Perhaps Ingrid just doesn’t know about Dan Kimball’s father passing away on Sunday, but I found this piece to be in incredibly poor taste.  I would think she would have some clue about what’s been happening in Dan Kimball’s life since Mike Corley pointed it out on a blog on which Ingrid is listed as a contributor.   Even politicians show some common courtesy to one another at the death of a family member.

Besides the fact that Ingrid is unable to restrain herself from attacking someone who is going through a trying personal situation, the content of her attack is the standard “guilt-by-association” attack.  Brian McClaren wrote the Foreword to Kimball’s book, The Emerging Church, so that makes Dan Kimball somehow responsible for McClaren speaking at a gay church over four years later.  Once again, simply arguing on the actual content of a book seems too much for the ODM’s.

This just in, the anonymous coward known only as “editor” has declared that C?N and other watchdoggie outlets to be 100% Christ free. Check it out here.

What’s that you say? You saw nothing of the sort? The problem is that you’re not thinking like a watchdoggie. As we’ve learned in the past merely footnoting a heretic means you agree with that person completely. So I figure if a footnote means you agree completely then posting a video of someone has to mean you’re their disciple, and since Taylor Mali’s mission is education we can only assume that C?N has abandoned Christ is favor of education.

Of course I’m being a bit silly to show how ridiculous the guilt by association arguments the watchdoggies make are. But there was at least one serious point that can be taken from the anonymous coward’s post: C?N has no clue what the e/e churches are all about.

I was thinking alot yesterday (which is why I have a splitting headache today).  The ODMs use the words “false teacher” alot.  So, I though to myself, “what makes someone a false teacher?”  Does everything they teach have to be false?  Or just the essentials?  What if 10/16th of what they teach is true, are they a 6/16th false teacher?  What if everything they taught was true, but they only gave half of the whole story.

So then I thought more about how ambiguous “false teacher” really is.  I mean, even those who the ODMs claim to be just that are usually not completely false.  So there has to be some good to be acknowledged in even the most undiscerning of ministries.  Anyhow… he was my thought after all my thinking… A CHALLENGE

A CHALLENGE TO THE ODMs

We know you read the stuff here, so don’t pretend like you didn’t see this.  Write an article about the good/truth that has come from the emerging / SS / Purpose Driven movement.  If you are truly discerning, you will be able to see some good that these movements have brought to the church.  One parameter:  no negative talk in the whol piece.  No “that’s all good good…but”, no name calling, no interjections, no links to other discernment posts.  It has to be simply a post on the good that has come from these movements.  I think this will truly show how discerning many of you are

A CHALLENGE TO CRN.info

Write comments here about the good that has come from ODMs.  If we are people who want justice and mercy, then we should see some truth and goodness from these guys and gals.  Same parameters.  No negative side-talk.  Let’s see if we really are full of justice and mercy.

It’s one thing to write about theological errors that Christian leaders make. It is another thing to act like a 6 year old — well, look for yourself. This is what Ken Silva “the editor” did to this Christian Post article.

Hosted by influential preacher Bishop T.D. Jake$ of The Potter’$ House in Dallas and his wife Serita, the three-day conference is designed to propel women as mother$, wive$, professional$ and companion$ to experience every benefit of God’s ble$$ing under the banner “He’s just that into you.”

The ladie$ conference comes off the success of Jakes’ “For Men Only” Conference and Retreat which marked its annual celebration earlier this year. Jake$ has also drawn hundreds of thousand$ of women to previous women-only conference$ based off his book “Woman, Thou Art Loo$ed” since 1996. (emphasis mine)

really? Is this really the only way these guys can effectively argue? What’s next? “Your mom’s a heretic” (followed by school-girl giggles). I am sure they are going to argue that these guys are heretics because they charge for their conference, and that they are asking people to pay for a false gospel. Of course, they couldn’t really have pure intentions of helping women. No, it’s T.D. Jakes for cryin’ out loud. (please not sarcasm for those who are subtextually impaired)

…what is wrong with this blog post. Evidently, according to Dwayna, these women are “re-imagining” God, even though that word or any variant of it is not even used in the post. I just don’t get it…

I guess a group of people getting together and discussing theology qualifies as an abomination nowadays. Who knew?

I was reading some of Walter Martin’s works when I came across his advice on how to witness to those in cults:

The first do is, do identify with the cultist. Convince him (or her) that you consider him to be a person in his own right — worthwhile, basically honest, and not trying to put something over on you. Cultists are people before they’re cultists. They have families, they have children, they have needs, they have frustrations and fears, and they are brothers and sisters in Adam, though not in Christ.

Well, that’s not very watchdoggie of him. Its almost like he’s taking the Biblical admonitions of gentleness and peace seriously.

Now, there are also a few don’ts I want to mention. First, don’t approach a cultist with a spiritual chip on your shoulder. A spiritual chip is the communication of the feeling that you are looking down on the cultist because you have something he or she doesn’t have. Such an attitude will turn them off as fast as anything you could imagine.

Second, don’t attack directly the founder of any particular cult. When I lecture on Mormonism, I do not attack Joseph Smith as a person. When I lecture on Christian Science, I do not attack Mary Baker Eddy. I criticize the theology they taught. Remember, if you deal in personalities, people become instantaneously defensive.

Third, don’t lose your patience, regardless of how dense a cultist may be. Remember how dense you and I were — until the Lord managed to break through. Because cultists are bound in the chains of slavery to sin, you need to be patient. And being patient means being willing to go over something ten times if necessary, believing that the Lord will bless your efforts.

It seems to me that Dr. Martin was far closer in tone to hippie emergents than he was to the watchdoggies. Hopefully, the fraudulent attempt by watchdoggies to-opt the legacy of Dr. Martin won’t succeed.

I’m listening to Mark Driscoll’s sermon from 10/9/07 entitled The Rebel’s Guide to Joy.  In it he directly takes on Osteen’s health and wealth gospel, even going so far as to show an Osteen video.  Afterwards he completely dismantles Osteen’s theology.

Let me repeat that.  He completely dismantles Osteen’s theology.  It was a contest in the sense that the 1986 Super Bowl was a  contest.

And I loved every single second of it. 

"Now wait a second Tim", you might be thinking, "you’re a neo-Roman hollow man of the emergent movement, doesn’t that mean you don’t like things like football and theological takedowns?"  Well, I don’t like to brag [Ed's note: yes he does. ] but I just went 3-1 in my fantasy football leagues this week, and my average margin of victory was over 20 points [Ed's note: ask him about last week]. But re-read for a second what I wrote.

Driscoll dismantled Osteen’s theology.

He didn’t call Osteen any stupid, alliterative names, take comments out of context (or just straight up make stuff up) or criticize him for not having the same style as Driscoll does.  Instead Driscoll attacked the teachings of Osteen, and not only that but actually used scripture to put out a proper theological understanding of the gospel. 

In other words, this was a correction via scripture that avoided personal attacks.  You might refer to it as the Anti-Watchdoggie Argument. 

Justice and Mercy #10 is out, you can download it here. The sound quality has slipped a bit, but is generally good. There’s a few rough spots that clear up pretty quickly.

If you’d like to contact us about the podcast you can send email me or leave a voicemail at (313) 416-0285.

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 Justice and Mercy #10 - Left Behind, America Worship, and Baptism: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Associated Press reports here that Bob Jones has endorsed Mitt Romney for President in 2008.

Stipulating that he does not agree with Mormonism, Jones was quoted as saying:

“As a Christian I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism,” Jones told the newspaper. “But I’m not voting for a preacher. I’m voting for a president. It boils down to who can best represent conservative American beliefs, not religious beliefs.”

Sounds similar to what Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was trying to say when she suggested that Islam, Christianity, and Judaism:

“have an opportunity to overcome differences, to put aside grievances, to make religion a power of healing and a power of reconciliation, rather than a power of divisions.”

But apparently, the “editor” over at CRN.com doesn’t think so. You can read his/her comments here.

Since the leader of the last bastion of traditional fundamentalism is in the words of William Wilberforce, willing to act as a “co-belligerant” with a follower of Joseph Smith, I have to wonder if Jones’ ODM supporters will follow suit?

 

This is the first part in what (I hope) will be a many-part series over the next 2.5 months which strives to place Christ’s birth within its context, demonstrating how powerful his story is – especially when viewed in the cultural context in which God placed it.

Living in America, particularly, we often get a very ’sanitized’ version of the Christmas story, which primarily deals with the Christmas story from Luke. Where we ‘miss out’, just from this fundamental standpoint, is that the story begins long before Jesus arrives on the scene to an unwed teenage girl in Bethlehem.

Fundamentally, the story begins in Genesis 1:1, with the creation of the world and the birth of the Hebrew nation in Abraham and his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

If Genesis is the prologue, Chapter One begins with the story of Moses. It is the type to the archetype in Jesus’ story – it is God redeeming a people who can do nothing to save themselves. In Moses, it is also the story of a people’s journey in struggling to follow God and the gods of this world, which leads to dispair and failure.

When you bring in the entire story arch from Exodus through Malachi – following the Children of Israel through their dispair, captivity and return to Israel, you have set the stage such that, when you read the Nunc Dimittis, the Song of Simeon, blessing the child Messiah, and the declaration of John the Baptizer “Behold the Lamb of God”, tears should be streaming down your face from the epic weight of the story and the triumph of the coming of the Messiah.

It is in this moment that their story becomes our story, that their hope becomes our hope. Without the backstory, the story of Jesus’ birth is absent the overarching conflict of the world, and it sets up an individualized story of salvation, rather than the salvation of the world.

As musical works go, I hold few out-and-out ‘favorites’ (and 90+% of those belong to Rich Mullins). However, someone whose musical influence and style is similar to Rich’s, Andrew Peterson, has a work which I put at the top of my ‘love it and recommend it’ lists, which fits into this discussion.

Peterson tells the Christmas story from Moses to John the Baptist’s proclamation of Jesus as the Lamb of God through song, in music that is not traditional Christmas fare (aside from two brief instrumentals), and is good listening year-round. This entire work, Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ, tracks the rescue and plight of God’s people in the Hebrew Scriptures, bridges it to the Christian Testament through Matthew’s Begats (the only song I’d wager you’ll hear from Matthew 1), and then pulls it together with the blessed arrival of the Messiah.*

In other words, he covers the whole story of the coming of Jesus, avoiding the modern “Christmas” trappings and the myopic view that Christmas is covered in the first chapters of Luke and Matthew.
____________

*For those of you who are interested, Peterson goes on tour each year with Derek Webb and other down-to-earth Christian singers between Thanksgiving and Christmas to perform Behold the Lamb of God. It is amazing to see and hear, if you can get there. If not, it was released on DVD last year.

Here is a link to the documentary filmed last year for the Behold DVD release.

You can listen to Behold the Lamb of God here, order it here and find out about the tour (November 27 – December 16 this year) here.

Link: Fishing the Abyss