Reaction, Reduction, Reworking

Last updated on: April 28, 2005 at 6:13 am By Scot McKnight

I’d like to suggest in this blog one of the underlying themes to Solomon’s Porch, and perhaps to the Emergent movement ecclesiology in many of its shapes and forms, and this first theme (there’ll be about ten) can be seen in these three terms: Reaction to perceived weaknesses and problems and shortcomings. I read Doug Pagitt and Solomon Porch to be intentionally being post-evangelical rather than anti-evangelical. (But there are always “anti”s whenever there are “post”s, but Doug Pagitt makes... Read more

Pagitt, Solomon’s Porch and Emergent Ecclesiology

Last updated on: April 27, 2005 at 4:26 pm By Scot McKnight

I’m up here in Seattle, and Doug Pagitt’s heart-felt record of his church’s, Solomon’s Porch, work, called Reimagining Spiritual Formation, which for many Emergent folk is “old hat,” was a wondrous read and gave me many things to think about. But I begin with this one and it is a Question: What should 50somethings say about 20somethings who are doing all they can to “incarnate” the gospel in their own terms in unique situations and all for the glory of... Read more

What the Church has to offer

Last updated on: April 26, 2005 at 6:14 pm By Scot McKnight

For a long while I have been teaching and preaching that all the Church really has to offer to anyone (and everyone) is Jesus Christ. That is all it has to offer. Nothing else, nothing less. Once the Church separates itself from Jesus, the Church becomes a clanging cymbal or a noisy gong of a bunch of well-meaning persons who seek to master the world through their own designs. What I’ve observed among the Emergent folk is Jesus is indeed... Read more

Blogs to come: Emergent Ecclesiology

Last updated on: April 25, 2005 at 7:08 pm By Scot McKnight

With all my speaking in various places of late, I’ve had a hard time getting to the next topic I’d like to blog, namely, the “ecclesiology of the Emergent movement.” It would be foolhardy to think anything like an extensive coverage could be blogged, so what I want to do is to take a fair look at Doug Pagitt’s “Reimagning Spiritual Formation” and try to draw out some of the central concerns of the Emergent churches and how they “do... Read more

Birds and Roger Tory Peterson

Last updated on: April 23, 2005 at 1:35 pm By Scot McKnight

On the day we were taken to Roger Tory Peterson’s study center in Jamestown NY we returned to the Nelson’s and took a walk. Immediately I saw my first wild turkey, and will promptly enter it into my life list of birds seen (in my Peterson’s Guide to Birds East of the Rockies). Read more

Image of God: Meaning?

Last updated on: April 23, 2005 at 1:28 pm By Scot McKnight

Because of a few very kind e-mails and the blog there seems to be some reason to discuss the meaning of Image of God. First, I like to use “Eikon of God” instead of Imago dei or Image of God. Eikon is the Greek translation of Tselem and Demut, the two Hebrew terms. Second, there are at least four directions to take: we can look to Theology (we are like God) and we can look to Creaturehood (how do we... Read more

Gospels that Stop Short of Shalom

Last updated on: April 22, 2005 at 3:00 pm By Scot McKnight

Recently I’ve been reading and writing about how we present the gospel, and I’ve considered these “five” gospels that are preached: a gospel of Genesis 1, which focuses on our common humanity and our inherent capacities; a gospel of Genesis 3, which focuses on our sinfulness and which can easily run amok; a gospel that focuses on the death of Jesus, which ends up seeing the gospel that forgives our sins so we can go to heaven; a gospel that... Read more

The Fall

Last updated on: April 20, 2005 at 3:53 pm By Scot McKnight

Most Christians have always thought that at the Fall we fell comprehensively, though many don’t like the category of “total depravity.” But, as Cornelius Plantinga put it in his brilliant Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, is there any doctrine more demonstrable by experience? Isn’t our messed-upness clear to each of us? Maybe this will help us think of it anew: death itself shows that our bodies are broken and decaying and fallen; WW2 and Vietnam and international strife... Read more

Preface

Last updated on: April 19, 2005 at 1:40 pm By Scot McKnight

Preface to my response We owe it to one another, and I feel I am a journalist in all this rather than someone to spar with, to listen as carefully as we can. Hence, I belabored a point by point summary of what DA Carson says. I am confident that what I said adequately represents him; and though I occasionally made some evaluations, by and large I left him alone. If we are to live as those who love God... Read more

Emergence is more than epistemology

Last updated on: April 19, 2005 at 1:39 pm By Scot McKnight

Issue #1: Emergence is more than epistemology This book falls short of DA Carson’s better books, mostly because it is not researched thoroughly enough to cover enough of the Emergent movement to catch what is so blooming attractive about this movement. The debate cannot be reduced to epistemology, though someone from his angle might like to do so – and I suspect many of his readers will agree with him because they, too, come from the same context. I do... Read more