As a pastor trained in some of our best evangelical institutions–Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Theological Seminary and Fuller Theological Seminary–you can bet that I was taught emphatically about the Bible. My training was during the years that “expository preaching” was elbowing out all other forms of sermonizing. John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, as two examples, [...]
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The nature of the church has been an enduring conversation through history. What is ‘church’? How do we ‘do church’?
In view of the first two posts on ’styrofoam theology’ and the resulting comments, I need to temper my viewpoint and write this: Not all organic church proponents have a skewed view of a pastor nor [...]
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I have noted a mantra from the organic church sympathizers. Any critique of their priesthood-of-all-believers, no-hierarchal-structure, anti-clergy/laity split, all-are-leaders-and-thus-none-are-leaders theology receives this: “Well, show me from the New Testament anyone with a modern pastor job description.” I want to respond, “Show me your thorough-going American egalitarian, democratic, consensual decision-making polity in the New Testament.” It [...]
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There is a kind of hocus-pocus going on in current evangelical (emerging) conversations. It is a kind of conversational slight-of-hand that is doing away with the concept of pastor. The word “pastor” and the idea of pastor is besieged by many and is being cast into the circular file of irrelevancy. With alleged biblical support [...]
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Posted in Emergent Conversation, Theology on Feb 15th, 2009
From my expansive reading, I’ve come to see the need for some new, emerging theological vocabulary.
wishional church– those faith communities longing to be a missional church
hermesleuthtics– the process of finding “secrets” in the biblical text, i.e., the “secrets” of a successful marriage, the “secrets” of overcoming all doubt, the “secrets” of the End Times, etc.
Calvinblistic– [...]
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“But [Thomas] said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it’” (John 20:25).
Empiricism is coming to the truth by using the human mind in examination of the evidence. Thomas wasn’t a gullible man who [...]
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