CRN.Info and Analysis

Occasionally while on the internet I get sucked into the proverbial “rabbit hole”; Someone links to someone who links to someone…and on it goes. Before long I’ve looked at a couple dozen pages and I’ve forgotten what I started looking at in the first place. Occasionally (very rarely) do I find things that are intriguing enough to post about but tonight was different…

Per my blog reader I started at ysmarko.com which contained the post entitled Emergents Cohorts and Denom Groups being an R.C.A. (Reformed Church of America) youth pastor I was drawn to this section of the post

Reformergent (Reformed) — this group is somewhat different from the others because it’s “interested in the interaction between Reformed theology and the emerging church movement.” Chris Case is the main man “minding the (occasional) gap.”

Excited to see what Reformed folk were adding to the “conversation” I strolled over to Reformergent to see what they were all about.

Which eventually led me to the post “The Contexualization Condrum” with the opening lines:

Recent posts by Phil Johnson and Andrew Jones, with added statements by John MacArthur, have recently caused a bit of conversation about the topic of Contextualization. Phil has a good exegesis of the text regarding Mars Hill…(emphasis mine)

Not being a gracious reader I assumed that this guy, Chris Case, at Reformergent must have not been reading the same Phil Johnson that I’ve been reading. Deciding that a look at the Pyro blog was in order; I trotted over and the very first post I see catches me off guard. Not for any other reason than Phil seems to take exception to being categorized as a hyper-calvinist or he takes exception to the definition of a hyper-calvinist; I’m not really sure. Uh…Anyway…where was I? Oh yeah…so the guy who says(maybe) Phil is a hyper-calvinist, C. Micheal Patton, runs reclaimingthemind.org. Which is an excellent blog about a lot of things but he had a great article entitled “What do you mean God is sovereign?’ Four Options”. Which in of itself was a great post but what I found most encouraging was the interaction between two commenter’s on that post. Here are their comments in their entirety.

******on 18 Apr 2008 at 2:05 am #

Hi,

I believe option two is the only rational, and importantly, the Biblical one. All the rest does not fit in with the picture the Bible paints God to be. In my opinion, option one comes close to the Islamic god. Option three seems to a dis-interested or at best, a moody god. Option four, an impotent god. Since the Bible clearly teaches God to have given us some free will, and is “intimately acquainted” with all our ways, and is very much potent, these options do not hold much water. God of option two is the Biblical God.

**** on 18 Apr 2008 at 2:24 am #

******,

I would be careful for using that term “biblical God”. There are devout Christians who claim to be “biblical” that would fall in all 4 of these categories. Thus, to claim your view to be the “biblical God” borders on narrow-mindedness and arrogance. There are lots of things that are “biblical” that are not orthodox in any case, and I personally wish Christians would completely drop the word from their vocabulary. It’s mainly used as ammunition for claiming that the person who holds to the “biblical view” is right and everybody else is wrong. Also, you could find proof-texts for all 4 views and thus claim to have the “biblical God”. I do believe there is such a thing as a “biblical God”, but that we can capture this in its entirety and have the audacity to think we’re completely right on everything just falls short of the mark. We all bring our own biases and sets of lenses to the text, regardless of how objective or “biblical” we claim to be. Sorry to rant, I’m not trying to be mean or get mad at you, I’m just trying to persuade you to be very cautious in using that term. Thanks

****

******on 18 Apr 2008 at 3:00 am #

****,

Thanks for your comments. This is the first time we both are interacting, and from reading your responses to other posts and comments, I should say that I like the way you interact, balancing sound arguments with humility.

Now, I am sorry that I come out as someone who is “completely right on everything”, but trust me, I never had such a thought anywhere in the recesses of my heart. What I was trying to say was that from studying the Bible in its entirety (not picking verses), we can safely come to the conclusion that option two depicts the God of the Bible more accurately than the other options. As you know, proof-texting don’t help much.

Thanks, brother, for your concern.

Occasionally my “Rabbit Hole” journeys lead me to some buried treasure. Tonight was one of those nights.

I’m sorry, but this over-the-top link at CRN is just ridiculous:

You may not have heard about The Shift yet, but you will – soon! Shifters, like pod people, are in our midst. Some of your friends and acquaintances could be shifters, only you don’t know it yet. Shifters have wormed their way into church leadership (pastors deacons, elders), worship services, Bible studies, Sunday school, seminaries, Christian schools, youth groups, camps. They lecture, write for Christian news sources and they’re all over the Internet. Now they’re touring the country. Many shifters are familiar faces on TV and have become media darlings. Browse through your local Christian bookstore and you’ll find their names lined up on shelves. Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Marcus Borg, Dallas Willard, Leonard Sweet, Erwin McManus, Phyllis Tickle, Rob Bell, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, Scot McKnight, Eddie Gibbs, Ryan Bolger, Jeff & Sherry Maddock, Peter Rollins, to name a few. Every one of them are theological liberals!

Today is the opening of the film “Expelled” on Intelligent Design and the uncoordinated effort of atheistic science to blackball scientists (be they Christian or not) who believe in some sort of Intelligent Design.  Because I believe this is a topic that should be in the public eye (rather than arguing over literal 6-24-hour-day creation vs. atheistic evolution in a dualistic manner), I have put up an ad for the movie in our sidebar.

As a number of frequent readers know, none of the writers are in this to make money.   Aside from the Amazon search box, we do not have any commercial ads on this site, nor do we accept donations for numerous reasons - primarily that this is something we believe in strongly, and we don’t want any revenue pressure that might influence the content of the site - in any direction.

The ad that I’ve posted is simply to promote the movie - we do not get ANYTHING for having it up.

Nothing.

If you want to donate money, there are a number of missions which help flesh-and-blood people, and we can direct you to them.

That is all