The Dawn Treader

"You know what really becomes a problem for me?", my friend asked.

I listened intently.  My friend and I had been discussing Christianity and its historical claims.  He is a skeptic.  He told me straight out that he does not believe Christ was the son of God.  I wanted to know what his stumbling block was, so I nodded as if to say, "go on".

"Agendas", he said.

Greg Koukl gives a great lecture on "professional" postmodernism, the problems with it, and his concerns about postmodernist theologians on a recent Stand To Reason podcast.  It is the April 23rd podcast.  Greg does not call it "professional" postmodernism.  That is a term I picked up from a Centurions podcast.  The professional postmoderns are a small percentage of the population, usually found in academic institutions, who are the apologists and gatekeepers of postmodernism.

Greg is spot on in identifying the problems of the professional postmods.  I think the man on the street, however, is an amateur postmodern.  They are influenced by the pro's, but they don't really understand the history of thought nor the full implications of postmodernism.  They do repeat its sound bites, however (i.e. oppression, tolerance, narrative etc)

I appreciated Greg's circumspect handling of the Emerging Church.  He does not paint with a broad brush and say all of these guys are off their rockers.  He is quite gracious toward Dan Kimball, for example.  He does seem to imply that the ECM is a generational thing -- kind of like the 60's generation were in their day.  I am not completely convinced that the depiction of the EC as the latest generation kicking against the goads, as it were, corresponds with reality.  Anyway, enjoy the podcast.

I realize from Chad and Dave (commenters on my last "emergent" post) that Brian McLaren is not the only spokesperson for the Emergent Dialog, nor is he the intellectual center of the movement.  He seems to be the most visible, however.

Let me direct you to an interesting PBS documentary on McLaren featured in Religion and Ethics Weekly.  Watch it.  It is about 8 minutes in length.

I take comments like Greg Koukl's very seriously

"Be forewarned. The Emergent Church is the most theologically corrosive view/movement/trend in a long time. The Seeker movement and the "Laughing Revival" of the last decade pale in comparison. And it’s consuming millions, especially young people. We’ll keep you posted."