Thoughts from my current reading...
Somewhere along the way, I read a review in somebody's blog about the book, "Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post Christian Culture," by Michael Frost, and put it on my Amazon Wish List. Last fall, our church voted to give the pastors a book allowance. So, in my quest to learn how to reach our post-Christian culture more effectively, I decided to get the book this fall and start reading it.
I'm about half way through the book, right now, and I'm about half-way impressed by it, overall. On the negative half, I don't think the author does a good job of balancing all that the Bible says. Instead, he seems to focus on only one side of many arguments. For instance, in Chapter 2, "Jesus the Exile," Mr. Frost talks about the negatives of creeds, and how their dogmatism can keep us from enjoying our relationship with Jesus. I understand his concern, and believe that it can be valid. However, Mr. Frost doesn't balance that concern with the reason the creeds were made in the first place: To combat heresy, such as believing that Jesus wasn't human at all. I don't think he's throwing out creeds, so I'm not saying he's completely off base. I just think he could do a better job of balancing his points.
However, that might have been difficult to do for another reason I've been put-off by this book. The chapters are super long, and cover multiple topics within a topic. Maybe I'm lazy, but I like to have my books broken up a bit more. That's a taste thing on my part, but I thought I'd mention it.
Also in chapter 2, Mr. Frost (as do many other "Emergent" and post-Christian writers) tends to focus primarily on Jesus, and loses sight of Biblical principles as a whole. In other words, what Jesus may have said or done is given tremendously more weight than anything Paul or Peter said, or what might have been written in the Old Testament. There seems to be a logical reason for this, one that I've read by Tony Campolo. The logic goes like this: If Jesus is God, and He came down to show us God's character and direction, then anything He said needs to have more weight than what any mere humans might have said. My problem with that is that all of the Bible is God's Word, so therefore, it all must have equal weight to a degree. Now, I'm aware that is a simplistic way of looking at it, and I agree with their logic to a degree, but we can't simply state that whatever Paul stated doesn't carry as much weight as Jesus.
There are probably other things I've read that I've shaken my head at, but those things are two that come to mind as I flip back through the book. In general, I'm not sure if it's his writing style, or something bugging me in the back of my mind, but I just haven't been able to dig into this one like I had hoped. On the other hand, there are many things that I find challenging and positive about this book. Please read tomorrow's post for some reasons to pick up this book, even when you may not agree with everything.
I'm about half way through the book, right now, and I'm about half-way impressed by it, overall. On the negative half, I don't think the author does a good job of balancing all that the Bible says. Instead, he seems to focus on only one side of many arguments. For instance, in Chapter 2, "Jesus the Exile," Mr. Frost talks about the negatives of creeds, and how their dogmatism can keep us from enjoying our relationship with Jesus. I understand his concern, and believe that it can be valid. However, Mr. Frost doesn't balance that concern with the reason the creeds were made in the first place: To combat heresy, such as believing that Jesus wasn't human at all. I don't think he's throwing out creeds, so I'm not saying he's completely off base. I just think he could do a better job of balancing his points.
However, that might have been difficult to do for another reason I've been put-off by this book. The chapters are super long, and cover multiple topics within a topic. Maybe I'm lazy, but I like to have my books broken up a bit more. That's a taste thing on my part, but I thought I'd mention it.
Also in chapter 2, Mr. Frost (as do many other "Emergent" and post-Christian writers) tends to focus primarily on Jesus, and loses sight of Biblical principles as a whole. In other words, what Jesus may have said or done is given tremendously more weight than anything Paul or Peter said, or what might have been written in the Old Testament. There seems to be a logical reason for this, one that I've read by Tony Campolo. The logic goes like this: If Jesus is God, and He came down to show us God's character and direction, then anything He said needs to have more weight than what any mere humans might have said. My problem with that is that all of the Bible is God's Word, so therefore, it all must have equal weight to a degree. Now, I'm aware that is a simplistic way of looking at it, and I agree with their logic to a degree, but we can't simply state that whatever Paul stated doesn't carry as much weight as Jesus.
There are probably other things I've read that I've shaken my head at, but those things are two that come to mind as I flip back through the book. In general, I'm not sure if it's his writing style, or something bugging me in the back of my mind, but I just haven't been able to dig into this one like I had hoped. On the other hand, there are many things that I find challenging and positive about this book. Please read tomorrow's post for some reasons to pick up this book, even when you may not agree with everything.
Labels: Book Reviews, Church, Theology
posted by Pastor Paul at
2:46 PM
2 Comments:
Mr. Frost (as do many other "Emergent" and post-Christian writers) tends to focus primarily on Jesus, and loses sight of Biblical principles as a whole. In other words, what Jesus may have said or done is given tremendously more weight than anything Paul or Peter said, or what might have been written in the Old Testament.
I wonder if that's rooted in a desire to remove human ecclesiastical authority from the equation. "Well, Jesus didn't say it, so it's only a human opinion." That way, there's no accountability, other than directly to God - and He hasn't been very vocal lately.
The trouble with the emergent movement is that it's built on flouting authority. In the end, that's a good way to end up with a Christianity of their own design, rather than anything resembling historical Christianity. Every man his own pope, subjectively infallible.
By
Joel, at 9:47 PM
Joel, Could be, but I hate to paint the movement with too broad of a brush. I know too many in the movement who don't even adhere to "red-letter theology" that I talked about in this post. So, while I agree that some in the Emergent movement may flout authority, I'm not sure I'd agree that it's what most do. However, whether the issue of removing human authority from the equation (i.e. the epistles) is part of the root of the problem, that is certainly something worth discussing amongst those who adhere to the "red-letter theology" movement. As an ironic side note, my biggest difficulties in our current situation are caused by people of the other end of the spectrum - dispensationalists who believe that only Paul's epistles really matter, plus one or two others that may have been written to gentiles.
By
Pastor Paul, at 7:49 AM
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