I’m not real familiar with John MacArthur. Really all I know about him is that Doug Pagitt called his theology “dangerous”, or something like that. But I was in Mardel a few weeks ago and The Truth War was on sale for $11. How could I pass that up?
If you poke around my archives you’ll find that I’m no fan of the Emergent Village or the movement that it has spawned. I don’t like the theology of McLaren, Pagitt, or Jones. I keep reading them, though; mainly because I hope for the sake of the church that I’ve been misunderstanding them. I don’t think I have been, but I’ll keep checking.
The subtitle of MacArthur’s book is “Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception”, which is very fitting. The main focus is on rooting out apostasy and heresy. He looks back historically at several instances of this, including Sabellianism, Arianism, and the Judaizers. He looks thoroughly at the theological issues, and the ways that these leaders succeeded in deceiving so many into believing falsely.
He then brings it into the our time by examining Modernity, postmodernity, and the emerging church. He points out the desire of many leading the charge into postmodernity to make truth “pliable”.
One dominant theme pervades…in the Emerging Church movement, truth (to whatever degree such a concept is even recognized ) is assumed to be inherently hazy, indistinct, and uncertain – perhaps even ultimately unknowable. ((John MacArthur, The Truth War; pg. x))
