Throwing Out Jesus with the Bathwater- A Not-So Elevated View of Scripture

April 8, 2008

“Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” -Colossians 3:11

“I think the Pauline prohibition of women teaching over men in 2 Timothy and 2 Corinthians was culturally relevant for the time but is now superseded by the Pauline exhortations that ‘in Christ there is no more male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, barbarian or Scythian.’” -Tony Jones, The New Christians (p.123)

One of the biggest problems I have noticed in observing the leaders of the emerging church is their uncanny ability to play it fast-and-loose with scripture. To give oneself a modicum of credibility in the “evangelical” community, and to be able to really stick it to a questionning dissenter, emerging leaders have to use the written word of God. However, to really use it is not enough, because to really get it to say what they want they often have to ab-use it.

Take the above quote. As I was reading through Tony Jones’ recent release, The New Christians, I came across a passage in the chapter on “theology” (as he would define it) in which he describes an encounter between himself as a speaker and “the Brain”, a questionner who is “full of Bible trivia and minutiae” with a mouth that “longs to speak.” In this encounter, the Brain asks him, “Isn’t the Bible clear that women are not meant to be pastors?” Now, the point is not to get at Jones’ actual answer to the question, but instead to accuse the Brain of being a Biblical literalist who is trying to corner Jones as being a relativist. However, it is Jones’ mention of his reply that is revealing.

In Jones’ reply, which is the quote from above, he uses the statement “in Christ there is no more male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, barbarian or Scythian,” which he also footnotes as being Colossians 3:11. Yet, when I read this something didn’t sit right with me. In all my recollection of this scripture I could not recall ever having heard that “there is no more male or female.” So, acting as a good Biblical literalist (oops!) I pulled out my pocket English Standard Version Bible and checked. Sure enough, no mention of gender there. I then grabbed my Holman Christian Standard Bible off the shelf. Nope, none there either.

These translations, though I trust them as very faithful, may be accused as being of a “conservative” bend. Therefore, when I got home I checked online at BibleGateway.com. Scanning through the NIV, the NASB, the KJV, the NKJV, The Message, The Amplified Bible, the New Living Translation, the Contemporary English Version, the New Century Version, the American Standard Version, and Today’s NIV (there were even more, but you get the point) I found no translation which even remotely approached Jones’ statement that gender distinctions have been eradicated within Christianity. (This isn’t surprising since God created this division in a sinless world and we see it upheld throughout the New Testament gospels and epistles!) Thus, one must make the assumption that Jones, in seeking to advance his own feelings, made this subtle addition to the text, hoping it would go unnoticed.

We see the same respect for scripture displayed in another passage of the book where Tony is telling “The Terrific Tale of Trucker Frank.” In this passage, there comes a part where Frank reveals a new, nontraditional (and, as I will show in a future post, flat-out wrong) interpretation of Matthew 18:15-20. Frank has the revelation reading his Bible, which does not agree with his views, and so we’re told that “Frank then went looking for versions of the Bible that corroborated his thoughts. (p.91)” So, it was not enough that Frank had to bring about his own mistaken interpretation of the text, but then he had to seek out a Bible which justified his view. As much as the author rails against fundamentalists who misuse scripture to justify their oppression of blacks or women, it amazes me that he doesn’t have the same vitriole for his buddy who searches for a translation to justify his new liberal-minded take. (Note: the translation he settles on doesn’t necessarily agree with what he says either, but hey, when did that ever stop anyone?)

Therefore, it is clear from reading through Tony Jones’ book that this new breed of Christians holds scripture in high regard only as long as it says what they want, and if it doesn’t then they just make up their own. I think the Bible has something to say about this too:

“Every word of God proves true;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Do not add to his words,
lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.” -Proverbs 30:5-6

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Posted by Todd Burus

Throwing Out Jesus with the Bathwater: Jesus is Not the Only Way (Part 2)

April 6, 2008

“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’…. So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” -Acts 2:37-38, 41

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” -1 Peter 2:9-12

“I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain with their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.” -Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy

In our first discussion on the disturbing idea that many of the leaders in the so-called emerging church would deny Jesus as being the only way to salvation, we evaluated the distortion/denial of a traditional interpretation of John 14:6 by Velvet Elvis author Rob Bell. Today we will look at another, somewhat more slippery statement by Brian McLaren in his book A Generous Orthodoxy.

In this statement, given above, we see McLaren state that he believes it to be “advisable” to make people “followers of Christ” without making them “Christians.” What is difficult about this, and about his statement that they should remain with their “Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts” is that throughout scripture we see it declared that those who become “followers of Christ” will become exiles to the world, especially to those “contexts” which they were in before. Therefore, one must ask, how is it that McLaren believes someone can follow Christ while not changing their lifestyle, when Christ specifically says that “whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 10:38, 39)”?

Beyond this, we see it exemplified throughout the New Testament literature that those who accept Christ are to be set apart from those who don’t. In Acts 2:38, the whole purpose behind Peter instructing people to “be baptized” following their repentance is to publicly and dramatically remove them from their current Jewish “context.” This is necessary because Christ himself said that “whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 10:33).” If these new followers were afraid to be baptized then that stood as their public denial of Christ, and as such would cast light on the genuiness of their faith. So, to say that people may remain in their present nonChristian context after they become followers of Christ flies in the face of the earliest teachings of the church.

That said, we must look further to see what is the true motivation for this statement. For, if one must repent from sin and profess faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior in order to receive salvation (what I would assert as “following Christ”), and if thus following Christ one must become an exile from not just their “context” but actually the whole world (John 15:19, Philippians 3:20), then it would be a logical conclusion to assume that someone who has been saved cannot remain in their old, nonChristian “context.” Therefore, it must be some part of this which McLaren denies. Judging by the content of other statements he has made, as well as the statements of the people he associates with, I am convinced that the part which McLaren denies is the statement that one must actually profess a faith in Jesus Christ to be saved (though he may disagree with the other part as well).

In fact, it may eventually come to be that McLaren believes ALL ways are okay. In an article published online at Christianity Today, Brian McLaren, in explaining in part some of his views of hell and damnation says,

Tony [Campolo] and I might disagree on the details, but I think we are both trying to find an alternative to both traditional Universalism and the narrow, exclusivist understanding of hell [that unless you explicitly accept and follow Jesus, you are excluded from eternal life with God and destined for hell]…
Although in many ways I find myself closer to the view of God held by some universalists than I do the view held by some exclusivists, in the end I’d rather turn our attention from the questions WE think are important to the question JESUS thinks is most important.

So, here we truly see it. If on one end is “traditional universalism” (again, we see Slick Mc redefining stuff without any new definition) and on the other is Jesus as the only way, then for McLaren to be finding an alternative view it is implicit that he does not view Jesus as the sole path to come to the Father by.

Thus, I believe the debate is settled and the results are clear. In the emerging church it is not necessary to “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord” in order to “be saved” (Romans 10:9). This is absolutely unacceptable!

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Throwing Out Jesus with the Bathwater: Jesus is Not the Only Way (Part 1)

April 3, 2008

” ‘Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ “ -John 14:1-6

“Jesus at one point claimed to be “the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus was not making claims about one religion being better than all other religions. That completely misses the point, the depth, and the truth. Rather, he was telling those who were following him that his way is the way to the depth of reality. This kind of life Jesus was living, perfectly and completely in connection and cooperation with God, is the best possible way for a person to live. It is how things are…. Perhaps a better question than who’s right, is who’s living rightly?” -Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis

“I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain with their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.” -Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy

With this post (and its sequel) I would like to introduce what promises to be a recurring and lively “conversation” over the rising trend of emerging, or emergent, Christianity. I hope, through this series and this blog, to shine light on some of the more dangerous teachings that are being espoused in the writings and the pulpits of many prominent emerging leaders. (Note: as a nice introduction you may want to view this previous post).

That said, I want to begin with two statements that absolutely shocked me (though not necessarily surprised me) when I first read them. Both of the above statements, made by two very popular leaders in two very hip books, lead to one disturbing image of this new emerging theology, that being that Jesus is no longer the only way. Instead, we are being told that neither (1) is it necessary to accept Jesus to receive salvation, nor (2) is it necessary to serve Jesus once you’ve been saved. Below we will deal with (1) and the next post will handle (2).

In Bell’s quote, we see that it is his opinion of John 14:6 that Jesus is not putting himself up as the “mediator between God and men” (1 Timothy 2:5), but instead Christ is saying that of all the imaginable ways to live, living like him is the “best possible way.” This certainly was a new reading to me, as I expect that it is fairly new to most of you as well. However, I see, among others, two major problems with this.

To begin with, the text of John 14 just doesn’t seem to actually allow for this reading. As we see in verses 1-4, Jesus is describing to them the Father’s house and his travel to prepare a place for them there. He then makes the remark that “you know the way to where I am going (v.4)”, to which Thomas says, “We do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? (v.5)” It is at this point which Jesus makes the statement in question:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (v.6)”

So, it seems clear that Jesus is speaking of a physical way, right? Apparently not to Bell. To be fair, if we look to the original Greek, the word translated “the way”, hodos, means primarily “a traveled road, way”, but it also has a metaphorical meaning of “a course of conduct.” Thus, Bell has to assume the second translation here. But then the question is, why does Jesus tell them that he is the course of conduct when all along he has been talking about going somewhere? As a matter of fact, why would he say “I am the course of conduct” instead of something more intelligible like “My life is the example for the course of conduct”? And, if he is talking about his life being “the best possible way for a person to live”, then why does he say “no one comes to the Father except through me”? It would make sense that, if Jesus is giving a choice here, then he would say something more to the tune of “it is more enjoyable to come to the Father through me”. This seems pretty insurmountable in my mind.

However, assuming Bell is able to convince you of this amazingly twisted-up reading of the text, there is still the question of just exactly how Jesus lived his life. If the best possible way of living is the way set out by Christ, then in order to mimic that, we must have a firm understanding of how Jesus lived. But in this we arrive at another caveat of Bell’s theology, that being that his emerging/postmodern worldview does not allow for certainty in our readings. The emerging group seems pretty certain that Jesus was about love and tolerance, but they aren’t quite sure if he actually meant to talk about Hell so much. They know that Jesus has faith in us (Bell states later in Elvis that “what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me.” Isn’t that nice!), but they don’t know if it is necessary for us to have faith in Jesus.

Therefore, it seems like a bit of a quandary if Jesus is telling us that the best possible way to live is to live like him and yet we can not quite be sure how Jesus himself actually lived. It doesn’t make much sense for him to do that now does it?

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Posted by Todd Burus

New Domain Name

April 1, 2008

Just wanted to let everyone know that you can now view this blog under the less cumbersome name of ToddOnGod.com.  The old domain name will still point you here as well, but hopefully this change will be welcome to those of you who type in the name every time.  Thank you for your continued reading and have a nice day!

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Let Them See the Wounds- How the Church Must Present Itself so the World Will Believe

April 1, 2008

“Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.’ “ -John 20:24-25

“It is the crucified man that can preach the cross. Said Thomas “except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails… I will not believe.” Dr. Parker London said that what Thomas said of Christ, the world is saying about the church. And the world is also saying to every preacher: Unless I see in your hands the print of the nails, I will not believe. It is true. It is the man… who has died with Christ… that can preach the cross of Christ.” -G. Campbell Morgan, Evangelism

The above quote appears at the conclusion of John Stott’s amazing book, The Cross of Christ, and it really struck me as a call to all Christians who are concerned with reaching the world for Christ. Through the Apostle Thomas we see one who doubts, one who is in need of visual affirmation that the Christ who was crucified is now alive, and one who Christ loves enough to say ,”Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in my side. (v.27)”

We must be willing to go out into a doubting world and show them the wounds of Christ that we bear now as those who have been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20) in order that they may believe (Romans 10:14-15).

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