Progressives

My son is sick, so my wife stayed home tonight while I went to praise team practice at the church. While I was gone she watched Wife Swap. Tonight’s episode swapped a very conservative Christian family with a very liberal Christian family. In my trade mark fashion I will refer to them as “Connie” and “Libby”…you figure out which is which.

Connie is a stay-at-home mom, six kids (if I counted right). Libby works and her husband is a stay-at-home dad, 2 girls. I’m going to watch the episode as soon as I can find it somewhere online, but this is one situation related to me by my wife:

Connie’s children don’t date. Her philosophy is that young teens aren’t ready to make a serious (read: “lifelong”) commitment, so there’s no reason to date. Libby has no such rule.

When Connie sits down with Libby’s girls to discuss dating, she says, “This is what I believe about dating…What do you think?” When given the opportunity to think about it, one of the girls says that it makes a lot of sense. Over at Connie’s house, Libby has told her oldest girls that they have to go speed dating. They refused. (continue reading…)

I’m sure Brian McLaren is a very nice man. I just hate his theology. I don’t mean hate like, “I hate it when I leave something in the car at the post office and when I come back in the line’s twice as long,” kind of way. I have this internal, full-spirit aversion to his interpretation of the Word. I don’t know how else to describe it. Every time I read something he wrote my blood pressure and heart rate go up and I start muttering.

Anyway, Adam at pomomusings is having a little guest-blogger extravaganza in which each participant tries to define or describe the Kingdom of God. It’s a pretty good series so far. I don’t agree with much that I’ve read there, but it’s interesting and worth a read.

McLaren recently posted and the short-short version is that he believes the Gospel and the Kingdom are all about the here and now. Here’s his opening:

The good news of the Kingdom of God is, according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Gospel. John would agree - although he translates the phrase “kingdom of God” to “life of the ages” or “life to the full.” (The common English translation of “zoien aionian” as “eternal life” is misleading.) A surprisingly large number of committed Christians still assume “kingdom of God” and “life of the ages” mean “life in heaven after you die.” This misbelief is one of the most tragic turns in the history of Christian theology, in my opinion.

(continue reading…)