the reader of the Bible must try to get to the original source AND the intent of the manuscript as much as possible. And then make the hard choices as to how to extrapolate what the Bible says with what is being observed within society and the culture around us. It would look like this -


examination -->
                          text redaction -->
                                                       translation -->
                                                                              exposition -->
                                                                                                     relevancy (personal / societal)


(Ya gotta luv how I got to relevancy!)


...but humor aside, it is a difficult task to interpret the Bible requiring knowledge in hermeneutics, epistemology (languages, symbolism), theology (both biblical and systematic), philosophy, ancient textual sources and archaelogy, church history (the early Church Fathers, relevant Contemporary Theologians, etc), and a reasoned awareness of the practical concerns of life. While discerning various ecclesiastical interpretations favored by denominational traditions and preferences as well as redacting and elucidating corporate and individual regional-understandings. And then, over and above all this, to be able to speak street-wise to those around you in a personally directive, challenging, encouraging and motivating fashion offering hope, love, counsel, compassion and assistance. There's a lot more to speaking the gospel than simply speaking one's mind and biases, prejudices and judgments in cliche-like wisdoms bundled in cultural fluff and folklored-proverbs based upon popular hearsay and loudly acclaimed rhetoric.

That said, enjoy this snippet of information....

R.E. Slater
September 28, 2011

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Biblical Literalists Doing Dynamic Equivalence?
http://kylearoberts.com/wordpress/?p=520

by Kyle Roberts
September 21, 2011




This is a interesting look (filmed by the BBC) into the work of a Bible translation committee (the English Standard Version). What fascinates me here, though, is that the translators of this non gender-inclusive, “literal” version are using, in this clip (unless I’m misunderstanding), the same rationale for choosing “servant” or “bond-servant” rather than “slave” that the gender inclusive TNIV (and, in cases, NIV 2011) used for replacing “man” or “men” with gender inclusive pronouns. Or am I missing something?

So, I guess my question is this - what is fundamentally different between the rationale here employed to translate “servant” or “bondservant” instead of “slave” and that of responsible “dynamic equivalent” translations that render masculine pronouns as gender inclusive, when such rendering would be both better understood/received by contemporary readers and likely originally “intended” anyway (as gender inclusive)?

* * * * * * * * * *

[Moreover,] Wayne Grudem’s rationale [for a literal bible] stood out for me, because he has said things like:

I cannot teach theology or ethics from a dynamic equivalent Bible. I tried the NIV for one semester, and I gave it up after a few weeks. Time and again I would try to use a verse to make a point and find that the specific detail I was looking for, a detail of wording that I knew was there in the original Hebrew or Greek, was missing from the verse in the NIV.

Nor can I preach from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would end up explaining in verse after verse that the words on the page are not really what the Bible says, and the whole experience would be confusing and would lead people to distrust the Bible in English.

Nor would I want to memorize passages from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would be fixing in my brain verses that were partly God’s words and partly some added ideas, and I would be leaving out of my brain some words that belonged to those verses as God inspired them but were simply missing from the dynamic equivalent translation.

“But I could readily use any essentially literal translation to teach, study, preach from, and memorize.”

end of article

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


*To view a historical timeline of the biblical texts
and bible translations -

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/11/king-james-bible-historical-timeline.html