Redeeming creation one byte at a time
Titles that make me laugh
“What’s so dangerous about the emerging church?”
This showed up in a ‘freebies’ section of slickdeals.net tonight; you fill out the form and they send you a copy. What makes me laugh is title’s like this because it’s a fake argument. The agenda of the book is obvious; it’s a book against the emergent church, but the title makes you think that it’s not and gives the people looking for some ammo the false sense that they are getting an objective look at things.
It’s humorous but also makes me a bit sad in that I’ve read or heard of far too many books like this that just ended up being divisive in the end; especially detailing churches that dear brothers and sisters are in. Instead of creating a conversation and seeking to understand, attack books like this one end up drawing people into an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ where I don’t think such a line exists or even should be drawn.
In the end I just don’t get it. The day is just too short and there are far too many real enemies out there for us to be drawing imaginary lines within our own house and selling it as Christian scholarship. We should be about the business of Jesus; about really becoming salt and light in the world and not arguing about the dangers of overconsumption of sodium. Are we really that way when our time is spent in lame attempts to discredit contexts where people are spoken to and meet God in a true way because it somehow looks different than the norm?
Disclaimer: I’m not in the emergent conversation but have tons of friends that are (and are blogging buddies with) and have a relative who recently came to know Jesus as a result of a church. I also have a passion for culturally relevant, high production quality worship – it ministers to my heart to see people care about how things look and to take care in making sure things are done with quality. Not for the sake of quality, but for a genuine desire to worship through their gifts; to see God in the details. I guess that is one of the reasons serving at Urbana 06 this year was an act of worship that I’m appreciative of the opportunity to be a part of…but I digress.
Further disclaimer: I’m always a bit gun shy writing pieces like this.
Dude never be gun-shy about putting out pieces like this. Especially when they are as well articulated as this is.
This is exactly how attack books and conspiracy theories work. Especially conspiracy theories. And what pisses me off about it is that they appear to take that objective look at things while constantly saying, “But we are only after the truth, and what is wrong with that.” But in actuality they lie, conceal, knowingly deceive, and poorly show the other side. Which probably explains why attack books and conspiracy theories are so popular.
And I hope that anyone that practices a religion doesn’t take the look at atheists and others that do not practice any formal religion, that we are all bad because a small group of atheists attack the religious. Because this is not true of me.
I am more happy that others, including friends and the ones I love, are just happy with their lives and their self regardless of their faith or whatever. I would never think of changing anyones belief on a subject when they are happy and content and not harming themselves or anyone else. Live and let live.
I hear ya brother! Stop the dividing and placing of people into groups, and instead let us all come together as one group, the Human group.
Pete, I’m not an expert in the Emerging Church, so I will not speak for or against it. But what if MacArthur is right? Shall he remain silent because we are all basically on the same side, even though people are believing things that are not true? Isn’t it our job to be purveyors of truth AND grace? And hasn’t God called certain individuals out and given them a platform to speak out?
Live and let live works both ways. We should, let MacArthur say his piece, and pray that truth rises to the top, regardless of whether it comes from Mac or the Emergents. Meanwhile, “study to show thyself approved…”
P.S. Please regard my comments as AMICABLE disagreement. I love ya Bro, and if you would rather avoid this kind of dialog, just tell me; it’s fine by me.
Craver –
Oh no, I totally understand and don’t mind the dialog. You’re right and I agree with you, and no I don’t mind avoiding the dialog.
A passion of mine is reconcillation (and this post was a bit self-serving in that regard), and if you were to ask believer friends of mind, they’d describe me largely as a consensus builder. Even after I left a previous church I ended up dialoging with a co-worker who was largely distrustful of other denominations and affirmed him in his choice of churches (he left the same church) because it ministered to him and fed him and drew him closer to Jesus.
People (academics I rub shoulders with) often critize Christianity because of its fractured nature in terms of denominations. To me, there’s a reason why there’s 30 or odd churches in this town; people have different needs for community.
I apologize if someone was offended by this. Mostly, the post came out of a frustration of taking a rather growingly complex issue and making it overly simple. Certain things get me hot, but I think the challenge is to love.
“Different needs for community” is a very generous way to put it, and is in accordance with the concept of John 14:2.
You are probably correct about this book, though. Church history is terribly fractious. And from a nonChristian perspective, lemme tell ya, it is unattractive.