In case you’ve been hibernating for the past two years, the great enemy against truth in these days is not Dawkins, Darwinianism, and evolutionary thinking. The enemy against truth is postmodernism and much of the emergent church movement. I’m not going to get into it here, but some day I might.
Anyway, I want you to watch this clip of John Piper. He deals with a statement made by a postmodernistic leader, and goes on to wonderfully expound the great purpose of Calvary.
The quote (which is taken from Steve Chalk’s book, ‘The Lost Message of Jesus’) is old news now, but I just thought I’d bring it to light again, as I see similar trends growing all over the Internet.Here is the quote again for you to muse over,
Do you forget to visit the blog? Get free updates via email. Or via RSS if you use a feedreader“The fact is that the cross isnt a form of cosmic child abuse - a vengeful father, punishing his son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that, however is that such a construct stands in total contradiction to the statement ‘God is love’ If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and refuse to repay evil with evil.”
Want to read other articles? Try these...
- Dawkins Defines God - What Saith The Scriptures?
- How Do I Know I’m Saved?
- Does Your Bible Teach a Gospel of Works?
Want to pray intelligently for this preacher? Go here to learn more!
Added Commentary
By Jason
on 11.08.07
You’re spot on mate. Postmodernism and emergent theology are definitely the issues of our day. I’m saddened that many seem to be fighting modernism in a postmodern world.
By Armen
on 11.08.07
Jason - Good to hear from you bro. The deterioration of the understanding of the gospel, is causing chaos in so-called evangelicalism. The sad thing is, genuine believers are so ignorant of their Bibles, they can’t tell the difference between truth and error within the church of Christ.
By pilgrim
on 13.08.07
Greetings brother Armen!
I say Amen. I have just come out of nearly a two year long battle with the Emergent Church, and from that, I have yet to see any good fruit born from this latest movement in Christendom. The fruit I have seen has been deceptive (like biting into a fresh “Freestone Peach”, only to find that the core is rotten and split and filled with earwigs). The Emergent Church is a hard one though. They (the movement) cannot be defined clearly like other movements and denominations, for there seems to be a broad spectrum in this new shift.
I was told to leave the church I was at, which was shifting into “Emergany”, if I wasn’t for what they were doing. So I complied. I don’t want to fight people over these things. One against one-hundred does not work. I simply want to hold to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
It has all been for the good though, according to the Lord’s will.
Thank you for pointing out the above quote Armen…what people are saying must be clearly brought to the light. I think some in the Emergent movement say things that, like the above, are cloudy and which show the weakness of human reasoning over what the Scriptures clearly say.
Grace and peace brother.
By David Boyd
on 14.08.07
If only it was just one thing we needed to defend ourselves from. I reckon there is a plethora of evil philosophies in the world today and secular humanism and atheistic evolution are at or near the root of them. Postmodernism is somewhat of a symptom of evolutionary thought.
By Jason
on 14.08.07
I think you are correct that there are a lot of other evil philosophies out there. These two just seem to be the dominant ones in our day.
By Armen
on 14.08.07
pilgrim - Praise God! It would be good to see God’s people moving away from apostasy these days. Not only people coming out of the emergant church movement, but also out of affiliation with denominations that are trying to find common ground with the Roman Catholic Church, whether they be Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, or anything else. “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate…”
Yeah. This is the exact same problem the Arminian, and Hyper Calvinist has. They try to reason with that which is beyond human comprehension.
David - You’re right. However, real rotting doesn’t work from the outside, in. It works from the inside out. The biggest problems the church of Christ has, isn’t the attacks from outside (such as Darwinianism, and other atheistic attacks), it’s the attacks from inside, and those are the very attacks that the church is slowest to detect and confront. If I attack a postmodern preacher, who is trying the change the orthadox view of the atonement, some ‘Christians’ will say, I am doing wrong. You shouldn’t attack a brother in the Lord, where is your love and compassion.
The fight is always against error and sin, but when they come from the inside (like the emergent church movement), they become the greatest problem against truth.
By pilgrim
on 15.08.07
Hey brother Armen,
By pilgrim
on 15.08.07
Also, as you can see, my attempt at using your HTML tags miserably failed!
By Jason
on 15.08.07
Mine too.
By Scott
on 16.08.07
What is really eerie about these new issues is that they are not new (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Paul went up against them on Mars Hill (Acts 17:16-34) in discussing Jesus Christ with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
The Epicureans believed in spontaneous generation (a form of ‘evolution) and the Stoics held very similar beliefs to postmodernism (albeit from a pre-Christian perspective) that are parallel to the atrocious systems being developed in ‘churches’ today.
Perhaps Paul’s structure of discussion should be reexamined as a way to have dialogue with the aim in mind of winning them to Christ — just as Paul was able to do.
By Armen
on 18.08.07
pilgrim - My experience with Arminians, is generally they will not accept obvious scriptures that mark out the soverignty of God in salvation, man’s inability to seek God by himself, the gift of repentance and faith, etc. For the most part, they cannot reason around the scriptural facts. However, I love my Arminian brethren, and have no problem fellowshipping with Arminians who love the Lord.
Scott - This is where the whole thought of ‘Creation evangelism’ has come from too, looking at Paul’s approach on Mars Hill. I think it has a valid place, as long as one eventually gets to the gospel of Christ too.
Haven't you got anything to say?