Cheap shot (sorry)

I was looking round the net to see if D A Carson might be coming to the UK to talk about Emerging Church. Sadly it doesn't look like he is. I did find, however, details of him coming to address new ministers through an organisation called the Proclamation Trust.

They say they...

believe in a 'pulpit centred' ministry...

and

The preacher himself (sic) is our primary focus...

My response to both these clauses is that we must have Jesus centred ministry, and Jesus is our primary focus. Now I know this is a cheap shot, and Carson and others would probably feel that I have taken two innocent statements from a website and quoted them out of context, the setting on the website and that the rest of the paragraphs from which they have been taken make these two extracts less grating. I agree.

That is why I think Carson was disingenuous in his talk to quote from an emerging Church website that "Emergent is friendship". I have not been able to find which site this was from to see how this was meant, and I accept that on its own this is a rather trite statement. However I would be much happier to be part of a Church, one of whose proclaimed values is friendship, rather than to a Church whose ministry is focussed on an inanimate piece of wood or stone.

Isn't that idolatry by the way?

Comments

[jason clark]

The "friendship" qoute is from our web site see http://www.emergentvillage.com/index.cfm?PAGE_ID=51

My quick thoughts were:

1. Read the qoute in context of the rest of the text on the site :-)
2. His argument is akin to sayng a church that use the word church is stupid because isn't obvious it;s a church, or to use the word christian, or bible, or what ever...strange argument.
3. If he had some good stuff for emerging people to listen to, and I think he does, his agressive, shallow steroyping just puts peoples backs up, and make them ignore him, and helps people who disliek emerging church to agree with him...not a healthy interaction.

[robbymac]

Sounds like MacArthur's methodology -- set up straw men and knock 'em down, and fail to realize that (A) people might actually check on the veracity of his straw men and find them lacking (except those who already agreed with him anyway), and (B) that any correctives that we need and want will be lost on us because we're mostly aghast at how he speaks of and to us.

Pity...

[tony]

I don't think it's a cheap shot at all. I think that is a pretty accurate representation of what Proclamation Trust is all about. *Me*, the preacher, and my ideas and power base, rather than Jesus.

[Dr Christopher Shell]

So far so good - but all things being equal, it's always easier to trust someone who has an external source of authority (e.g. the Bible) than someone whose source of authority may partly be his or her own wishes and predilections. In the sense that the first group of people are willing to submit themselves to something that may not necessarily be in line with their own wishes.

[Howard Jameson]

Thanks for the comments, although I am not quite sure I understand. Forgive me if I get it wrong, but I am assuming that you agree with Carson, i.e. he is being objectively Scriptural whilst those of us exploring aspects of Emerging Church are appealing to "our own wishes and predilictions". That is quite a significant claim to make and justify, and one which Carson (even with his reputation) has struggled to make.

Carson seems to dislike the fact that we might disagree with him on our interpretation of aspects of Scripture, although off the top of my head I can't recall any real appeals to the Bible that Carson makes (at least not in the free mp3 file I listened to). Rather he seems to want to create red rags for his conservative Evangelical bulls to race at. His sole analytical comments about post-Modernism realte to a question of epistemology, and of course TRUTH is the moral high ground of the conservative Evangelical...

...or is it? It would be a brave person to say that Evangelicalism's appeal to Scripture is without cultural bias/modification/filtering (choose whichever you wish). Huge portions of Scripture relate to issues of justice in a very practical and political sense. I hear little of this from Evangelical pulpits. I am happy to be seen as somebody whose interpretation of the Gospel is partly shaped by the culture in which I operate. This makes me very cautious about blasting at other people like Carson does.

I adore Scripture. I relish getting underneath the surface of Scripture to make it the guiding narrative of my life and actions. I seek with my whole being to live the life that Jesus taught and his disciples followed.
However I do not automatically equate this with the teachings of Carson, and I refute the idea that this makes me unscriptural or merely open to my own wishes and predilictions.

I am post-Modern because of where and when I was born and grew up. I am no less in the image of God because of that, and likewise Carson is made in the image of God and is (I understand) a gracious and learned man, but he has no monopoly on owning and interpreting the Gospel. He is not post-Modern because of where he was born and raised.

We probably will have to agree to differ.

[andrew jones]

yeahhh - jason is right - we did say emergent was a "friendship".

Pulpit centred ministry is what the Seminaries sell as their product so i dont think they will budge on that one. The Reformation moved the communion table over to the side of the church and moved the pulpit in its place. i think the communion table is making a comeback

its hard to manipulate people from the communion table. Its also hard to move away from a Jesus centred message when you are sharing the elements.

good commments and good post!

[Sophie]

Don Carson is speaking at all souls langham place on 7th november check out allsouls.org