Each morning I make myself coffee and spend some time with Diane at her blog. I discovered her writings only recently and have learned considerably from her, especially with regards to postmodernism and the emerging/emergent/progressive church.
She wrote a post the other day that she thought to be important and, as a result, has kept at the top of the page. It is an important post, in some ways, but not as important as it could be.
In her post Diane takes Donald Miller to task, he being the author of Blue Like Jazz as well as the designated spiritual guy who offered the opening prayer at the interminable Democratic National Convention (which will happily end soon, only to be followed by the equally embarrassing and insipid Republican National Convention).
Diane filleted Donald because someone in a Sunday school class agreed with her on the importance of the gospel but also liked BLJ. Based on her previously detailed logic, Diane argues that this cannot be. She writes:
Ok, I think you get the gist. Here is what I want to point out. This young man in my church basically said,
[A] I agree wholeheartedly that it’s important we stress what Jesus did at the cross for us and orthodox Christianity (Note from me: with what I assume would be its attendant morals and ethics)
and
[B] Blue Like Jazz really spoke to me.
That is a classic case of A AND B, where most of us (at least those of us over 35) couldn’t fathom how anybody could put those two things together. But young postmoderns can….and do.
I am not sure I agree with or follow her argument as developed but that is tangential to my purpose here. What I would argue contra Diane is this: Emergent churches (EC) are off-track but only in a different manner as biblical (traditional or contemporary) churches (BC), albeit more dangerously so.
The problem with the EC is alluded to in Paul’s letter to Timothy. He wrote,
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,
treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these. - 2 Tim 3.1-5 (emphasis obviously mine)
Simply put, the problem with the EC is that they often have form but almost never have substance. The power and substance of Christianity is the truth of the gospel to save and continue saving mankind. Without the gospel, Christianity is little more than a poorly developed philosophy filled with empty sentimentality.
On the other hand, the BC has retained the substance but by-and-large relinquished the form, replacing it with a Christianity wherein faith and truth can exist without duty and obedience. Substance but no form. It is to this, I think, that many are reacting and subsequently rejecting the BC.
Perhaps I have misread Diane but it seems that she is arguing for substance (which is certainly laudable) without stressing the equally critical form (which is an error as well). Surely Sire was correct when he observed that
if we do not behave as we say we believe, or do not do as we say we know, we neither know nor believe. (in Habits of the Mind, p 102)
Diane is correct in her criticism of the approach and un-anchored practices of the EC, but it does little to fix what is wrong on our side of the street that facilitated the emergence of the EC to begin with. But more on that another day.
2 Cor 1.13
In my daily “roaming about on the blogosphere and walking around on it,” I came upon a post by Bird entitled “The Heresy of Gulley and Mulholland.” These two men have written a book, If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person, that is little more than a repackaging of an idea that has been around seemingly forever, i.e., universalism: the teaching that all people will be saved.
Bird, who may have been so unfortunate as to have purchased the book, quotes the authors:
If you are unwilling to question the Bible, neither my experiences nor my arguments will carry much weight. (Pg. 49)
Weighing Scripture allows for the possibility that some descriptions of God and his behavior are inaccurate. (Pg. 52)
Their presuppositions in hand - i.e., that some parts of the Bible are truer and thus more authoritative than others, 
I decided to conduct my own study and came up with a conclusion that I don’t believe has been reached before. Here it is:
Those passages teaching the judgment, guilt, and condemnation are true or, at the very least, less erroneous than passages that seem to teach that salvation is possible.
This is not difficult to substantiate. One need look no further than the Book of Romans, Paul’s heretofore badly misunderstood treatise, to clearly see the fate of all mankind. Consider, for example, the following:
Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.
And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.
But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? - Rom 2.1-3
If we are willing to challenge our beliefs and allow true Scriptures to speak truth to us, it is difficult to miss the essence of Paul’s words here. If we have been guilty of judging another person, even just once, we can trust that the judgment of God will fall upon us. There is, Paul says, no escape, no way out, no final deliverance; the writer of Hebrews adds that there is only “a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.”
In case we missed it in the above, Paul reiterates his point again:
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: - Rom 2.5-6
At first this might seem to offer some hope, but Paul is once again quick to squelch the foolish hopes and longings of mankind, adding,
as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” - Rom 3.10-12
No one is righteous. No one. All of us have sinned and, as Ezekiel made so clear a few millennia ago, “the soul who sins will die.” Everyone is sinful, Paul says; all sinners die, says Zeke. Case closed.
Of course, you might appeal to those passages in Romans and elsewhere that seem to indicate that there is salvation available through faith in Jesus Christ as our atonement. But this is where the genius of the Gulley-Mulholland hermeneutic must be employed. Consider:
if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
It is imperative at this point to recall the principle: Weighing Scripture allows for the possibility that some descriptions of God and his behavior are inaccurate.
This passage (Rom 10.9-10) is without question one of those instances where the understandable yet desperate desire of Paul to avoid the fires of hell for all eternity has caused him to write something inaccurate. Who can blame him? Who wants to look forward to such a fate?
But such is the fate of Paul, and not only him, but the fates of Gulley and Mulholland, Scully and Mulder, Frodo and Sam, Jack Sparrow and Keith Richards, you and me. It is obvious and easy to understand once the principle of interpretation as developed by the aforementioned authors is adduced.
I can’t imagine why no one has realized this before. It’s just so clear.
2 Cor 1.13
