My Visit to Mars Hill Bible Church (Part 2)

Yesterday I began telling about my experience of attending Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI., which is pastored by Rob Bell. Today, I’d like to finish that discussion by talking about the sermon that was preached while I was there.

Unfortunately, on the Sunday when I went Rob Bell wasn’t teaching. I guess he gets some time off during the summer to recover from his speaking tour and to prepare for his next one. Instead of having one guest preacher, we had two. I’ve never experienced tag team teachers, but it was certainly a unique approach.

The teachers for the morning were Don Perini and Jeanette Banashak. Both serve as professors at nearby Cornerstone University. Don is the assistant professor of youth ministry and also teaches creativity. Apparently a class on creativity is required for every student at Cornerstone. Jeanette serves as an instructor in youth ministry at Cornerstone and also recently began serving as an elder at Mars Hill. These two were specifically asked to speak on creativity because it is one of their specialties. They announced a couple of times during the message that they would be teaching a multi part class in the coming months at Mars Hill on creativity.

The dual teaching method creates an interesting dynamic. One person sits on a stool on stage while the other does his (or her) teaching. Instead of one person teaching the first part of the message and the other preaching the second half, they rotate several times throughout the message.

The title for the message the morning I was there was “A Journey to Unleash Your Creative Potential.”

Don began the morning by lamenting the fact that as we grow older we tend to play fewer games and be less creative. The busyness of life creeps in and we no longer take the time to play and imagine. Once Don finishes his introduction, Jeanette asks us to open to Matthew 28 and take a look at the great commission. She reminds us that we are supposed to be making disciples and baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. She makes the connection between the Trinity and the discipleship commanded in the great commission.

Then she asked us to flip over to Genesis 1. She noted that the first verb in the Bible is created and that obviously our God is a creative God. Since Genesis 1:26 tells us that we are made in the image of God, we must learn to be creative like God is creative. Then she explained that since God is a Trinity the Trinity must hold some clues as to how God is creative and therefore how we should be creative.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that when we entered the worship center we were greeted with quotes on the overhead projectors. One of the main quotes that continued to cycle through as we waited for the “gathering” to start was a quote by Dorothy Sayers. After getting back home and doing some research I realized that much of the teaching on creativity and the Trinity comes from a book by Sayers called The Mind of the Maker. The entire message was based on the idea that every bit of human creativity resembles the Trinity. The creative idea we have is like God the Father, the action that we perform because of that idea is like the Son, and the influence and power of that creative idea is like the Holy Spirit.

Once Jeanette taught this background it was easy to see the shape the message would take. Jeanette taught the philosophy and theology (I use that term loosely) behind creativity and then Don gave us practical insight into becoming more creative. For example, after Jeanette taught on the idea of creativity and that being analogous to God the Father, Don taught on the top ten places for creative ideas to come to us. After the section dealing with Jesus and the creative idea being put into action, Don taught on several habits of creative people.

The ultimate point of the message was for us to learn to be creative and then use that creativity for something useful. The Sayers quote which they kept using throughout the lesson was “…that we may redeem the Fall by a creative act.” When one actually begins to break that down and think it through, it’s a scary thing to be teaching people. The point of the message was that we can use our creativity to redeem the fall. In other words, our world is in a rough situation. All of the pain and hardship in society comes as a result of the fall. We must use our creativity to fix the problems created by mankind’s fall into sin.

Sadly, throughout the message there was no mention of the gospel of Jesus Christ being what redeems men from the fall.

In the end, the tag-team talk consisted of little more than some vaguely inspiring teaching about using creativity to meet the physical and temporal needs of those in our community. Noticebly missing was the centrality of the gospel.

Needless to say, my trip to Mars Hill Bible Church confirmed in my mind what I have often heard said concerning much of the Emerging Church. This movement is really just old liberalism with cooler glasses and a penchant for mystery and postmodernism.

(By Nathan Williams)

On My Visit to Mars Hill Bible Church

Anyone who has read blogs for any amount of time, has no doubt entered into a discussion, or at least read one on the topic of the emerging church. I’ve read several books by authors who are considered a part of the emerging church and have also read books and articles evaluating this movement. But until a couple of weeks ago I hadn’t had the chance to visit a church built on the ideas and philosophy of the emerging church and postmodernism. That all changed when I recently was on vacation and had the opportunity to attend Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, which is led by Rob Bell.

Bell is the author of several books including Velvet Elvis and Sex God. He also travels throughout the country on speaking tours in which he packs out auditoriums and theaters to crowds hanging on every well-articulated word. Our local outreach pastor at Grace Church, Jesse Johnson, attended Bell’s speaking tour when it came to Los Angeles and wrote about it here. Bell has also been involved in the making of the NOOMA videos, which are short videos intended to spark conversation about a spiritual truth they teach. Needless to say, through his books, church, and videos he has become an influential leader in the modern … I mean, postmodern church.

Mars Hill holds its Sunday “gatherings” in a renovated shopping center. The facilities are nice, but certainly not extravagant. They have three identical gatherings on Sundays and we chose the early one at 9am. When we pulled into the parking lot, there was no huge sign telling us we had arrived at God’s special place for us; an army of greeters didn’t welcome us and tell us where the coffee bar would be found, just a small imprint on the glass door that read “Mars Hill Bible Church: A Jesus Community.”

We came into the side of the auditorium and were greeted with the sound of the new Coldplay album coming through the speakers. The stage was in the middle of the room with no pulpit and chairs surrounding it on all four sides. We grabbed seats in the fourth row on what we assumed would be the front of the stage, hoping to get the full experience. Come to think of it … it’s funny that we thought there would be a “front of the stage” in a church focused on postmodern ministry. Who would be arrogant enough to say that they really know which side of the stage is the front?

When we reached our seats we found three pieces of paper waiting for us, one red, one orange, and one blue. I wondered if these pieces of paper were going to be used for something or if this was just part of the whole postmodern experience. As it turns out, we actually ended up using them during the message, which I’ll talk about later. We had arrived about ten minutes before starting time, so we took a few minutes to take in our surroundings. Above the stage were four screens forming a box so that no matter where you sat you were facing one of the screens. On the screen were rotating a number of announcements and quotations. One of the announcements let everyone know that Shane Claiborne would be at Mars Hill the next night to speak on politics. Apparently Claiborne is in the middle of a nationwide tour promoting his book, Jesus for President. Amid the announcements were a series of quotes dealing with creativity from a variety of sources including Dorothy Sayers, Kent Ruth, and Pablo Picasso.

The service … I mean gathering, began with about thirty minutes of music. We sang a variety of songs including one song by The David Crowder Band and a couple of hymns. The last song we sang was a Woody Guthrie song entitled “Jesus Christ”. The song paints a picture of a hardworking Jesus who went throughout the land and told the rich people to give their money to the poor. Jesus is portrayed, essentially, as an ancient version of Robin Hood who became a migrant worker. One verse proclaims that the bankers and the preachers put Jesus in the grave.

After we sang, someone got up and made a few announcements and introduced the teachers (the “s” is not an accident) for the morning and that was when things really started to get interesting.

To Be Continued Tomorrow…

Book Review: Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should be)

You can tell a lot from the title of this book. You can tell that it’s going to be straightforward, honest, winsome, and a little bit sarcastic in the right kind of way. Why We’re Not Emergent is written by two men who by all counts should be embracing the emergent church movement, but have refused for a variety of reasons.

Kevin Deyoung serves as the senior pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing Michigan. Ted Kluck has authored three books and also written for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com’s page 2. These guys take a unique approach to co-authoring a book. They were each responsible for a group of chapters and wrote them independently of the other. Throughout the book the chapters rotate from Kevin to Ted and then back to Kevin again. As one reads it’s easy to tell who wrote each chapter and each author makes notable contributions with every chapter.

One of the things I appreciated most about this book was the perspective given by Ted as a layman analyzing the emerging church. His interaction with the movement provided another layer of depth to the discussion and demonstrated the responsibility the pastor has for those in his church. Seeing the movement through the eyes of a layman helped me to see that this movement doesn’t only touch pastors and bloggers. When a pastor begins to adapt the mindset and methods propagated by those in the emerging church it directly affects his flock, which he is responsible to lead correctly. In this case Ted has obviously been influenced by Kevin, his pastor, in a profoundly biblical way.

Throughout the pages of Why We’re Not Emergent the authors interact with many of the major works done by those in the emerging church. As you read, you get the feel that these guys have read much and thought long and hard about this movement. The emerging church is certainly hard to pin down and their own disdain for creeds makes them unusually tricky to figure out. The leading figures in the movement dislike doctrinal affirmations and so it’s hard to make generalizations that will apply to all or even most of those who consider themselves emerging.

Having said this, one of the greatest benefits to this book is the ability of Kevin and Ted to organize the thought of those who are emergent and present the major distinctives of the movement. Some of these major distinctives include a love of mystery, a loathing of propositional truth, a hatred of modernism, and a desire to ignore the wrath of God and focus on the love of God. These distinctives, plus several more, are demonstrated to be believed by the majority of those who hold the label emergent. Then, they are discussed from a biblical perspective. The discernment and biblical understanding displayed in the analysis of the emerging church is extremely helpful.

I’ll just mention a couple of chapters which were particularly beneficial. Kevin writes a chapter dealing with the hatred those in the emerging church generally have for modernism. He explains some of the misunderstanding those in the emergent movement have about modernism–namely, that they consistently overstate the case and create straw-men. One of the most interesting sections of this chapter is a quick overview of how some of the differences between modernism and postmodernism are merely semantics. Overall it is a clear and thoughtful analysis of the emergent fascination with the destruction of modernism.

Perhaps my favorite chapter was written by Ted and is entitled, “Why I don’t want a cool pastor.” In this chapter Ted offers two different stories for us to consider. The first story takes us to a class he took with Tony Jones on postmodernism and youth ministry. The second story follows him to New Jersey where he attends Sunday church with a friend of his from college who is now a pastor. Without stealing his thunder I’ll just say that the difference between the two stories is worth considering. Ted ends this thought provoking chapter by relaying a conversation he had with his wife in which he is so thankful that instead of having a pastor who is “with it”, they have a pastor who is “committed to being with God.”

I found Why We’re Not Emergent to be an engaging read that I was genuinely excited to pick up each time as a I continued through it. I think this book is fair in featuring the problems of the emerging church, but also in offering solutions for dealing with those problems.

Every Fall, Outreach Magazine hosts its “National Outreach Convention.” As the Pastor of Local Outreach, I get invited to it, but have never quite worked up the nerve to go. The invitation to this year’s event arrived this week in the mail, and two things are worth mentioning:

1. The keynote speakers are Erwin McManus, JJohn (one word), David Anderson, and Francis Chan. McManus is listed as being the “Cultural Architect of Mosaic,” while the bio for JJohn says, “his much-loved art of story telling helps people to discover spiritual meaning in a way that makes sense of everyday life.” Notably, Chan stands out because of “his commitment to teach directly from the words of Scripture.”

2. Speaking of having “Cultural Architect” on your business card, I need a new job title. “Local Outreach Pastor” is too cumbersome, and reeks of Christaneese. Fortunately, there are 53 other speakers at the event, and some of them have really cool job titles. Consider:

• David Russell from National Community Church, which gets identified in the invitation as “America’s Most Innovative Churches” (sic). He is the “Digital Pastor.”

• Shawn Wood is Seacoast Church’s “Experiences Pastor.”

• Angela Yee is Bayside Church’s “Director of Leadership.” Yes, Angela.

• R. York Moore is a “National Evangelist” for InterVarsity.

• Marlon Hall borrowed from McManus, and is a “Cultural Architect.” Like Mosaic, Hall’s gathering does not call itself a church, but rather goes by a title that stretches English syntax, but does not perhaps break it: “The Awakenings Movement.”

• Another interesting name, in terms of grammar, is Todd Hunter’s “Three is Enough Groups” organization. Three is Enough Groups has (or have?) it’s own conference designed to teach evangelists to “connect naturally with the people Jesus misses most.”

• Thomas Doyle is “Manager of Worship Solutions” for National Cine Media.

• My personal favorite is Randy Siever.  He works for an organization called “Off the Map,” and his title is “Director of Doable Evangelism.”

Other speakers include Dan Kimball, Miles McPherson, and Lee Strobel. The whole conference is sort of a gathering for the new generation of Willow Creek leaders. After Hybels stressed that the movement needs to reinvent itself, some new names have been brought in, but the strategy seems to be the same. This conference will have a night for the “Nation’s best Christian comedians” and a session on “Willow’s most effective dramas”. You can learn “how to go from incremental to exponential growth” from another of “America’s most Innovative Churches.” There is a class on launching “small groups for spiritual seekers.”

Now, as Grace Church’s Outreach Pastor (pending a better title…), I am extremely sensitive to the tendency in Christianity for many—who do not evangelize—to bash the methods of those who do. I have no desire to critique the motives of the speakers in this conference, although one could argue that with some of their titles they are sort of asking for it. I also must point out that not all of the sessions or teachers are equally ridiculous. Some, such as Chan’s, do hold out promise to be helpful. I also do not want to criticize Chan for going there, because if I were invited to lead a session (in my imaginary world it might happen) I would probably also go.

But on the other hand, I am sensitive to the gravity of the task at hand; we are to engage this sinful world with the Gospel, and call people to abandon this life and follow Jesus. I am just skeptical that a conference that promises to help you “learn the secret to influencing people to stay at your church” is even the right tool for the trade.

(By Nathan Busenitz)

Phil begins by directing our attention to Acts 17.

This is where Paul preaches among the elite philosophers of Athens. It is one of the best known passages of Scripture, but it is one of the most abused. It is a favorite passage today for those who are attempting to fashion a postmodern version of Christianity.

People repeatedly ask how to define “contextualization.” It is a catch-phrase of recent history. But the term doesn’t seem to mean the same thing to everyone. And the term is also used, at times, to justify vulgar and base behavior — as though you can use vulgarity or obscenity and then justify it by claiming that you must use such speech to reach a certain subculture.

The term itself has a history in the dynamic equivalence of Bible translation. It is the practice of altering either the terminology or essence of the message in order to reach a certain culture. Obviously, there is a legitimate sense in which it is necessary to translate the Gospel into the language of (and with awareness of the customs of) those we are trying to reach. There is a point in which it is necessary and legitimate to avoid putting up obstacles to the gospel.

But people who speak of contextualization today usually turn that term on its head. Instead of trying to avoid impolite or offensive cultural distractions, the contextualizers of today want to maximize the shock value of their methodology. They attempt to adapt the biblical message to the target worldview of the postmodern generation they are hoping to reach. In practice, contextualizers assimilate as much worldliness as possible in an attempt to earn the world’s esteem – because the idea is that if the world likes us they will also like our Jesus.

In the last decade or so, this passion for contextualizing has shown no restraint whatsoever. The result is all kinds of worldly behavior being found in the church under the guise of cultural contextualization.

(After a lengthy discussion of postmodernism and the weaknesses of missional ministry, the full transcipt of which will probably make its way to the blogosphere soon, Phil lists four elements found in Acts 17 which Paul approached differently than contemporary postmoderns.)

1. Culture

The Apostle Paul, in his missionary journeys, had made enemies in Thessalonica and Berea (so much for being sensitive and non-offensive). As a result, he went to Athens. Interestingly, Paul does not try to assimilate the culture. He is instead repulsed by it (v. 16). His spirit was intensely provoked within him – the Greek word contains the idea of extreme outrage or indignation.

Paul was highly educated and knew all about the Greek pantheon of gods. But this was his first time to be in Athens and see all of these temples with his own eyes. Wherever he looked he saw the signs of pagan idolatry. It was the defining mark of that culture and it grieved Paul deeply.

He immediately began confronting the idolatry by preaching Christ. He publicly proclaimed the truth in a place where people could not help but hear him. He disputed and debated with both those in the synagogue and in the marketplace. He faithfully proclaimed the message, confronted their false beliefs (rather than accommodating them), and answered their questions and objections with the truth (cf. v. 17).

When certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers met him, they interacted with him, and they were not impressed. They were not enchanted by his cultural sensitivity or won over by his intellectual arguments. Instead, they called him an “idle babbler” (v. 18) or literally, a “seed picker.”

Paul was grieved by Athenian culture. He did not embrace any of the spiritual aspects of that culture. He confronted the culture rather than accommodate it. He stood in opposition to all of the philosophical schools of Athens: the Epicurians, the Stoics, and the Cynics. Paul was clearly out of step with every system of human wisdom at that time – he was entirely counter-cultural.

Paul’s preaching was a novelty. So they, out of curiosity, brought him to the Areopagus so that they could hear what he had to say (vv. 19-21). His speech before the Areopagus is recorded in verses 22–31.

Paul begins with a reference to their beliefs and makes that the point of contact. In context, we must understand from verse 16 that it was the idolatry of the Athenians that most upset and disturbed Paul. Thus, he began with the point of culture that he most hated, not that he most wanted to embrace. He wanted to answer their idolatrous superstitions with the truth of the gospel.

Paul’s use of the altar to the “unknown god” was in no way an affirmation of their culture. It was, instead, Paul’s way of focusing in on that which was most odious in their culture. Here in Athenian culture, the seat of philosophy and wisdom, was a monument that underscored their ignorance regarding the one thing that mattered most. He found a place where they admitted their own ignorance, and then he used that as an opening to proclaim the truth.

In proclaiming absolute truth, he could not have been more counter-cultural.

2. Conversation

Paul’s proclamation certainly did not encourage a dialogue or a discussion. He is preaching, not inviting a conversation.

Notice in verses 24–27, Paul simply proclaims the truth. He is not looking to discuss it. It is, instead, a clear declaration of the fact that God made the world and everything in it. He affirms the authority, spirituality, sufficiency, sovereignty, transcendence, imminence, and power of God. All of it flatly contradicts what these philosophers believed.

There was no give-and-take exchange of opinions. He does not assume a false humility and prepare that he is a truth-seeker on a spiritual journey looking for companions on the way. Instead, he declares to them the truth of God in a bold and confident fashion.

3. Contextualization

Paul did not use this favorite tactic of postmodernism either. Sure, he spoke in Greek not in Hebrew. But Paul did not adapt his message in any way to the basic values or belief systems of the Athenian culture. That’s what we mean when we speak of contextualization.

Paul quotes two well-known pagan poets in verse 28. But they were poets who were already ancient by that time; thus it was the literature of the Athenian’s forefathers. Paul was using that ancient literature to confront the contemporary worldview of those philosophers.

In verses 29–30, Paul directly confronts the worldview of his philosophers. Paul makes numerous points that would have been offensive to those in his audience. He was challenging their most precious presuppositions. He was attacking the most precious aspects of their worldview. Paul summarily dismissed all of the fundamentals of Greek-style religion. He further insisted that the true God was not just another deity who belonged in the Greek pantheon. This was tantamount to a bold and wholesale dismissal of every aspect of Greek religion.

At every point, Paul affirmed the offensive truth of the gospel over against the popular, but wrong, philosophical views of the Athenians. He even refers to their philosophical history and culture as “ignorance.” His message was highly and intentionally offensive.

In the sense that postmoderns use these terms, Paul did not employ culture, conversation, or contextualization in his sermon to the philosophers on Mars Hill.

4. Charitableness

By “charitableness,” we are speaking of the postmodern tendency to not speak dogmatically or critically about any other worldview or belief system; but instead always seeking to be conciliatory to others – no matter how unbiblical. That kind of charitableness often uses appeasement rather than confrontation to try to win the esteem of the other party.

Did Paul do that here? Certainly not. He declared the truth with clarity and conviction. And he boldly preached the doctrine of the resurrection, a point which he knew they would not accept. And in fact, it was that doctrine which ended Paul’s sermon (v. 31).

Verses 33 and 34 give us three reactions to Paul’s presentation. Some mocked (which is what would be the expected response to a message which the Greeks considered foolish). The fact that they rejected Paul’s message does not mean he was not faithful. Their response had nothing to do with whether or not he had been faithful to the message.

But some agreed to hear Paul further, and some (probably only a handful) believed and became disciples.

This is a picture of what faithful ministry looks like. It doesn’t cower before the opposition or waver from the truth. It doesn’t shift and change its content to fit the felt-needs the audience. It has one theme, and that is Christ in His death and resurrection. And it has one strategy, to unpack the reality of Christ and His death and resurrection as clearly as possible.

I am convinced that the emerging church is largely early 20th century liberalism, with cooler hair. At the Wiltern Theatre in Hollywood last week, Rob Bell, one of the leading figures in the movement, solidified my stereo-type with his nation-wide tour called The Gods are Not Angry. I could not help but think, “they should be angry at this.”

When I bought my $16 ticket, I felt fortunate because many of the dates have already sold out. I went with another pastor, and I can honestly say that we were looking to be entertained in a sophisticated sort of way. We were curious about what a christian event at a concert hall in Hollywood would be like, who would be in the audience, and what an emerging/academic talk would be like (part anthropology, part history, part deconstruction, claims the website).

This was a one-man show. It was all Rob, for all 90 minutes. No music (except for an awkwardly-mixed conclusion), no notes, no Bible, no lectern, no breaks. His notorious NOOMA videos did not appear once. There was a giant altar on the stage, which served as his only prop. Meanwhile, the crowd’s appearance looked overwhelmingly….like Rob Bell; uber-hip, trendy, and urban. There were more dark rimmed glasses in the room than bibles. The entire night was an illustration of style-over substance.

To summarize his presentation (spoiler warning—if you are going to see this, you might stop reading here): ever since ancient times, people have realized they are dependent on forces outside of themselves for food, survival, and reproduction. These forces eventually became personified, then deified in the form of rain gods, sun gods, and reproductive gods. Offerings were introduced as a way of winning favor with the gods. Drought and disease was seen as the gods being angry, and so sacrifices were instituted to appeal to the angry gods by showing our devotion.

Into this world came Abraham, and when God approached Abraham and said, “I will bless you,” that was something fundamentally new. No longer were the gods in heaven or hiding, waiting to be pleased, but God was telling a person that He would bless him.

Yet still people did not know their standing with the gods, who were angry. Even for those who followed the one true God (whom Bell refers to as either “the divine” or “the ultimate reality”), worship was still a mystery. How were they to sacrifice? When? How much? Into this world comes Leviticus, answering these questions. For the first time ever, people knew what God demanded of them.

This then created a world where people tried to earn favor with God through their obedience to the Law. It was into this world that Jesus stepped, doing away with sacrifices altogether. And just as Jesus ended the sacrificial system, he also ended the world where God is angry with people. Now sacrifices are not needed to please God, because Jesus did that. Our job is to live our lives as sacrifices.

I confess that I found the first twenty minutes or so quite helpful. Bell connected dots for me about how sacrifices develop in a culture, and he showed how these false gods impoverish entire cultures. He gave me a new appreciation for how the Levitical Law is an act of mercy from God, because God ended the ambiguity of sacrifice. He also stressed the utter uniqueness of Yahweh in a way that was encouraging, and even gave me hope that he was about to preach.

But Bell went from there into what can only be described as careful and planned ambiguity. It was obvious that he is a smart person. When he rattled off the Mesopotamian and Sumerian gods by memory, he established that he is no dummy. So when he ended the night without explaining why the sacrifice of Christ appeased God’s anger, without explaining atonement, without even touching substitution, I can’t help but note the effort that took. He spoke for over 90 minutes on the sacrifice of Christ without explaining sin, or the resurrection—which is the same as not speaking about the sacrifice of Christ.

If a person is looking for a smoking gun pointing to heresy in what Bell said, he did not leave one. He did define repentance this way: “Repentance is what happens when your eyes are opened and you see what has already been done. ‘I’ve missed it, and now I see it’.” Later he said, “repentance is grounding yourself in Jesus’ resurrection.” Probably not heresy, but definitely not helpful, and patently unclear.

The Gospel was not explained. Instead there was a plea to realize that God is not angry with you, Jesus has made peace, so now go and do good works, acts of kindness and love. Essentially it was a “love Jesus, and buy groceries for the poor” kind of message. The problem is that even his illustrations of these deeds were shallow: it was as if Extreme Makeover was the end for which God created the word.

Earlier I wrote that this was basically 20th century liberalism. There was not much here that you would not get from Harry Emerson Fosdick. Except for this: the early liberals clearly stated what they believed, and where they differed from orthodox theology. Bell was not so kind to us. Instead, he walked around an alter for 90 minutes, without talking about the wrath of God against sin being poured out on Christ. He did not say, “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.” He did not say, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Instead, he said, “Anytime someone makes you feel guilty about how you are living, that is part of the old system (pre-Christ).”

He did not say he is a universalist. Instead, he just said, “the only Christian ritual is to help you tap into the peace that God has already made with the world.” He did not tell them “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Instead he said, “The gods are not angry anymore.”

And this is the fundamental problem with Bell’s message. The Bible says that the wrath of God is continually being revealed against ungodliness. In other words, God is still angry. And Bell did an enormous disservice because the people did not hear the gospel, and they were not told to flee the wrath to come.

(By Phil Johnson)

This is a continuation of our series on “The Fad-Driven Church.”

According to the cover article in November’s Christianity Today [2004], the next big fad is already on the horizon. It’s the “Emergent Church” movement—seeker-sensitivity gone to seed. It’s Saddleback for postmodernists—Willow Creek to the tenth power, for the pierced and tatooed generation. The most influential people in the Emergent Church movement are people who have consciously and deliberately abandoned the authority of Scripture.

Like all good postmodernists, Emergent Christians hate clarity and precision. They despise authority, and they detest certainty. They say they don’t want answers; they want mystery. They don’t want to be preached to; they want a conversation. They don’t want to have to judge whether something is orthodox or heretical, true or false; they want to create their own spiritual reality, and they want to be affirmed while they do it. Unfortunately, the evangelical movement has plenty of people who are willing to affirm all of those things.

At last year’s Emergent convention in San Diego, one of the speakers, Doug Pagitt, pastor of an Emergent Church known as Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, told Emergent church leaders he is convinced preaching is no longer a viable methodology for worship or evangelism in a postmodern world. “Preaching is broken,” he said.

Postmodern people don’t trust authority figures. They don’t want to hear someone stand up and expound the Word of God. It’s unhealthy, he says. It’s abusive. “Why do I get to speak for 30 minutes and you don’t?” he asked.

He went on: “A sermon is often a violent act. . . . It’s a violence toward the will of the people who have to sit there and take it.”

Let me say this: That epitomizes the direction all these fads are moving. The fad-driven church cannot be a church governed by the Word of God. If you get your direction by seeing which way the winds of change are blowing and following the prevailing trend, you are being disobedient to the clear command of Ephesians 4:14, which instructs us not to do that.

The way the wind is blowing these days is not good. The doctrine of justification by faith is under attack on several fronts. In England at the moment, there’s a huge controversy brewing because one of the most popular and well-known young British evangelical media figures—a man named Steve Chalke, published a book last year titled The Lost Message of Jesus. In it, he attacks the doctrine of original sin. He denounces the principle of penal substitution, suggesting that the doctrine of substitutionary atonement as evangelicals have historically understood and proclaimed it amounts to “cosmic child abuse.” He insists that God would never punish His Son for other people’s offenses. On page 182 of the book, he asks, “How have we come to believe that at the cross this God of love suddenly decides to vent His anger and wrath [against sin] on His own Son?” How have we come to believe that? I’ll tell you how I came to believe that: because the Bible says so (Isaiah 53:10): “It pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. [He made] His soul an offering for sin.”

The problem is, in the contemporary, fad-driven evangelical culture, almost no one is left who is both equipped and willing to answer a view like that. Someone decided several years ago that the word propitiation is too technical and not user-friendly enough for contemporary Christians, so preachers stopped explaining the principle of propitiation. Now that this idea is under attack, we have a generation of leaders who don’t remember what it meant or why it’s important to defend. And the overwhelming majority of British evangelicals have rushed to Steve Chalke’s defense, claiming his critics are just overweening negativists who are behind the times and out of touch with this postmodern era. The leadership of the evangelical alliance in England are busy wringing their hands about the “tone” of the debate and the “unity” of their movement—and frankly if things follow the historical pattern, ultimately very little will be done to stem the tide of heresy this book has already unleashed. (And you can be sure that the same ideas will be making the rounds of the evangelical movement in America soon. There are frankly already lots of people in American evangelicalism who are eager to challenge the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. This has been one of the main items on the Open Theists’ agenda for several years.)

Something seriously needs to change in order to rescue the idea of historic evangelicalism from the contemporary evangelical movement. And here’s what needs to change: A generation of preachers needs to rise up and be committed to preaching the Word, in season and out of season, and be willing to ignore the waves of silly fads that come and go and leave the church’s head spinning.

Scripture is better than any fad. Preaching the Word of God is more effective than any new methodology contemporary church experts have ever invented. I don’t care who thinks preaching is “broken.” If we would get back to the clear proclamation and exposition of God’s Word, everything that’s broken about contemporary preaching would be fixed.

(By Nathan Busenitz)

Okay… so this is already four days old (which is like four millennia in the blogosphere), but with fires in Santa Clarita at the beginning of this week, I didn’t hear of it until yesterday.

For some of you this will be old news. (Sorry.) But for those of you who haven’t heard this yet, you really need to take a few minutes and listen to it. It is a radio interview between Todd Friel (of Way of the Master radio) and Doug Pagitt (a leading figure within the Emergent Church). It’s about 15 minutes long and worth the time.

If you are at all curious about where (at least one leading voice within) the Emergent Church stands theologically, this is a pretty eye-opening indicator.

For the 2-part YouTube version click here.

For the full podcast/MP3 version click here. (Note: The part with Pagitt is about 5 minutes into the show.)

For Todd Friel’s follow up article click here.

The following is adapted from John’s upcoming book, The Truth War (Spring, 2007).

What is truth? We began with that question, and my earnest hope is that the answer would be clear: Truth is not any individual’s opinion or imagination. Truth is what God decrees. And He has given us an infallible source of saving truth in His revealed Word.

For the true Christian, this should not be a complex issue. God’s Word is what all pastors and church leaders are commanded to proclaim, in season and out of season—when it is well received and even when it is not (2 Timothy 4:2). It is what every Christian is commanded to read, study, meditate on, and divide rightly. It is what we are called and commissioned by Christ to teach and proclaim to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Is there mystery even in the truth God has revealed? Of course. “ ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8). In 1 Corinthians 2:16, Paul paraphrased Isaiah 40:13–14: “Who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?”

But then Paul immediately added this: “We have the mind of Christ.” Christ has graciously given us enough truth and enough understanding to equip us for every good deed—including the work of earnestly contending for the faith against deceivers who try to twist the truth of the gospel. Although we cannot know the mind of God exhaustively, we certainly can know it sufficiently to be warriors for the cause of truth against the lies of the kingdom of darkness.

And we are commanded to participate in that battle. God Himself sounded the call to battle when His Spirit moved Jude to write his short epistle and it  permanently entered the canon of Scripture. This is not a duty any faithful Christian can shirk. Earthly life for the faithful Christian can never be a perpetual state of ease and peace. That’s why the New Testament includes so many descriptions of the Christian life as nonstop warfare: Ephesians 6:11-18; 2 Timothy 2:1-4; 2 Timothy 4:7; 2 Corinthians 6:7; 10:3-5; 1 Thessalonians 5:8. Those unwilling to join the fight against untruth and false religion are no true friends of Christ.

The handful of vignettes from church history we have examined together in this book are only a brief introduction to how the Truth War has been fought over the past two millennia. Look at any period of church history and you will discover this significant fact: Whenever the people of God have sought peace with the world or made alliances with false religions, it has meant a period of serious spiritual decline, even to the point where at times the truth seemed almost to be in total eclipse. But whenever Christians have contended earnestly for the faith, the church has grown and the cause of truth has prospered. May it be so in our time.

In other words, the Truth War is a good fight (1 Timothy 6:12). So let’s wage good warfare (1 Timothy 1:18)—for the honor of Christ and the glory of God.

(By John MacArthur)

The following is adapted from John’s upcoming book, The Truth War (Spring, 2007). 

Why do so many evangelicals act as if false teachers in the church could never be a serious problem in this generation? Vast numbers seem convinced that they are “rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing—and do not know that [they] are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).

In reality, the church today is quite possibly more susceptible to false teachers, doctrinal saboteurs, and spiritual terrorism than any other generation in church history. Biblical ignorance within the church may well be deeper and more widespread than at any other time since the Protestant Reformation. If you doubt that, compare the typical sermon of today with a randomly chosen published sermon from any leading evangelical preacher prior to 1850. Also compare today’s Christian literature with almost anything published by evangelical publishing houses a hundred years or more ago.

Bible teaching, even in the best of venues today, has been deliberately dumbed-down, made as broad and as shallow as possible, oversimplified, adapted to the lowest common denominator— and then tailored to appeal to people with short attention spans.

Sermons are almost always brief, simplistic, overlaid with as many references to pop culture as possible, and laden with anecdotes and illustrations. (Jokes and funny stories drawn from personal experience are favored over cross-references and analogies borrowed from Scripture itself.) Typical sermon topics are heavily weighted in favor of man-centered issues (such as personal relationships, successful living, self-esteem, how-to lists, and so on)—to the exclusion of the many Christ-exalting doctrinal themes of Scripture. In other words, what most contemporary preachers do is virtually the opposite of what Paul was describing when he said he sought “to declare . . . the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

Not only that, but here’s how Paul explained his own approach to gospel ministry, even among unchurched pagans in the most debauched Roman culture:

I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1–5)

Notice that Paul deliberately refused to customize his message or adjust his delivery to suit the Corinthians’ philosophical bent or  their cultural tastes. When he says later in the epistle, “To the Jews I became as a Jew . . . to those who are without law, as without law . . . to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:20-22), he was describing how he made himself a servant to all (v. 19) and the fellow of those whom he was trying to reach. In other words, he avoided making himself a stumbling block. He was not saying he adapted the gospel message (which he plainly said is a stumbling block—1:23). He did not adopt methods to suit the tastes of a worldly culture.

Paul had no thought of catering to a particular generation’s preferences, and he used no gimmicks as attention-getters. Whatever antonym you can think of for the word showmanship would probably be a good description of Paul’s style of public ministry. He wanted to make it clear to everyone (including the Corinthian converts themselves) that lives and hearts are renewed by means of the Word of God and nothing else. That way they would begin to understand and appreciate the power of the gospel message.