Chapter Two of Velvet Elvis

17 01 2009

I’m reading Velvet Elivs: Repainting the  Christian Faith by Rob Bell, one of the leaders of the Emergent Church. Bell brings up several problems with sola scriptura in the second chapter of the book, titled “Yoke.”

At first, I wondered why he chose such an unusal name. As I figured, it’s named after Matthew 11:30 where Jesus tells his disciples that his yoke is easy and his burden light. But there’s a deeper meaning to the name. The Bible, Bell argues, is a very difficult book to grasp. When you’re wrestling with it, you bring your own experiences and interpretations to it. No one reads the Bible for what it says, Bell insists, all you’re doing is giving your interpretation of the words. It was no different in ancient times.

Every rabbi had his own interpretation of the Bible. This was called his “yoke.” Every once in a while, a rabbi would come on the scene with a brand new yoke. Before anyone would take the new yoke seriously, the rabbi would have to have hands laid upon him by two established rabbis. That, Bell argues, is the significance of the passage where Jesus has both John the Baptist baptize him, and the voice from Heaven declares that he is the Son of God.

That, Bell says, would be recognized as the two established rabbis laying their hands on Jesus, and that Jesus’ new yoke was legitimate. The problem inherent in this Bell’s interpretation of the facts is that this seems to relegate Jesus to the role of teacher or role model. It doesn’t declare that Jesus’ “yoke” is the yoke; instead, this description allows for it to be one yoke among many.

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Categories : Bible Thoughts, Book Review, Heresy, Revival Movements

Scary!

16 01 2009

I just stumbled onto an article from the Christian Science Monitor that scares me a little bit. It appears that most Americans define their own theology.

According to a recent Barna survey, 71% of Americans are more likely to form their own religious beliefs rather than follow an established tradition. The number rises to 82% for those under the age of 25. These “cafeteria Christians” pick and choose beliefs from among various denominations, and even from non-Christian religions.

Some might argue that this isn’t bad. Many Catholics, and even some Protestants, would see this as the natural outgrowth of sola scriptura–without the authority of the Church, everyone is free to create their own doctrine. This, however, is a corruption of sola scriptura. The corruption of something good should never be confused with the thing itself.

Why is this a scary thing? Look at what people believe: half don’t believe in Satan, a third believe that Jesus sinned, and two-fifths don’t see an obligation to share their faith. These things are clearly contradicted by Scripture. Satan is an established fact, as is Jesus’ sinlessness, and the Great Commission from Jesus himself makes sharing our faith obligatory.

In a point of irony, more Americans believe that right beliefs lead to eternal life than right behavior. Ironic becuase there is no check or balance on what people are believing these days.

But should we expect that to be the case? After all, let’s look at the leading Christians of today. Joel Osteen preaches the centrality of man. T.D. Jakes preaches the prosperity gospel. Look at the Emergent Church leaders and their desire to redefine every doctrine of Christianity for a modern audience. None of these men place any emphasis on the proper discipleship of new Christians, leaving them free to decide what is right for them rather than what is true.

Divorcing Scripture from the tradition used to interpret it is dangerous. How many people are going to read Scripture carefully, and read the history behind it, consult commentaries and set aside the daily study time and devote a large portion of their lives to getting their doctrines right? Few, if any, I’m sure. Instead, they are going to find what makes sense to them and run with it, without ever finding out the history or philosophy behind each doctrine. Few people are going to develop their theology that carefully.

The problem inherent in a concept like sola scriptura is that it puts too many cooks into the kitchen. This isn’t what sola scriptura was ever meant to be.

Biblically speaking, not everyone is called to be a teacher. But we are all called to be disciples of Christ. Like the Bereans, we should search the Scriptures daily to see if what our teachers tell us is true. But we should hesitate to become our own teachers, lending instead some credence to those who have devoted their lives to studying the Scriptures and history of the church, those who understand sound doctrine and teach it. Everyone becoming their own teachers, as is the trend, fosters spiritual anarchy.


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Categories : Apologetics, Heresy, Revival Movements

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

9 01 2009

Over Christmas, my cousin asked me if I had ever heard of Rob Bell. At the time, I hadn’t. My cousin told me that he enjoyed Bell’s teachings, especially his NOOMA video series. My cousin found his teachings biblically grounded.

So I decided to research Rob Bell, and I discovered the book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. The title screams “Emerging Church.” I admit that I have little exposure to the Emergent Church. All I know is that they divorce tradition from their reading of Scripture, as if Scripture were written yesterday and for them only. The best definition of the Emerging Church can be found at the excellent Parchment and Pen blog, here. C. Michael Patton doesn’t call the movement heretical, but he has several major critiques of the positions that many emergers take.

Despite all of this, I still find myself in agreement with some of the things that Bell has to say in the first chapter of Velvet Elvis. But, the best poison works when you mix only a little bit with the good stuff. And that is, in my opinion, how the Emerging Church works on orthodoxy. I find myself in agreement with much of what Bell has to say, however, there is just a little bit of poison that creeps in there, and that damages the good work he does.

Bell compares doctrines to the springs of trampolines. The springs are what makes the thing work, and without the springs, the trampoline would be useless. Many people, he thinks, treat doctrines like bricks in a wall instead. If one is damaged, the wall comes tumbling down. That isn’t how Bell views doctrine. While he affirms it as necessary and believes in all of the essential doctrines of the faith, he doesn’t believe that to question any one of them will knock the wall down. In fact, he sees this questioning as necessary for our faith.

Here is where I disagree with what Bell has to say. I see doctrine as the brick wall. If one falls out of place, the wall becomes unstable. Again, I sympathize with Bell’s pleading that treating doctrine in this way leads to beating people over the head with it, and then it becomes a barrier to good relationships rather than an invitation to join Christ’s church. However, as I have defended in the past, sound doctrine is necessary. Would you rather have a spring–pliable and easy to break–as the foundation for your faith, or a brick–firm and solid?

I’m not saying the questions are bad. I view questions as a necessary part of our faith. God isn’t looking for yes-men. He wants questioners. Look at Abraham, Moses, and Job. All of them questioned the grand design of God’s scheme, and God didn’t punish a one of them for it. In fact, he entered into a dynamic, give-and-take relationship with them. That’s what he wants from us today–a dynamic relationship where we aren’t afraid to go to him in prayer with our toughest questions. And I believe that he will answer them in due course.

Like many emergers, Bell is hesitant to place many doctrines of the faith as central and necessary for proper understanding of Christianity. This is, I believe, Bell’s major error and the poison that creeps througout his teaching.

Recently, Bell made an appearance on the blog A Little Leaven, where the writers analyze an appearance he made at an inter-spiritual conference. Supposedly the voice for Christianity, Bell simply promotes love and forgiveness as a better way to live rather than grounding these tenets in Christ. There is nothing distinctly Christian in what Bell says at the conference. That is the same error that he makes in Velvet Elvis–advertising the Christian way as a better way, rather than the only way.

To his credit, Bell isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions, or have the tough questions asked of him. But most of his answers, as he himself states, revolve around this life and the relationships within it. The Bible, however, teaches that this life is fleeting vapor, and that attachment to things herein is not the way to live. The Bible teaches Jesus Christ as the object of our faith, and our hope for the future.

I hope to continue posting more thoughts on Bell’s Velvet Elvis as I read this alternately fascinating, alternately heretical book. That combination amounts to one of the most interesting reads in a long time.


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Categories : Book Review, Heresy, Revival Movements

Maintaining the Delicate Balance

17 04 2007

The center of any worship service should be God.

How elementary is that?  Yet, churches today are missing the point by putting on an entertainment extravaganza designed to engage people and draw in ever larger crowds.  Meanwhile, no actual discipleship is taking place.  But that’s okay, because the tithes grow and the pastors get to turn in big numbers of baptisms and attendance figures to the home office.  The church is growing and everyone is happy.

But the focus on God just isn’t there.  His commandment to disciple people is swept under the rug, in favor of the command to evangelize.

I’m opposed to turning the gospel into an entertainment package, because it leads to what I described above.  But, there is a delicate balance to maintain.  God has given us incredibly diverse music styles, pronounced cultural differences, and short attention spans.  To use these things in worshiping Him would glorify Him, I believe.

To have a nontraditional worship service targeted to a specific demographic, provided it doesn’t replace the usual worship service, probably isn’t a bad thing.  So long as the focus remains on God.  The balance that one has to maintain is to design the worship service with God as the center, but design it in a way that appeals to the target audience.  A growing number of churches are doing just this for men.  I haven’t heard of any of these services in my area, so I can’t say I’ve ever been to one, that they are bad, or that the focus is off of God.

The teaching seems right on.  Men have a tendency to open up better to other men, especially about that which challenges us all: lust.  Rock music, a message that targets men, and encouragement to return to the traditional service with your family.  But the basketball theme and a “shot clock” for the sermon may be a bit much.

I used to be a “whatever works” kind of guy, but now that I’ve become a more critical theology student, I know that the axiom “What you win them with is what you win them to” is 100% true.  This is what I hate about watered-down gospel presentations, God Is My Buddy theologies, and the growing trend of not preaching about sin or judgment.  Yes, Jesus died for me, but why was that necessary?  And, how many mega-church attendees out of 100 could tell me why?

My concern is that as church services trend more toward supporting the demographics to grow numbers, will sin and judgment preaching take a further back seat to rock music and shot clocks?  Or will these things merely aid in the presentation of the gospel as outlined in Scripture?  We must pray to God that these things will aid in the preaching of His word.  We must also pray that God will limit the influence of those preachers who leave Him and His message of repentance and salvation on the back burner, favoring the love and “warm fuzzy” presentations.


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Categories : Bible Thoughts, Father, Revival Movements, Theology

Open Footballism

6 02 2007

I have been studying the movements that gain a lot of ground in Christianity these days, and most of these contain aberrant or erroneous theology.  Take this, for example.  So I have decided to attract more people to my ministry, that I am going to need invent and teach a complete heresy.

While watching this year’s Superbowl, I was struck with the perfect heresy for me to perpetuate.  As the book of Ecclesiastes declares, rather than start fresh I will combine my own favorite heresies: papal infallibility, open theism, KJV Onlyism, and Latter Rain theology.  In five-fold fashion, I will therefore declare myself the first apostle, called by the will of Jesus Christ, to lay the foundation of Open Footballism.

Open Footballism is the belief that God divinely inspired the original writers of the NFL rulebook to create His game of choice from the foundation of the world: football.  Even though the college rules came first, the later NFL rules are the only truly divinely inspired version of the game’s rules, and anyone who follows college rules or teaches that those are better are part of the Alexandrian Cult.  College rules are corrupted by Satan’s minions, along with the NIV, the NASB, and NASCAR.

To make the game more exciting, God, in His divine providence, has chosen to not know the outcome or progression of the game prior to it being played.  From this, it also flows that He chose not to know any player trades, head coach hirings/firings, front office moves, or why the Lions suck so badly.  Football is truly the domain of human free will and choice, and God only watches it for His enjoyment.  And He routes for (dramatic pause) da Bears!  (Everyone raise your beer mugs and repeat: “DA BEARS!”)

But in order that football rules are properly interpreted, God has chosen that those officials with the white hats, the Referees, will possess Referee Infallibility during the game.  By the guidence and protection of the Holy Spirit, the Referee is unable to teach error regarding faith and … sorry! … fumbles and pass interference calls.  And any other such rule interpretation that may be called for by a coach’s challenge.

I will, of course, begin missionary journeys to Corinth, Phillippi, Thessolonica, and other such locales to set up churches and teach Open Footballism using my new status as apostle.  I will continue to pray for words from Jesus to expound on the doctrine already contained within this blog entry.

Scriptural support for this is pending.


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Categories : Father, Humor, King James Onlyism, Open Theism, Revival Movements, Roman Catholicism

If It Ain’t Broke…

22 01 2007

Hungry Hearts Ministries always contains something rather fascinating.  I looked in on one of Joceyln’s book projects and discovered the so-called “Five-Fold Ministry” error.  I confess that I had not heard of it until now.  Maybe I’m not as sharp an apologist as I thought.

So I looked up some additional source material.  Sure enough, the Five-Fold Ministry is the foundation of a series of movements, commonly called Latter Rain Theology or the Restoration/Revival Movements.  For the uninitiated (like me), the “Five-Fold Ministry” is based on Ephesians 4:11-13, where Paul tells us that some are given to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers.  Until unity in the body of Christ is achieved, these offices shall be filled.

Most orthodox Christians, however, believe that we have not seen any apostles or prophets since the close of the New Testament.

For 1900 years, we have had the Bible, the fullness of God’s revelation, to guide us and to teach us (2 Tim 3:16-17).  So why now, suddenly, after 1900 years of silence, do we need more prophets and apostles to redefine doctrine and write additional revelation?

Christianity ain’t broke.  We don’t need to fix it.  Besides, Paul even warns us about these false apostles.  Jocelyn says all of this more succinctly than I could.  Check it out.


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Categories : Bible Thoughts, Revival Movements, Theology