The UmBlog

Scot McKnight answers this question wonderfully... I’m suprised postmodernist emerging Christians have trouble with Paul and his letters. Why? Because of their commitment to the importance of language as something that conveys truth (as story), and because of their commitment to the importance of local communities of faith framing their own story for their own setting, and because of their confidence that God “incarnates” the redemptive story in local communities of faith. If each of those points is true, and I think they are too, then what we see in Paul is just exactly what you are striving for at the Red Sea Community (I happen to like your “church’s” name). What I’m saying — forgive me for the teacher’s habit of repeating myself — is that Paul did what you think all Christians do: he re-expressed the message of Jesus in a new way (language) so people could live it out in a new context (the local community). Instead of talking about “kingdom,” Paul talked about things like justifica...

the A-Team is tired of taking Brian McLaren's jabs lying down... “But Timbo,” you say, “McLaren is writing a foreword to Grenz’s book, and he doesn’t have space to cite the text or develop an argument!” I agree, and this is precisely the problem. Throughout his writings, Mr. McLaren relies on subtle “suggestions” which are undeveloped and/or unsupported by facts. There often appears to be more innuendo than insight, more assumption than analysis. When McLaren wrote the words of conservatives in his fictional trilogy, many of us felt that he was putting words into our mouths as well by misrepresenting what we believe. A rule of criticism is to be able to express alternative viewpoints in ways which a proponent of that viewpoint would be able to recognize it as his own: this McLaren emphatically does not do. What he often does instead is uses an inappropriate forum in which to respond to his critics, and this brings us to the issue of appropriateness in discourse, wherein McLar...

i found this an interesting read on where the culture is going. he may be wrong, and he isn't putting all his eggs in his speculation, but his thoughts intrigue me. now i will talk myself out of this, perhaps you should read it first ... why won't big movies don't go away. the same reasons restaurants don't go away. we want to get out of our homes. we get bored. which is why house churches won't dominate as long as there are venues that provide a different feel. and i'm not sure that a longing for community is the real pull. as kimball writes , and i've blogged on before , multigenerational is not staring at the back of an old guy's head. there is some need for community. but we want to meet our friends on neutral ground that we don't have to clean, we can escape from without offense (as opposed to kicking people out of your house), etc. so i don't think Lucas is totally write, that movies are done with. we make a mistake that things have to be z...