On Wed, 02-16-05 8:40 am
“I must add, though, that I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all?) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. This will be hard, you say, and I agree. But frankly, it’s not at all easy to be a follower of Jesus in many ‘Christian’ religious contexts, either.”
Albert Mohler dismantles Brian McLaren and the emergent church philosophy (it can hardly be described as a theology, since it denies the possibility or need for one) in his post, “A GENEROUS ORTHODOXY - IS IT ORTHODOX?“
Here’s a sampling of Mohler’s thoughts, beginning with a quote from McLaren:
The Bible, McLaren argues, is intended to equip God’s people for good works. He rejects words such as authority, inerrancy, and infallibility as unnecessary and distracting. In a previous work, McLaren had argued that the Bible is “a unique collection of literary artifacts that together support the telling of an amazing and essential story.”
When it comes to issues such as the exclusivity of the gospel, the identity of Jesus Christ as both fully human and fully divine, the authoritative character of Scripture as written revelation, and the clear teachings of Scripture concerning issues such as homosexuality, this movement simply refuses to answer the questions.
McLaren attributes this to humility. “A generous orthodoxy,” he explains, “in contrast to the tense, narrow, controlling, or critical orthodoxies of so much of Christian history, doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is humble; it doesn’t claim too much; it admits it walks with a limp.” In other words, it is so humble that it will not answer some questions that will not rest without an answer. In this case, a nonanswer is an answer.