It is always good to allow people to speak for themselves so as the next post in my series on neo-liberalism with thanks to every thought captive I am going to give some exerts from a book. Justin Taylor has done a great job of doing this in “Reclaiming the Center” stating that “a significant shift is taking place in some segments of evangelicalism”. He is not sure what to call this group but settles on what to me is... Read more
The World of Sven: cites the psalms and argues for the need to permit questioning of God whilst still trusting that he is loving. Read more
Evangelicals in the Dock states open theists who would fit my definition of neo-liberals cannot believe in biblical inerrancy- Both Sanders and Pinnock hold to open theism, a form of theology that posits a God who is not omniscient concerning the free actions of human beings. As was pointed out in the ETS meeting’s floor debate regarding Pinnock, it’s not at all clear how an open theist can consistently affirm inerrancy; theology proper must eventually affect one’s view of Scripture.... Read more
Wink believes he is Not a Neo-Liberal. I am not so sure, but look forward to his attempts to answer at least one or two of my challenges. Read more
I am delighted that even in this holiday season when I was fully anticipating somewhat of a lull in blogging the bait is being taken up at least by some. I believe that the recent tragedy has made these issues all the more important. Some of the people who I call neo-liberal probably have a very different explanation for why God allowed the disaster than classical evangelicals would. Parableman has come forwards to identify himself as possibly a neo-liberal and... Read more
Matthew Kettle poses the question How can religious people explain something like this? which to some degree I anticipated in my posts Jesus’ reply to a disaster of his day and Tsunami’s and the sovreignty of God- where is God when it hurts? These are very important questions. We could of course quite simply dispense with the idea of a sovereign God altogether and re-make God in our own image as the neo-liberals no doubt would. God would become no... Read more
Well, I have dug out my Rick Warren book- the purpose driven life and decided it was time to start reading it again. Many of my friends have been helped by this book, and I will be reading it to learn whatever I can. I very much liked Rick’s previous book on the church, and do believe that his five “purposes” are biblical. (see my post what did the church ever do for me? for more on my take on... Read more
I thought I would defend my new nickname “neo-liberalism” by looking at the definition of classic “liberalism” from a theological perspective. The concise Oxford Dictionary states theological liberalism is “regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change”. Since neo-liberalism indeed does just that but with post-modern thought and does indeed dispense with classical evangelical beliefs then surely this is a good word to coin? Its certainly better than the alternatives “post-evangelical” etc…. Neo-liberals need... Read more
Whilst it is clear from the UK website that there is a close association with Steve Chalke, recently criticised by the UK Evangelical Alliance, I think it is important not to throw out everything that the “emergent” movement are saying. Tony Campallo in a recent article stated that the movement expresses what I call “progressive evangelicalism. Whilst I might be more happy to describe much of what is being said as neo-liberalism I do think that an important conversation must... Read more
I missed this great post over at the Evangelical Outpost. The absense of absolute truths is another post-modern statement that might be appealing to some “neo-liberals”. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I have come to what some of these Christians might say was a simplistic concusion- Truth matters. End of story. Knowing the truth is more important than anything else- just ask those who wish their loved ones had been able to know the soon... Read more
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