Antioch Agent

This an interesting read on the position by the leading proponent of the EC movement on the subject of homosexuality. ** For one thing, the man tries his best to be consistent on his stand on just about anything that may seem offensive to certain parties. That characterizes much about the movement.

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/01/brian_mclaren_o.html

Some excerpts :

” I hesitate in answering “the homosexual question” not because I’m a cowardly flip-flopper who wants to tickle ears, but because I am a pastor, and pastors have learned from Jesus that there is more to answering a question than being right or even honest: we must also be . . . pastoral. That means understanding the question beneath the question, the need or fear or hope or assumption that motivates the question.”

” We pastors want to frame our answer around that need; we want to fit in with the Holy Spirit’s work in that person’s life at that particular moment. To put it biblically, we want to be sure our answers are “seasoned with salt” and appropriate to “the need of the moment” (Col. 4; Eph. 4). “

“Perhaps we need a five-year moratorium on making pronouncements. In the meantime, we’ll practice prayerful Christian dialogue, listening respectfully, disagreeing agreeably.”

Now, upon receiving some flak on this position, he issued another article which was equally as non-committal.

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/01/brian_mclaren_o_3.html

An excerpt :

” Please be assured that as a pastor and as someone who loves and seeks to follow the Bible, I am aware of Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6:9, and related texts. Believe me, I have read them and prayerfully pondered them, and have read extensively on all the many sides of the issue. I understand that for many people, these verses end all dialogue and people like me must seem horribly stupid not to see what’s there so clearly to them. I wish they could understand that some of us encounter additional levels of complexity when we try honestly and faithfully to face these texts. “

Personally, the word of God is clear on some things and at other times less clear cut. But this certainly doesn’t fall into the ambiguity list. It’s clearly a sin. Also, are we to ‘season with salt’ when discussing issues which are clearly wrong in the eyes of the Lord? When Jesus denounced sin (eg. the pharisees) He was forthright about calling it for what it was.  Is the man really following the example of Jesus? Interestingly, he deflects it by requesting for a 5 year period to do fact finding and deal it with a community consensus .

** Not everyone in the EC agrees with his position on the matter, as the articles would show

“Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism” (wiki’ed)

That’s probably where the concept of the “emerging” in this recent movement called the Emergent Church comes from, with its deep roots with postmodernism. They say goodbye to modernism and the times of searching for absolute truth. What we’ve taken it in this whole deal on post-modernism is that it’s a completely new way of thinking, but is it really? Solomon’s wisdom especially applies here when he wrote “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

So what is it? It’s merely a rehash of what has been completely consistent of mankind in general. Mankind has never changed. It has always been a denial of absolute truth and rejection of the authority of God’s word. It is the refusal to stand by absolute standards that God has placed in His eternal word. It is wanton men finding excuses in the guise of intellectualism and inflated pride to hide from penetrating light. God’s word which is a light exposes the fraudulent. There are some things that leave no room for subjectivity, like when Jesus said in John 14:6 that “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” The gospel is based on truth, and you can only be saved by that one route.

Sadly, this movement in their subjectivity and fuzziness is leading men further and further away from the true Jesus Christ, despite their very attempt to do so. They want to dispose of orthodoxy and doctrine and live in the limbo of feelings and experience. Now it is at this point that i must say that experience & emotions are important, but it must always be grounded in truth. The true test of whether any experience is genuine must be subject to the scrutiny of God’s word, regardless of how real or even engaging it felt. To not test it, is to open oneself to great spiritual deception.

The emergent church movement is gaining a steady following, and it should not surprise any of us because the bible has long warned of this. The words of the apostle Paul to young Timothy, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; (4) And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3). Moving away from the truth, they rather listen to things that are more palatable for their ears. Men who follow their piped pipers like Brian McLaren (a leading writer of the movement) often say something to tune of “Hey, that’s what I’ve been thinking all along and only confirms my long suspicions on the church”. Well, the words of scripture have foretold that men will hear the same message they have wanted to hear all along.

Nothing’s changed. It’s the same old sinful problem merely refitted with a change of clothes and fancy terminology. The times reflect what was said of the period of the Judges in the Old Testament that “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6). History repeats itself over and over again.

King Solomon was right.