Is the gospel relative?

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As you may know, one of the most talked-about debates between the traditional church and the emerging church has to do with the gospel. Traditionalists claim that emergers have reduced the gospel to social justice to the neglect of atonement soteriology and personal salvation, while emergers claim that traditionalists have reduced the gospel to personal fire insurance to the neglect of Jesus’ teachings regarding the Kingdom of God. It’s a topic that Jim Belcher recently explored in ... read more

Faith in Transition - a rite of passage or a cultural shift?

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Last week I attended a small conference in Nashville, where I enjoyed some really good conversations with several fellow bloggers/writers—Jim Palmer, Lauren Biggs, Gavin Richardson, Jay Voorhees, Andrew Thompson, Amy Smith, and Ronald Kidd to name a few. (Note that Ronald Kidd has written a novel about Monkey Town!) At one point, as we were discussing our blogs, I was asked to describe my readers.  “What do they have in common that draws them to your site?” the moderator... read more

Book Club Discussion: The Gathering Center

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In The Great Emergence, internationally renowned religion expert Phyllis Tickle puts forth a theory that Christianity is currently experiencing a significant paradigm shift, the kind that only happens every 500 years or so. She calls it “the Great Emergence.” In Part 3 of the book, she describes this shift in terms of a “gathering center” in which Christians from the four corners (or quadrants) of Western Christendom—conservatives, renewalists, liturgicals, and s... read more

From modernism to postmodernism: evolution vs. accommodation

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A reader recently contacted me with a good question about a topic I address on this blog and in my book:  “While reading, I noticed you made the correlation that Christianity has evolved from modernity and now must evolve again into post-modernity. I suppose I would question, ‘Why are we evolving from one cesspool to the other?; I think understanding our philosophical presuppositions is important when addressing Christian Theology, but at the same time I think it's time Christia... read more

Book Club Discussion: It's all relative!

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It’s Monday! Time for the final post on March’s book club selection-How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith by Crystal Downing. In Chapter 7, Downing examines a variety of approaches to relativism, arguing that what she calls “building relativism” is favorable to Christianity. This kind of relativism allows for absolute truth, while maintaining many of the epistemological ideas associated with postmodernism. In in, “truth meets human beings on their own ground…Tr... read more

Book Club Discussion: Confronting our "situatedness"

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Crystal Downing’s How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith is our book club selection for the month of March. It’s Monday, so let’s continue our discussion. I don’t know about you, but I think Downing does an excellent job of bringing to light historical examples of the tendency of Christians to use the Bible to support views that, in hindsight, seem pretty irresponsible. This reinforces her point that interpretive communities do in fact  play a significant role in helpin... read more

Book Club Discussion: The Church's one Foundation

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Today we continue our discussion surrounding Crystal Downing’s How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith. In Chapter 4 Downing develops the idea of “moving foundations” within the Christian faith.  She uses as an illustration the fact that foundations for new skyscrapers in Southern California are placed on rollers, enabling them to roll with the movements of the earth during an earthquake so that they won’t crack apart. “The foundations hold strong,” she write... read more

Book Club Discussion: In the beginning, at 9 a.m...

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It’s Monday, so today we continue our conversation about Crystal Downing’s How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith. Seeing as my hometown of Dayton, Tennessee became famous for the evolution/creation debate of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, I found Downing’s analysis of 17th century theologian James Usher’s creation timeline fascinating. Downing writes that “based on his reading of all the ‘begats’ in the Bible, along with the stated ages of Old Testament pat... read more

Book Club Discussion: Duck and Cover

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Crystal Downing’s How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith is our book club selection for the month of March. It can get a bit heady at times, but I think you will find that Downing keeps a nice pace and makes some pretty complicated material accessible to readers. The book begins by addressing the “duck and cover” approach to postmodernism held by many evangelicals. Downing reminds readers that postmodernism “should not be judged by problematic practices carried out in its na... read more

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