Ed Stetzer on Being Missional
Here's an interesting youtube clip of Ed Stetzer talking about being missional to the SBC Annual Meeting.
posted by Freethinker at 6:18:00 PM
fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt
posted by Freethinker at 6:18:00 PM
10 Comments:
From what I've read, Stetzer is an honest critic of the Emerging movement's leaders, such as McLaren. He appears to realize that McLaren has gone too far away from biblically-sound theology in his quest to become "contextual." Stetzer seems like the part of the "Emerging" movement that will be left once the McLarens and Chalkes of the world have come to their logical end and become irrelevant to Christianity. The Emerging Church just has yet to have that refinement occur. Some ECs will become a less-crazy version of Unitarian Universalists and others will end up more like New Agey Baptist.
Thanks for bringing this video to my attention, dude. Good to hear that people are trying to really love people where they are at and encouraging others to do it like this.
Parke, glad you liked it.
Daruis, I have to disagree with you on McLaren, I think his theology is biblically sound. He is certainly orthodox (that is, in line with the creedal statements of the first 5 centuries).
And as for Chalke (assuming you mean the one in Carson's book), I don't know much about him. Why did Carson consider him an example of the emerging church? He's made no indication that he is part of it (the only way really to define such a nebulous group). His church is not considered an emerging church and neither is the U.K. Evangelical Association he's involved in.
Carson identified him as an the leading UK Emergent thinker, and as an author of whom McLaren speaks highly. Chalke is much closer to heresy than McLaren allows himself to get. I hope to get a review of Carson's book up soon, and will focus a lot on the couple chapters where Carson critiques Emergent thinkers' own words and writings. Suffice it to say, Chalke, in his Lost Message of Jesus book, claims that the atonement theory of the cross is false, that such a view amounts to cosmic child abuse and contradicts the statement "God is love."
McLaren, on the other hand, loves to flirt on the edge of heresy but always backs away when confronted on it under the guise that he was merely trying to provoke thought about our traditional views.
Without having read more of McLaren, at this point I think I can still call him a Christian brother. Chalke, however, has stepped firmly into blasphemy and is a heretic until he repents.
I found this quote by Mark Driscoll about McLaren and other Emergent thinkers: "In the mid-1990s I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church and spent some time traveling the country to speak on the emerging church in the emerging culture on a team put together by Leadership Network called the Young Leader Network. But, I eventually had to distance myself from the Emergent stream of the network because friends like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt began pushing a theological agenda that greatly troubled me. Examples include referring to God as a chick, questioning God's sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, denial of the substitutionary atonement at the cross, a low view of Scripture, and denial of hell which is one hell of a mistake."
It seems like a big issue is how you defined the Emerging Church and the difference between "emerging" and "emergent." Carson lumps them all together, McLaren with Kimball with Chalke. He explains that his reasoning is that since most "emerging" thinkers have not spoken out against McLaren's theology, they must be ok with it. However, if people like Driscoll are finally pulling away from McLaren and the Emergent fringe, perhaps Carson's critique is no longer fully applicable to the whole movement. However, Carson does have lots of important things to say that all Emerging/Emergent people should hear and take to heart.
a great analysis of just how slippery McLaren is on theology is here: http://www.apprising.org/archives/2005/12/brian_mclaren_i.html
To answer your original question about Chalke and his association with the Emergent/Emerging movement... from my web searches, I am finding that most people who make that association do so because of the similarities in Chalke's ideas and some Emerging thinkers on this side of the Atlantic and because McLaren and other Emerging thinkers recommend Chalke as someone who should be listened to. Chalke himself don't acknowledge any connection, but Carson noted early in his book that the "Emerging" movement on the other side of the pond is quite different than it is over here in the States.
I would say that what Carson is looking for from the Emerging movement are those who don't just recognize the weaknesses of modernism and the modern American church, but also recognize (and fight) against the inherent weaknesses in post-modernism. McLaren does the former, but merely gives lip service to the latter. Someone like Driscoll (and perhaps Kimball?) appears to have a much clearer idea of how to strike a Biblical balance between the two. One can become relevant without becoming a relativist or, worse, a heretic.
That link didn't work for me, not that I really want to see it if it's from that site anyways (it's sister site is the only RSS I've ever desubscribed from).
As for Driscoll's quote: he really seems like he's going overboard on burning his bridges just so people won't associate him with the Emergent group anymore. McLaren (and Pagitt I assume) doesn't deny substitutionary atonement, he just says it's not the complete story of atonement, let alone the whole of the gospel as some groups tend to make it. In any case making it a requirement for orthodoxy is silly since it wasn't fully articulated until the 12th century and most of the early church fathers had views of atonement that differed from it. I also doubt that "chick" is a word McLaren or Pagitt would use at all, it's definitely a Driscoll word (he's over board into manly man Christianity imo). McLaren has been careful to note that God isn't male or female, but something greater, and that it's a problem with the English language that we don't have a better pronoun than "he" to use.
McLaren is not a relativist, has said he knows of no relativists in the emerging movement, and in fact, has called relativism an impossibility.
There may be a lot of "guilt by association" going on, but until McLaren and others start renouncing the bad theology, one has to draw the conclusion that they don't have a problem with it. For example, McLaren promotes Chalke, who is a heretic or very nearly one in his claim that the atonement theology is false. It's the essence of the Gospel, not some minor (or worse, in Chalke's view, non-existent) aspect.
We have sin that has to be atoned for because God is holy and God provided that atonement through his Son. Whether or not some Christians before the 12th century didn't understand that, doesn't make it any less important or less true. Augustine wrote in the 4th century about the "penal substitution" idea of atonement. He also mentioned other aspects of Christ's atonement.
This is sound, and goes along with what you said about substitutionary atonement not being "the complete story." However, to completely disavow it as Chalke (and, by extension and silence, McLaren) has done, is to completely ignore the obvious substitutionary elements throughout the New AND Old Testaments. "He was crushed for our iniquities," the sacrificial lamb requirements for OT Jews, etc. He did not MERELY come to give us a good moral teaching about obedience and love, as Chalke seems to believe.
I have no idea who Driscoll is referring to with the "chick" comment, but for McLaren to say that God isn't male (as if to protest against that idea in the church) is silly, no serious theologian has made that claim. The Bible attributes anthropomorphic qualities to God so that humans can understand Him better. He is not male or female, correct; He is spirit. However, when Bible translations and, according to Driscoll anyway, some Emergent thinkers, start referring to God as a she, that's being contrary to the absurd.
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