Posted on 04/02/2007 8:52:50 AM PDT by Terriergal
And My God is expansive enough to have CALLED RW to prcisely such a ministry. St Paul contended with one and all such as on Mars Hill.
Thanks.
My understanding is that it was
NOT
in the sanctuary.
Will you join in the criticism if it was?
One wonders why he doesn't share the wealth then?
The answer is... tada... SIN! d'oh.
At one time, everyone had everything they could need. But they only had ONE rule to follow and they still couldn't handle it. Everything you physically need is just not enough for the corrupt man, it wasn't even enough for the incorrupt Man and Woman.
Yeah I agree, he does much better in this context (philosophy) than in the context of teaching theology/doctrine.
With all due respect to my friends Quix and Charlie007,
for the same reasons I would not read “The Prayer of
Jabez”, I will not read “The Purpose Driven Life”. I
prefer to study the original Gospel and let the Holy
Spirit interpret God’s Word to me.
I’ve been a Christian for some 35 years now and have
seen these same themes come around again and again.
I was also raised in Christian Science. So my cult-dar
is pretty finely honed.
“Purpose” seems to bear fruit.
Many people who read that book really talk about Jesus
and they seem to know God’s Word. In my opinion, it’s
the media who are exalting the messenger (Warren),
rather than the message. The media are also in conflict
with Warren’s wealth. Proverbs 14:20 says, “The poor is
hated even by his neighbor, But those who love the rich
are many”.
All churches have a mix of Christians and Churchians.
It’s just the way it is. The people I’ve met from
Saddleback, love the Lord and their walk matches their
talk. Warren aside, Saddleback members have a good
witness.
That’s my opinion.
You said — “But I haven’t really studied about it much.”
Well, I think it’s extremely serious, to the point where — in addressing the post-modern culture (which they claim to be doing, in doing some of the things that are going on, in the “Emerging Church”) — they are actually sliding into becoming part of the post-modern culture, instead of addressing it with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, they are losing the Gospel.
And so, at least to me, this looks like the mechanism for the slide into the grand apostasy of the end days. This Emerging or Emergent Church is the actual mechanism. Of course, when a “movement” like this starts, it’s subtle at first, but then “gains steam” and gets more overt all the time. That’s what is happening now.
Check out a good radio program, called “Olive Tree Ministries” — KKMS in Minneapolis, with Jan Markel as the host. There are several years of program on the web site and you can probably find several there about the Emerging Church. It’s at — http://www.olivetreeviews.org/ — look at the radio archives section.
And then, you can go to several web sites that deal with Biblical matters that many churches are straying from. Roger Oakland is one that comes to mind. And by the way, he’ll deal with the “mysticism” angle of the Emerging Church and the “spiritual” nature of many in the secular culture (as opposed to Christianity). His web site is http://www.understandthetimes.org/ called Understand the Times. I’ve seen him at several conferences.
And then, there’s Dave Hunt’s web site. He really set up the “alarm” for all this way back in the mid-1980s with his book “The Seduction of Christianity” — from which he got a lot of flak (back then). Not any more, because he’s been “right on the money”. His web site is The Berean Call — http://www.thebereancall.org/
Also, you could go to — http://www.watchman.org/ — Watchman Fellowship: A Christian Research and Apologetics Ministry.
Jason Carlson is another guy who has a lot of knowledge of Brian McLaren and the Emergent Church — http://www.christianworldviewnetwork.com/print.php?&ArticleID=580
He’s part of the ministry at — http://www.jude3.com/ and here are some links to articles by Jason Carlson — http://www.worldviewweekend.com/secure/cwnetwork/bio.php?AuthorID=6
And there are many more, but these can be a start. Just do a googling for “Emergent Church” and go to the websites which are Evangelical Christian websites, talking about the Emergent Church. You’ll get more than enough there.
Also, you might check into “seeker-sensitive” too. They are all buzz words... Here’s an article from the Berean Call Newsletter in March of 2004 — http://www.thebereancall.org/Newsletter/html/2004/mar04.php
Well, that’s a lot of stuff for you...
Regards,
Star Traveler
AGREED:
What Satan intends for “secular” purposes,
God can redeem for “eternal” purposes.
Read the story of Joseph being sold by his
brothers.
Christians should share the Gospel whenever
the opportunity is presented.
A summit would be a GREAT opportunity.
Welcome back to the thread sweetie.
Good point about Harris and the
distribution of wealth.
What are the major issues/themes which are UnBiblical about such new movements?
I have tended to see him that way, too.
The CFR thing is troubling. Deeply troubling.
i LIKE to have a deep aversion to joining in rock throwing parties.
God is the discipline person for other believers. IF HE calls me to specifically speak firmly to someone—fine. Otherwise, I’d rather avoid such.
IN terms of my personal bias, I prefer to protect the sanctuary from anyone who’s not likely to speak God’s Scriptural truth, hopefully in Love and anointing. I’m probably as fierce about that as anyone.
But I don’t feel the same way about all church buildings. But my boundaries are NOT willy nilly, anything goes by a wide margin.
I’m still quite concerned and annoyed that RW is anywhere even in remotely close association with the CFR folks.
But I’m not RW’s judge, jury or boss. God is.
If I find out that RW allowed folks in the sanctuary who were not Biblically sound, I’ll raise a fierce protest to that person to relate back to RW and leadership.
Fits my assessment.
Thanks.
Yep. Did he also say we are all sinners (no matter how nice we think we are) and on our way to hell by default? The only sins he mentions are those that he himself commits.
the more we understand ecology, the more we understand how sensitive that order is.
oh brother.
The issue here really does come down to surrender. A lot of atheists hide behind rationalism; when you start probing, you find their reactions are quite emotional. In fact, I've never met an atheist who wasn't angry.
I've found that to be true in my experiences with atheists...
WARREN: You don't feel atheists are dogmatic? HARRIS: No, I don't. he said, dogmatically...
I'm noticing Christians doing terrible things explicitly for religious reasons—for instance, not fund-ing [embryonic] stem-cell research.
HUH??? Wow.. this guy is wacky! And yet SOMEHOW by sheer coincidence, he has more than his neighbor and it's not right and he can't do anything about it! Hmm. Vewwwy peculiar...
HARRIS: Our morality, the meaning we find in life, is a lived experience that I believe has, to use a loaded term, a spiritual component. I believe it is possible to radically transform our experience of the world for the better, very much the way someone like Jesus, or someone like Buddha, witnessed. There is wisdom in our spiritual, contemplative literature, and I am quite interested in understanding it.
What a very strange statement from an atheist. He doesn't seem to see the inherent contradiction.
I think that medita-tion and prayer affect us for the better. The question is, what is reasonable to believe on the basis of those transformations?
but...given that that is true... WHY? WHAT FOR? What is the ultimate point?
Sam, is Rick intellectually dishonest? HARRIS: I wouldn't put it in such an invidious way, but—
How about "is Sam intellectually dishonest?" YES! See above paragraph/quote. And the following quote:
HARRIS: The thing that bothers me about faith-based altruism is that it is contaminated with religious ideas that have nothing to do with the relief of human suffering. So you have a Christian minister in Africa who's doing really good work, helping those who are hungry, healing the sick. And yet, as part of his job description, he feels he needs to preach the divinity of Jesus in communities where literally millions of people have been killed because of interreligious conflict between Christians and Muslims.
He just got through saying meditation and spiritual wisdom and prayer are beneficial, and now he says that we shouldn't pass them on to people who need physical help. We should only attend to their physical needs and not the spiritual, the spiritual aspect which he already admitted exists. How's that for intellectual dishonesty?
Slavery, on balance, is supported by the Bible, not condemned by it. It's supported with exquisite precision in the Old Testament, as you know, and Paul in First Timothy and Ephesians and Colossians supports it, and Peter—
WARREN: No, he doesn't. He allows it. He doesn't support it.
HARRIS: OK, he allows it. I would argue that we got rid of slavery not because we read the Bible more closely. We got rid of slavery despite the profound inadequacies of the Bible. We got rid of slavery because we realized it was manifestly evil to treat human beings as farm equipment. As it is.
One might insert here that SLAVERY was actually a part of the penal system, used instead of prisons. It was probably a better way of rehabilitating non-violent criminals and deadbeats than any sticking them in a jail cell.HARRIS: It [atheist] is right next to child molester as something you don't want to be. But that is a product, I would argue, of what religious people tell one another about atheism.
I wouldn't go that far. But my impressions of atheists are based upon my observations and interactions with them, just as his beliefs are based upon his observations and interactions with them. Can I say that people's negative view of Christianity is a product of what atheists tell each other about Christianity? Because I think it's absolutely true.
HARRIS: How is it fair for God to have designed a world which gives such ambiguous testimony to his existence?
Ambiguous? One day it won't be 'ambiguous' as you seem to think it is, and I'm betting people will instead of turn to him, they will as they always have, reject him, to their peril. It's human nature.
HARRIS: I wouldn't put it in those stark terms, because I don't have a rigid view how someone should spend their life so as not to waste it.
Why don't you let us be the judge of whether or not it's rigid/dogmatic.
Harris:...You can go into a cave and practice meditation and transform yourself, and then we can talk about why that happened and how it could be replicated.
As if it's some scientific/biological process rather than spiritual. Man this guy is a great equivocator!
HARRIS: There are many reasons not to believe in a naive conception of a soul that kind of floats off the brain at death and goes somewhere else. But I do not know.
The first sentence is pretty loaded, cynical, and biased. The second is as intellectually honest as he's been the whole time. So intellectually, he's an agnostic, and emotionally, he's an atheist. That atheism's based on some pretty empirical data I see...
HARRIS: You can feel yourself to be one with the universe.
WARREN: OK, then why can't you just take the next step? Because right now you're talking in extremely nonrational terms.
HARRIS: There's nothing irrational about it.
"...because I can change the definition of rational whenever I want!"
WARREN: You're more spiritual than you think. You just don't want a boss. You don't want a God who tells you what to do.
A pretty good summary Rick.
HARRIS: I don't want to pretend to be certain about anything I'm not certain about.
And here we have the biggest lie of the day...
Thanks for the links.
I don’t think much of Dave Hunt.
Willow Creek is not the horror some assert.
Seeker sensitive in and of itself is not UnBiblical.
Nevertheless, I’m most comfortable with a fiercely brazenly Biblical Pentecostal perspective. But one balanced and sane and full of God’s CURRENT ANOINTING. I don’t like phoney hoopla.
Good posts 24 and 27 thanks both of you.
HARRIS: There’s nothing irrational about it.
“...because I can change the definition of rational whenever I want!”
EXCELLENT!
That is odd, isn't it... ;-\
You said — “All churches have a mix of Christians and Churchians. It’s just the way it is. The people I’ve met from Saddleback, love the Lord and their walk matches their talk. Warren aside, Saddleback members have a good witness.”
You know, there are a lot of differences of opinion here about Rick Warren and where he’s coming from — and that is okay. But, I think the real big issue is the “Emergent Church” issue and how it’s trying to address the “post-modern culture” (of our society today — as they *specifically* say they are trying to address that) — and how, instead, they are actually becoming part of that same post-modern culture and gradually losing their Christian basis for being.
And so, I think a lot of this argument, which is going on about Rick Warren is more along the lines of “How far down the road of the Emergent Church is he?” Some would say not too far and it doesn’t make too much difference. Others would say he’s gone quite a distance down that road.
Instead, one ought to be taking a look at what the Emergent Church is doing to the Evangelical Christian Church across the board and what it has done in the last five years.
In fact, one ought to read Dave Hunt’s book “The Seduction of Christianity” from back in the 1980s to get a perspective of what was considering shocking and outrageous, back then, but yet — today — is “ho hum” —what’s new? So, the “slide”into apostasy has begun — actually more than begun and we’re losing churches, wholesale, across the board...
Be sure to check out Jason Carlson’s materials on the Emergent Church, because of him having been in it and part of it, knowing Brian McLaren and knowing it all from the ground-up.
A starting place for some materials from Jason Carlson is at — http://www.jude3.com/ . However, there are many other Evangelical Christian websites with Jason Carlson’s articles and/or mp3 files (from his talks) and so on.
By the way, Brian McLaren (who might be considered the “prophet” of the Emergent Church) has a book out with the title —
“A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN”
Does that give you an idea of what he believes — just from the title? I just about don’t have to read his book to know not to go any further into that subject...
Regards,
Star Traveler
I just posted my more comprehensive list. He actually did pretty well. In these interviews I would suggest he does better than in writing or speaking on soteriology.
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