Jesus is the truth whether we experience him or not.
The arguments of some emerging church leaders, I fear, draw us perilously close to the trap set by postmodern deconstructionist Stanley Fish. Defending himself after his sympathetic statements about the 9/11 terrorists boomeranged, Fish claimed that postmodernists don't really deny the existence of truth. He said there is simply no "independent standard of objectivity." So truth can't be proved to others; therefore, it can't be known—a verbal sleight of hand.
For evangelicalism (let alone emerging churches) to buy into that would undermine the very foundation of our faith. Theologian Donald A. Carson puts his finger precisely on the epistemological problem: Of course, truth is relational, Carson writes. But before it can be relational, it has to be understood as objective. Truth is truth. It is, in short, ultimate reality. Fortunately, Jim came to see this.
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Emerging Confusion
Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by Revmitchell, Sep 2, 2009.
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Thank you for posting this.
I haven't had an opportunity to read the article yet, that will probably happen very late tonight because of my excessive workload, but I do agree that as far as Western culture is concerned, there is no universally-agreed upon standard of truth, or even an epistemological construct for most people to use for guidance in their search for truth.
It's a failure of our institutions of higher learning, popular culture, religious institutions of all brands of theology (I've been in a number of fundamental and conservative churches that are as clueless as more liberal congregations), and seminaries.
In fact, most people today don't seem to understand that we need to even look for truth, much less find it.
Yet, the ultimate realities (truth) of the universe remain whether or not we care to discover them. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Well I finally had a chance to read the article and I was very disappointed. I didn't realize it was one of those mini commentaries written by Chuck Colson's writing partner.
Not much substance there at all. -
Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism
by Douglas R. Groothuis
The Death of Truth: What's Wrong With Multiculturalism, the Rejection of Reason and the New Postmodern Diversity
by
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Dennis McCallum[/SIZE][/FONT] -
Thinkingstuff Active Member
I'm curious. Last sunday during our worship service things got turned around a little bit. There were candles lit where the pulpit usually is. The lights were dimmed and the music ministry was playing softly in the back ground. My pastor said that instead of doing things the usual way this sunday the church would be in communal prayer. We sang a few praise and worship songs and then there was a time for prayer. We sang some more then it was left up to the congregation to pray openly as they felt lead. Then there was more singing and directed prayer. Now is this what people are calling emergent?
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Would you consider this to be anti-Biblical, somehow? Exactly what are you referring to with the statement that
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The candles and mood lighting is a bit creepy. I don't think we need artificial mood enhancers to pray or do anything else.
I also think preaching is the heart of any service, and any service without preaching misses one more opportunity to expound the Word of God. -
Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Moving on past inane post # 3 the crux of the op is about the perceived or at least claimed inability of anyone by the Emerging Church to not be able to know truth because there is no objective standard which they believe is proved by the difficulty of proving truth to others.
Of course when in a service the word of God is set aside for an experience, as if praying was any more of an experience than preaching, then the op is played out. It is easy to point out errors in the church but in most cases such as with the Emerging Church the complaint is nothing more than an excuse to do what they wanted already regardless of any error in the church. In other words they are not actually trying to resolve any error in the church or worship but it becomes a spring board or excuse to do what ever they want. Quite dishonest. -
Thinkingstuff Active Member
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
As we can see it is not difficult to reason preaching out of the service.
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Yea let's not follow scripture and mandate the preaching of the word of God. That would just be to much. In fact let's just agree that nothing is mandated and we can all show up and just play bingo and eat cake. -
Some Protestant churches also have "sacraments" as other means of grace, but central to every Protestant denomination should be the Word -- it is God's revealed, inspired, unchanging, authorittative Word, and everything we do or don't do is derived from or draws its authority from the Word.
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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I agree that, if preaching is absent from worship as a norm, then that's grounds for concern. That's different that mandating preaching at every service for it to be considered a service. There are obviously exceptions, such as at a Good Friday prayer service.
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Thinkingstuff Active Member
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
You can call anything a service. The word service can be applied in all sorts of lose ways. Based on your logic everything can be excluded and we can all pay bingo instead. -
Thinkingstuff Active Member
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There is no "formal preaching." There is preaching and there is teaching. The purpose of preaching is to exhort -- to make you want to be, act, do differently based on the exposition of the Word. That can be a 3 or 50 minute event, depending on the circumstances.
Anything that isn't based on, predicated on, drawn from, or quotes from the Word is man made and is therefore suspect.
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