Last Sunday was my last day as the youth minister at the Lutheran church. It was a tough day, but at the end my wife and I knew we were following God, and things have been well since then.

Today we visited Garnett Church of Christ, and it was wonderful. We felt welcomed and cared for, and knew that the people we were talking to were interested in us. We thank God for the gift of new beginnings.

Wade Hodges, the lead minister, preached this morning from Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The hook: you (we) are not the Rock.

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One of the hardest things about being on the conservative/traditional side of a Christian theological debate is dealing with statements like this:

Rather, I see the grand statements about Jesus – that he is the Son of God, the Light of the World, and so forth - as the testimony of the early Christian movement. These are neither objectively true statements about Jesus nor, for example in this season, about his conception and birth. To speak of him as the Son of God does not mean that he was conceived by God and had no biological human father. Rather, this is the post-Easter conviction of his followers.

In this paragraph Marcus Borg, of the Jesus Seminar, states these things as fact: Jesus did not say he was the Son of God or the Light of the World and the statements about Jesus’ divinity are not true. He states this as fact and it’s accepted as fact by many. The problem? It can’t be substantiated. (continue reading…)

I’ve been reading Donald Bloesch’s A Theology of Word & Spirit, the first in the Christian Foundations series. I chose it at random of a shelf at Mardel, and I’ve been very impressed. Of course, how could I not be impressed by the level of scholarship necessary to write such a substantial theology text?

The thing I’m really surprised about is how faithful Bloesch’s theology is to both the Word and the Spirit. He fleshes out some ideas that make thing so much clearer for me…some that I already believed but couldn’t articulate, and some that I’d never thought of before. (continue reading…)

As I mentioned in The Supremacy of Christ, Adam at Pomomusings has some issues with Mark Driscoll. In his own words, he ‘just [doesn't] get this guy.” I think there’s more to it than that. It looks to me like he just doesn’t get the Gospel.

He states three problems with Driscoll’s chapter. First, he cites too much Scripture:

Mark apparently thinks that the number of Biblical citations is directly proportional to how faithful his chapter actually is to scripture? Seriously, he has 176 footnotes, 174 of which are practically lists of Bible verses for a 14-pg chapter.

Why is that a problem? A Christian pastor who’s been asked to lay out his theology should be backing up everything he has to say with Scripture. Part of my problem with progressive Christian theology is that it is moving away from the Bible as its source. Beyond that, comments like this imply that, not only is it alright not to use much Scripture, but a person who uses a lot is somehow deficient.

His second problem, the one that inspired my earlier post (and the title of this one), is that Driscoll is overly concerned with showing that Jesus and “the Christian revelation of God [are] distinct from and superior to all other views of God” (26). Adam calls this an “unhealthy need for power” on Driscoll’s part. But whose power is he talking about? Christ’s.

That’s what the Apostles taught:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Colossians 1:15-20

Our purpose is to glorify Christ. How can we do that without pointing to him as superior to all? Should we pretend that we believe him to be equal to others, just a different choice? Of course not!

Adam’s third problem is that Driscoll calls Jesus’ death the most important part of his life:

There it is - Jesus’ life, ministry, care for the poor - nope. Let’s focus on the most important thing: Jesus’ death.

There’s an easy explanation for Adam’s emotional response to this: he doesn’t understand the Gospel. The Gospel is not about healing and caring for the poor. Not as a first tier priority. The Gospel is about us being reconciled to God. How does that happen? God tabernacles among us, lives a sinless life and goes to the cross to bear the burden of our sin. The good news is that we can now be reconciled, regardless of our past, through the death and resurrection of Christ.

I’m not the scholar to explicate this, but they’re out there. Driscoll is one of them, though he’s mainly drawing on the work of others (which is fine). The atonement is important. It was big in the OT and the NT, and should be to us. Many came before and after teaching and preaching good works and care for the poor and outcast. The Passion and Divinity of Christ is what separates him from the others.

Many progressives choose to ignore that, and I don’t really know why. Can’t you be progressive while still acknowledging the basics of the Gospel?

So, now that I have some distance from the emotions I experienced while reading Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, I’m looking back at it and trying to gather some more insight about what it means to me, what it means for the church, and what it says about the postmodern generation. Adam at Pomomusings has a series of posts, reviewing each chapter(parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). I disagree with him in most places, but it’s worth reading.

One of the major implications for the whole postmodern generation is that it may not be all it’s cracked up to be. It seems that there aren’t nearly as many people out there who want a soft, pliable, alterable faith as opposed to a firm, unchanging faith. For example, look at Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church and Karen Ward’s Church of the Apostles.

While Driscoll is clearly the most conservative of the group(teetering on the edge of reactionary), Ward is the most progressive, doing things like allowing members to define concepts such as “atonement” with little regard for the actual meaning. Progressives will take issue with Driscoll’s strict reformed theology, and his position on issues like women in church leadership. Conservatives will be put off by Ward’s willingness to give authority to writings other than Scripture (and I don’t just mean the Gospel of Thomas), and her disdain for what she calls “didactic teaching”.

Theologically, he is a throwback to the era that has been declared dead or dying by most proponents of the emerging/-ent movement; she is as new-school as it gets: a woman leading a church that believes, essentially, that theology should adapt and change to suit the people. But what are their churches doing?

Mars Hill has recently expanded again, and is now running seven services at 3 campuses, with an average weekly attendance of 6,000. CotA has approximately 80 regular attendees, according to the ELCA. I don’t mean this to be a judgment call, because there are plenty of pastors with terrible theology who lead huge churches (Osteen, Jakes, Dollar, Long…Bell?), but there’s something important here.

Emergent leaders like Ward and Doug Pagitt have been telling us that we have to change our theology (or at least make it open to change) because the “old way” won’t work in the postmodern society. No one wants modern systems of thought, established answers, or 16th century faith. They want something they can be a part of making something new, fresh, ancient-future.

But the opposite seems to be true. In Seattle, which Driscoll refers to as the “least churched city” in the nation, Mars Hill is thriving with it’s unflinching reformed theology, while CotA is alive (and kicking, I’m sure), but with 1.3% of the attendance. Of course, I don’t know how many of Mars Hill’s 6000 are the type that Matt Chandler wants to run off from the similarly thriving (and Acts 29 affiliated) Village Church in Highland Village, Tx. But I’d say there’s a good bet that the percentage of these two congregations (MH and CotA) that could be called “faithful” is about the same. What do we do with this in light of the admonitions from progressives and Emergents that traditional theology doesn’t/won’t work any more?

Pastors like Driscoll and Chandler have done an amazing job making their church practice meaningful, personal, relevant, and effective without watering down the theology. They hold firm positions on the Bible, they preach the whole Gospel, and they love their people. They’re showing that the way forward for the Western church is not found in “potluck theology” or a new faith, but in the power of God and the faith that’s been handed down from the Apostles.

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