Good Dan Kimball Story…

Dan Kimball has a great story about a recent attempt to get some studying done in a downtown coffeehouse. His trip was interrupted by a Gay Parade…It is a great article sharing his thoughts about Gay issues and the churches role in them. Dan, thanks for putting thoughts on HTML…

[Link]

Finally…

Here’s the link. Appears to be a good story - from all of what I know by those who were there - written by Chris Turner. Good Job Chris!

Turns out I was wrong about what McKnight was talking about…

McKnight was all over my post on his blog…3 minutes for an answer! But he did respond…Thanks Doc…

You are surely right about the possible impact of eschatology on (1) focusing our entire life on the future and (2) neglecting our current world.

But, Newbigin’s point is of another sort: namely, that truth and finality are to be found at the end, that it means everything in the present world is only partial, but that the future vision should completely shape us now. So, for Newbigin the future vision energizes commitment to the present and keeps us humble.

Guess I was write and wrong? LOL

Scot McKnight on Newbigin, and some personal thoughts

The SBC Emerging Leader’s book club this summer is reading Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture - we’re starting in a week or so with comments. Scot McKnight, the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University, has already finished the book and posted on it.

His thoughts are as follows:

For now, though, here are the seven proposals for what will occur if the the gospel will impact Western Culture. His major category for understanding Western Culture is the division of scientific knowledge from religious knowledge, which corresponds to the public spectrum and the private spectrum. Overall, he is concerned with the relationship of the Church to the World.

#1: Recovery of eschatology as the orientation point for all truth.
#2: A Christian doctrine of freedom that takes a stand on Christian truth but which also is genuinely in dialogue with culture.
#3: A requirement of a “declericalized” theology, where every vocation works its out its own theology. This is essentially a recovery of a robust and local ecclesiology.
#4: A radical critique of the theory and practice of denominationalism, and here Newbigin is uniquely postured to work out a gospel-based but genuine ecumenical endeavor. He wants to restore, in the words of the Reformers, “the face of the Catholic Church.”
#5: The necessity for help in seeing our own culture through Christian minds shaped in other cultures. I tire, perhaps with you, with Europe’s ceaseless criticisms of our government, but we should all be listening — and if you’d like to listen, read The London Review of Books for a year. There are other voices, and we need to hear them, for in hearing them we may hear how we have trapped the gospel in our culture.
#6: The courage to proclaim a belief that cannot be proved to be true in terms of the axioms of our society. Let me comment more here: Newbigin operates with a chastened epistemology, and he anticipates Emergent leaders like Brian McLaren or Stanley Grenz. While Carson has been hard on McLaren and Grenz, he has been correspondingly soft on Newbigin (perhaps his Anglophilism?) even though when I read Newbigin I see a very similar epistemology and ecclesiology to that of Grenz especially [links here are to Carson's treatments of McLaren, Grenz, and Newbigin].
#7: The humble boldness and expectant patience are not heroism but the spontaneous praise that erupts from the ecclesial community.

I’m anxious to read this book - it’s on its way. But if I understand him, point number 1 is very interesting. Could it be that our eschatology is preventing us from being as agressive in evangelism as we need, especially in an attempt to transform culture? With the predominant eschatological view floating around the church today is dispensational premillenialism, I wonder if that view is keeping us from having a transformational mindset.

In a paper I did on the impact of service on the reputation of the church and its ability to impact culture, I used several thoughts from Robert Lewis’ book, The Church of Irresistible Influence . Here’s a couple of items from that:

Evangelicals disconnected with social action and community needs. The church avoided the public square. “Churches reduced their mission to saving souls, serving our congregations, and defending the faith. This continues, for the most part, to this day.â€? John Stott gives five reasons for the regressive nature the church developed…

Fourth was the spread of premillennialism. Lewis says of Stott’s reasoning, “This popular theological position predicts a steady deterioration of life on earth until the coming of Jesus and his millennial reign. Therefore, many reason, if the world is getting worse and worse and only Jesus at his coming can make it right, what point is there in trying to reform it now? Evangelical leader Ray Stedman once made that exact point when he said, ‘No matter what the church does as God’s instrument in the world, the ultimate end of the world will be anarchy and chaos. . . . No, the church is not here to improve the world.’â€? (Church of Irresistable Influence, p 209)

If the only way the world will get better is if Jesus comes, and Jesus is coming very soon, then why do we need to be as agressive in our evangelism or concern ourselves with lost souls. It just won’t help too much, because nothing is really going to change until Jesus comes back and he’s coming back really soon.

My thoughts are that is has impacted the church’s desire to impact our culture. We’ve taken a more isolationist approach, taking our kids out of the public school, sequestering ourselves inside the church, not outside. And thus, we lack a wholehearted interest or desire to effectively engage culture.

Again, I’ve not read the book yet and may not properly understand Dr. McKnight’s comments, but am I off base here? Your thoughts are welcome…

The Supreme Court’s latest ruling…

The most recent Supreme Court ruling could possibly have an impact on churches and should be watched…Here’s the first couple of paragraphs from an AP article:

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as handing “disproportionate influence and power” to the well-heeled in America - was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

It seems that if a local city can just take property for whatever reason, not clear public use. And this could include churches. It seems to strike at the heart of the 5th amendment and we should be concerned.

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