Dan Kimball Responds to John MacArthur on The Emerging Church
Dan Kimball, in a post entitled "Please Don't Stereotype the Emerging Church," responds to a letter sent out by John MacArthur's Grace to You Ministry promoting John's upcoming book The Truth War and a CD called "What's So Dangerous About the Emerging Church?"
Dan writes:
"Unfortunately, what I read in the letter was, in my opinion, hyper-exaggerations with nothing listed or a specific emerging church cited to back up his claims (at least in this letter, maybe he will in the book). If I was a radio listener and didn't know what the emerging church was about, after reading the letter I certainly would have my fear raised to buy his book to find out how to avoid them as the letter says they are a "threat" and "the danger is real". So the letter worked in terms of feeding off the ignorance of those who will only will be basing their understanding of the emerging church from this description. Let me show some examples of what he wrote in this letter..."
- the full post
The Fall 2006 issue of the Master Seminary's Journal is devoted to the Emerging Church.
6 comments:
they are a "threat" and "the danger is real"
I guess my first thought is, "Why would a bible scholar, pastor and someone who has tried very hard to keep God's Word pure for over 35 years say this is a threat and danger?"
That would concern me a lot. Why is something I am involved with seen as a threat and danger? It's not like he's saying this is another perspective on a grey matter. He's saying threat & danger to the Body of Christ.
That's intense and should be cause for concern. I agree, some of John's evaluations can lack the needed "first seek to understand" (as seen in Charasmatic Chaos) and if his work in this area is incomplete, then yes, that needs to be pointed out.
In Charasmatic Chaos, he makes points that are valid, but if his evidence for such are weak, it makes the point weak, despite it's truthfulness.
I think John or anyone else needs to be taken to task if they make a point of critque and they're basically stretching or manipulating the point of evidence. In this case, by all means, point it out in a humble, but direct manner.
After reading Dan's comments, he says over & again, "What Emerging Church is MacArthur referring to" and such.
I really think this is the core issue here. What are MacArthur's influences to draw his conclusions?
I listened to hours of critiques on the Emerging Church at The Master's Seminary website (public downloads) and I can tell you the sources were all books from "Emerging Leaders" like McLaren. Based on what they said from those books, I agree on their positions.
What I would like to see is men like Dan or whomever stand up to the facts used in these lectures and then say, "Yes or No" to what was said about the Emerging Church.
I can tell you, MacArthur and so many others like the "Bobgans" maybe visit one or two churches but most of their critique is on written works from books. If that's their primary source, then those works need to be examined and brought to light.
This will be more than anyone needs to hear:
http://www.tms.edu/audio.asp?ministry_id=3&dlyear=-1&dlcat=Faculty+Lecture+Series&dlcat2=-1
It's all here to listen to and evaluate.
groover, here's the challenge. i suspect that john's critiques are mostly being driven by books from one segment of the emerging church. to get a better cross-section of the ec, i suggest you check out bolger and gibb's book. it's considered definitive and one of the advantages of it, is that it describes what's actually happening on the ground and doesn't just treat a few in the ec who are stretching the bounds of historic theology.
if you'd like to get a good overview of the ec and some critiques, read mcknight's summary and kunkle's critique.
My comments were not for me, but for the readers of this blog to get an understanding as to why MacArthur might say what he does.
Dan Kimball responds by saying over & again, "What EC is he speaking of?" I assumed since you posted his comments, that many others might think the same.
Therefore, listen to the lectures from that site and get your info. If MacArthur and the others are indeed misprepresenting the EC, then at least someone like Kimball can firsthand respond as to "why" by stating they either agree or disagree with the references to the EC used.
Simple as that.
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