Anyway, the link de-jour is a panel discussion between Al Mohler and other Southern Theological Seminary faculty on Brian McLaren’s book “A New Kind of Christianity”.

The whole discussion is well worth your time.  Here’s just one of many excellent snippets from the discussion going to the heart of the concept of the fictitious greco-roman narrative (not sure which faculty member this is):

His [McLaren's] Greco-Roman narrative paradigm is a clumsy invention that has had no existence either in secular or religious history, and there is a reason he never quotes Aristotle, he never quotes Plato, Kant, he never quotes anyone because he can’t find anything to sustain it.

Mohler’s theory of the book:

“I think this book is very credible, very convincing, very liberating, very fascinating, and extremely compelling so long as you don’t read the Bible!  The problem is the Bible, that’s the great issue.  If you actually read the Bible your going to end up having to say this is just a dishonest attempt to make the Bible say what it doesn’t say, or to refuse to admit that the bible does say what it clearly says.  Because at the end of the day his narrative subversion just doesn’t work.”

Follow-up question #1:  If these things are true, does this make McLaren the biblical wolf in sheep’s clothing?  (though one member of the panel says that with this book McLaren ditches the sheep’s clothing)

Follow-up question #2:  What Biblical examples do we have regarding our interactions with false teachers?  I’ll prime the pump with a couple:  Jesus and Nicodemus, and Paul and the Judaizers/gnostics and such.

Here’s a special Monday edition of Clicki, Vidi, Linki (I clicked, I saw, I linked).

What did you hear at church yesterday?  Did you hear the public reading and preaching of God’s Word…or was it something more “relevant?”  Knowing many of the readers of this blog I have confidence that a good number of readers would cringe at that sentence since they understand that there is nothing more relevant to any culture than the inerrant, inspired, Holy Word of God.  But alas, that apparently is not a connection that is being made in many “christian” churches.  In dealing with this issue Al Mohler makes this statement:

In many churches, there is almost no public reading of the Word of God. Worship is filled with music, but congregations seem disinterested in listening to the reading of the Bible. We are called to sing in worship, but the congregation cannot live only on the portions of Scripture that are woven into songs and hymns. Christians need the ministry of the Word as the Bible is read before the congregation and God’s people — young and old, rich and poor, married and unmarried, sick and well — hear it together. The sermon is to consist of the exposition of the Word of God, powerfully and faithfully read, explained, and applied. It is not enough that the sermon take a biblical text as its starting point.  read the entire article here

In the re-release preface of his book “Ashamed of the Gospel“, John MacArthur pinpoints one of the problems as the fad-driven church.

Western evangelicals had been gradually losing interest in biblical preaching and doctrinal instruction for decades. The church in America had become weak, worldly, and man-centered. Evangelical ears were itching for something more hip and entertaining than biblical preaching (cf. 2 Tim. 4:3), and business-savvy evangelical pundits declared that it was foolish not to give people what they demanded. Without pragmatic methodologies numerical growth would be virtually impossible, they insisted—even though such pragmatism was manifestly detrimental to spiritual growth.

MacArthur than shows how that detrimental philosophy migrated from the church in the west to the church in the east after the fall of communism.  More of the preface can be read here.

It appears that people may indeed be looking for a “new kind of Christianity” but apart from God’s Word what they will find is yet another way to wind up eternally unsatisfied.

Which allows me to segue to this link which I highly recommend for those who are reading, have read or are considering to read “A New Kind of Christianity”.   After reading many of the excerpts on the author’s blog, direct quotes from reviewers and opinions from other people in the ministry (one seminary student tweeted that the book is the best argument for getting a seminary education) I  have decided that for now anyway I shall not waste God-given resources (i.e. time and money) one something that is obviously an affront to Christianity.  I think the tipping point came when I read this quote:

Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors’ best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment.

Unless that quote was prefaced with “the following is an extremely bad view of revelation” and/or followed by “those who view the Bible this way are naive and embracing heresy” – I cannot justify reading my reading it, even for the sake of  pointing out the heresies since it seems that Kevin DeYoung has already done a fair and probably more charitable job.

First this quote by Dr. Al Mohler:

Theological liberals do not intend to destroy Christianity, but to save it. As a matter of fact, theological liberalism is motivated by what might be described as an apologetic motivation. The pattern of theological liberalism is all too clear. Theological liberals are absolutely certain that Christianity must be saved…from itself.

Then the link to the rest of the article.

This goes along with a quote from a couple of posts ago. Theologians are supposed to spend more time being apologists of Scripture than apologizing for it.

For more perspectives by Mohler on Liberalism, check out this post:  Heresy is not Heroic.

Then, flashing over to the pyro blog, we find an article on Erwin McManus and his superbowl ad campaign. Phil Johnson raises the question – Do Joel Osteen and Erwin McManus differ only in style and not in substance?

Which…if you’re interested in dusting off the comment section…would be a good question to entertain.

This [the delay of marriage] goes hand in hand with the fact that the extension of adolescence comes with vast and often unnoticed effects.  Adulthood is meant for adult responsibilities, and for the vast majority of young people that will mean marriage and parenthood.  The extension of adolescence into the twenties (maybe now even the thirties) is highly correlated with the rise of secularism and with lower rates of church attendance.

This is something that Christian parents (and future Christian Parents) need to strongly consider as they raise their children to become godly men and women instead of selfish post-adolescent adolescents.

Believers committed to biblical authority will find no way to avoid this controversy, and no ground for accepting the “fairness” argument. If the Bible is the revealed Word of God, then we know that homosexuality is a sin of great spiritual consequence. Those who reject the authority of the Bible will, in the end, likely come to accept some argument for the normalization of homosexuality and homosexual relationships.

In at least one “Christian” blog that I frequent the door is fast opening for that last sentence. The Bible must shape our view of culture…not the other way around.