Stuff
I'm sorry for the lack of posts recently. I'm midway through my end-of-term essay writing frenzy. By this time next week I will be free.
Until then, here's some stuff:
Apparently this blog reads at an undergrad level.
I'm more than a little skeptical. Not sure what the creator was reading in college, but it clearly wasn't Kierkegaard.
I'd like to think that the average high schooler could make sense of my writing, but I guess I do use big words sometimes.
Here's a shocker: apparently this blog is worthy of a NC-17 rating. Why? Primarily my liberal use of the words "pain" and "hell". Riiiight.
Good thing the kiddies can't read it anyways.
And have you ever wondered where I fit in the wide world of Christian theology? Wonder no more!
What's your theological worldview?
You scored as a Emergent/Postmodern
You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
Emergent/Postmodern
89%
Modern Liberal
64%
Classical Liberal
61%
Neo orthodox
54%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan
43%
Roman Catholic
32%
Charismatic/Pentecostal
25%
Reformed Evangelical
14%
Fundamentalist
0%
That sounds about right. I confess I don't know much about Neo Orthodoxy, Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyanism, or the differences between Modern and Classical Liberalism. (Anyone care to enlighten me?) But I do like what I've heard about the Emergent church (primarily via Brian McLaren), and the blurb at the top sounds pretty good to me.
Want to see your theology expressed as a bar graph? Of course you do! Take the quiz here.
And a few links for good measure:
Here's the most interesting thing I've seen this week (via slacktivist).
Jim at Straight, Not Narrow weighs in on the "War on Christmas".
My current favorite web comic is xkcd.
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9 comments:
Oooh. That theological worldview one is sweet, man. I scored highest for neo-orthodoxy (which is good by me) and then Wesleyan. Karl Barth and Bonhoeffer were sort of affiliated with the neo-orthodoxy movement, although another guy who is less related (more of an Anabaptist, I think), and whom I am currently reading/loving, is Stanley Hauerwas. Check out a whole slew of his stuff here. His interviews are particularly interesting (especially the one I linked above). Anyways... that's a fun little quiz. Like you, though, I should probably get back to essaying...
By the way, "hi". I'll try to email you sometime...
I guess it's no surprise we communicate so well...
"You scored as a Fundamentalist
You are a fundamentalist. You take the Bible as the foundation of your faith and read it very literally, and it shapes your worldview. Non-fundamentalist Christians have watered-down the Gospel in your view, and academic study of the Bible stops us from 'taking God at his word.' Science is opposed to faith, as it contradicts basic biblical truths.
Fundamentalist
100%
Reformed Evangelical
96%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan
82%
Neo orthodox
71%
Emergent/Postmodern
64%
Classical Liberal
61%
Charismatic/Pentecostal
50%
Modern Liberal
29%
Roman Catholic
29%"
G_d have mercy.... 64% emergent postmodern. Well, I'm a bad one to ask agree / disagree questions since I usually find something to agree with in most assertions, and tend to look at the backside of issues (..on the other hand...) so maybe I'd skewed the result.
One discrepancy I see is that I by no means think "Science is opposed to faith, as it contradicts basic biblical truths." although this may be true for many Scientists, Science itself ought eventually (and dose more often than not) get on quite well with the Bible, it's just that Science has a long way to go to understanding things, really..
Maranatha
And hi to you, Jeff. I hope you succeed in your attempts to email me. I appreciate the links, and I'll check them out when I'm not frantically writing essays.
Anonymous: well well, I've always suspected you were two-thirds Emergent. Of course, quizzes like this are prone to skewed results, and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
I understand your objection to the science/faith comment. I imagine most people from most Christian sub-groups think the Bible and science get along alright - it's just a question of whose science and which reading of the Bible.
By the way, I'd appreciate it if you'd use a screen name here, since you're a semi-regular commenter. I generally don't have trouble identifying you, but I prefer to talk to people who have some semblance of an identity. It's easy - just select "Other" below before publishing. Thanks.
You made comment that you were impressed with what you had seen of the Emergent Church movement... What do you make of this? Charles Swindoll wrote...
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/02/the_transformat_4.html
"D" (otherwise known as Dr.Dee)
This is the full link, if it's cut off above.
I didn't read the article very closely, but I think the objection of the author, whomever he is (I don't think it's Swindoll), is basically that the Emergent Church tends to be not very interested in objective truth, and takes too friendly/inclusive an attitude to other religions.
The Emergent Church is a sort of a loose, decentralized movement, and hence difficult to pin down with any precision, but I think the author's understanding of their current position (if not necessarily their direction) is reasonably accurate.
I don't see the Emergent Church as moving towards a One World Religion. At least, not if this religion is to be built around common beliefs, practices or experiences. In fact, I think the movement is more towards allowing and embracing a wider variety of beliefs, practices and experiences.
Of course, this in itself is damnable enough to many more conservative Christians. I'm not really interested in arguing about this here and now, but I will say that it's precisely the Emergent attitude towards diversity that attracts me to them.
I too only glanced through the article. I wonder how Brian McLaran feels reading that he is working for Satan, adn that God Himself is adding to that delusion? (Seriously. I wonder what he thinks when he reads stuff like that.)
Maybe I'm obsessing because I'm trying to write a book about hell, but it seems to me that the concept of hell (which is not mentioned in the article) is the true looming shadow behind objectison to the Emergent Chruch. We are scared that if we drift too far from the truth, God will be angry and send us to hell.
Really, this seems to be the only good reason to opose something like the emergent church... Inceases social justice? good! Lack of hatred between religions? good! Mystical religious experience? good! The kicker seems to be that if we get it wrong, God will get angry and smite us.
This is both a depresssing and a scary thought. Christians themselves have disagreed on what objective truth is through the ages There is not ONE Chritian faith of our forefathers.. there is the Catholic church, the Orthodox church, there were Origen and the Alexandrians and the Reformation and Calvinism and Arminianism and and modern evangelicals that somehow pretend they believe what everyone else believed all along.
Is this really what Christianity boils down to? Hoping desperately that we believe it correctly so God will see fit not to beat us up? That doesn't seem right...
(P.S. This is not meant to be an attack on "Dr Dee" or "annonymous".. just a very bitter observation. I've read too much Jonathan Edwards and had too little sleep.)
Sorry my mistake - the article is not written by Swindol - it just refers to him. I thought it was the same article that I had previously read by the same. The author of the mentioned article is Ken Silva, an ordained SBC minister. (whatever that is!) What I was interested in was to see your responses. There are some very strong statements in the article which normally require some reason to give rise to their discussion. This writer may just have a chip on his shoulder... a Google search with Ken Silva's name only has more than a few comments. One of such: "An open letter to Ken Silva:-
"Ken, you have been given a forum to address issues of great importance to the body of Christ and many people need to hear some of the facts about many of these issues, but you have let yourself and your demeaning and name calling style obscure what you are saying. I have also been guilty of some of that (I.e. Spiritual Pedophiles) but God has shown me that I cannot sacrifice Christlikeness on the altar of doctrinal truth and correction and as a matter of fact Christlikeness is doctrinal truth. You cannot use certain statements and events in the life of Christ to justify your words while you ignore the overwhelming number of verses that call us to be “clothed with humility”. (quoted from judaslion.blogspot.com)
I enjoy the interaction and hope that some profit will "evolve" from it.
"D"
Joel.
I LOVE theology bar graphs!
thanks.
Michelle
I just watched the movie "Luther", a dramatization of Martin Luther's life. The movie hammered home for me how darn important theological worldviews are. What we believe (if we really believe) has an impact on, well, everything. Kind of scary,
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