Jesus Creed
Andrew Jones, who told me it took him a couple of baths to read The Jesus Creed, has made some nice comments about the book and I’m thankful for them. Read more
Andrew Jones, who told me it took him a couple of baths to read The Jesus Creed, has made some nice comments about the book and I’m thankful for them. Read more
When I was first teaching in seminary, we brought in Robert Banks who spoke on a book he had just written, but he also spoke with me about a book called Going to Church in the First Century and if you’ve not read it, it is worth it. It is a story of Publius going to church in the first century in Rome. Very short (maybe about 50 pages); fiction; wood cut images. Suggestive of all sorts of things. I’ve... Read more
I step into a minefield here and I’ll do my best to be clear and avoid silly comments. From what I can see, the emergent movement is “post” classical, Evangelical Bible pietism. Let me explain. If you grew up as I did, or anything like I did, you were taught that the Christian life begins each day with daily Bible reading and ends each day with Bible study and on Wednesday nights or one night during the week you gather... Read more
For a nice way of putting together a “doctrinal statement” that keeps life and mind together, see the Covenant Affirmations by the Evangelical Covenant Church, the sponsoring denomination of North Park University. Read more
Here is a link to my interview for the PBS TV discussion of the emerging church. For what it worth. I wish I could edit it, but such is an interview. Read more
I’ve done my best to avoid politics (not that I think that is a virtue), but tonight’s post will approach a political blog. First, a context. I was largely apolitical in high school and college in an era that was preeminently political (read: Vietnam) at a school that was preeminently apolitical. My concentration was studies and basketball. I followed the issues at a distance, but when I went to TEDS in 1976 I became increasingly more interested in things political... Read more
Jesus said in Matthew 7 that we will recognize them by their fruit, but we’ve had a hard time letting fruit be what we are all about. The emerging movement has pressed this issue to the fore by being “post” doctrinal statements. I’ve been frustrated by comments but even more by blogsites and websites because it is my inclination (after all I’m an academic theologian) to chase down a theological statement first when I get to the websites of the... Read more
In a book dreamed up and edited by Myron Penner, called Christianity and the Postmodern Turn, Kevin Vanhoozer, a friend from my TEDS days and a scholar whose writings I always cherish, has proposed ten theses about postmodernism. (Incidentally, Penner’s focus on postmodernism as a linguistic turn is most helpful.) I shall summarize Kevin’s theses about postmodernity (=pomo): 1. Pomo is the condition of being fully aware of one’s situatedness, and hence of one’s contingency and deconstructibility. 2. Christians can... Read more
Kim Lawton’s fine work of getting some ideas about the emergent movement can now be read in text form before it shows on TV tomorrow. See here. Read more
In this post on “post,” I want to look briefly — that’s what I always say to myself — at the claim by postmodernists that they have surrendered a meta-narrative. A meta-narrative is an all-encompassing explanation of all of life; it is universal; it is objective; it should work for all. Most postmodernists claim modernists operated with such a goal in mind, though I’m not sure there is all that much evidence of such a goal or that all that... Read more
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