Linkathon!
Five things the church needs to do more of…
Another take on the flood narrative…
How Americans choose a new church…
Big get out the vote for Trump push from pastors…
Tony Perkins ditches theodicy after home is flooded…
Conflict is part of the churches DNA…
One question I decided to stop asking…
Vote Trump or America is toast…
Refuting two kingdom theology….
Distrusting your congregation…
Do you follow religion #1 or #2?
God wants the church to be more political…
6 reasons why churches aren’t transforming their minds…
On disciplining abusers and protecting sheep…
Christian living, not just believing is needed in Milwaukee…and where you live.
More on the sexual orientation debate…
5 vehicles of American repentance…
The many different narratives of Mark Driscoll…
Care and treatment of sick churches…
They will know us by our…politics?
Christian identity in the workplace…
Are American Christians really persecuted?
Moral tribalism in contemporary politics…
Big thanks to EricL…support him at top right…
Now if John Piper can follow suit (as per Tony Perkins).
I enjoyed Pete Enns on the flood narrative. Thanks.
“But listen to a Middle Eastern underground house church leader: ‘Persecution is easier to understand when it’s physical: torture, death, imprisonment….American persecution is like an advanced stage of cancer; it eats away at you, yet you cannot feel it. This is the worst kind of persecution.'”
Wow.
I didn’t expect that.
It is quite obvious to me that Peter Enns does not believe in the Word of God as preeminently Divine in ;God oriented and initiated revelation with the human authors as the interactive partners with their communicative God.
Israel and the pre-Abrahamic saints were just giving their cultural spin on the popular hearsay of events and were no less authoritative than any other version.
There are many excellent evangelical scholars who see the O.T. Scripture as aware of and sensitive to the popular accounts of creation , the flood, etc who engage and correct these accounts apologetically to correct their truth suppressive misinterpretations .
There are so many unstated and untested presuppositions and assumptions underlying Enns’ dogmatism it is ridiculous.
Professing to be wise in his so called scholarly sensitvism I hear the trumpet of his foolish tune blowing loudly.
Enns deserves every rebuke and censure that comes his way and needs to go to counseling for his unbelief rather this being granted a platform at conferences .
I was pushing 40 when I Kissed Dating Goodbye was first published. I read it about a year later and was initially unimpressed. In retrospect, I clearly underestimated the effect the book was having on the Christian dating culture, not only for younger Christians who were part of the target audience but also for older single Christians like me. Ironically, it was a few years after IKDG was published that Christian authors and speakers such as Albert Mohler, Debbie Maken and Alex Chediak began denouncing extended singleness, with particular fury directed at men. Curiously, I don’t recall any of them blaming Joshua Harris and IKDG for extended singleness.
I’m glad Harris is revisiting the topic and I hope and pray he publicly apologizes and repents. And I hope Mohler, Maken, Chediak and others with similar viewpoints join him. Still, I doubt such an apology will do any more to undo the damage that’s resulted than Derek Prince’s apology did to undo the effects of the Shepherding Movement he helped found.
In regards to Pete Enns, I sometimes appreciate his perspective in trying to see the bigger picture and rising above some of the unhealthy excesses or extremes that exist in evangelicalism or conservative Christianity.
However, he also appears to not be very concerned with whether or not significant portions of Scripture are real or not and that is highly problematic. In this particular article, he points to the theological teaching of the flood story. Nothing at all wrong with that. However, he then minimizes any concern about whether or not the Flood story was real or not. That is troubling. I remember reading a past article of his where I believe he more or less stated that Adam and Eve weren’t real. When Jesus himself speaks in a manner that Adam was real, you then have to start jumping through all kinds of hoops to rationalize that Jesus wasn’t telling the truth. This is not a healthy exercise.
Pete Enns would appear to be a liberal scholar who clothes himself in evangelical garb. If he hasn’t done so already, he’d be honest to admit that he matches up much more with liberal mainline denominational scholarship than he does with traditional conservative evangelicalism anymore.
Joshua Harris’ book came out during my prime dating years. I was attending a mega Calvary at that time, and so many of the single women in that church got caught up in the idea of no longer dating. Instead, they were into being friends and doing group activities and church events and “courting”, but no actual dates. I gave up on playing that game after a few frustrating years. (Met my eventual spouse through eHarmony- but that’s another story) Sadly, many of the single women I knew from my CC days ended up marrying guy-friends who they really didn’t know very well. Now, years later, quite a few of them are divorced.
I’ll admit that I still react badly whenever Harris’ name comes up, because of how that book messed up so many people. Legalism wrapped in piety, that’s all that book was. And it was written by someone who didn’t know a thing about what he was writing about. Kind of like a ten year old writing a driver’s manual.
Harris’ ideas about courtship might have worked ok if everyone lived in a small village in Bulgaria. Doesn’t work at all in 21st century USA.
(Orthodoxy works better in a village environment too, but that’s no excuse!)
Enns has been roundly censured for his views on a number of issues by conservatives.
I don’t always agree with him,but find that he sometimes does see a bigger picture that is worth thinking through.
EricL (post 7). You are spot on in regards to Harris’ book. I read it and (if I may pat myself on the back…hehehe) saw some of it as hogwash. How? Well, I had been in a dating relationship that…get ready people…did not involve getting sexually involved. What I wanted to tell Harris was that “you know Josh, people can date…yes date…without getting sexually involved!”
I too had a similar experience with a gal I once knew who would get mad when criticism was leveled at the book. Funny, to this day I think she is still single. How’s that not dating thing working for you there?!?!
You know another thing about Harris’ and IKDG? If you peruse blogs like boundless.org (a group that likes all things male headship and CBMW), you will see scores of women who complain about lack of dates and marriages.
Hey Boundless men and women readers, how’s the non-dating lifestyle working for ya? Oh, that’s right, we “court” not date. Because after all, courting is biblical…
/comment full of buckshot
No wait, one more….
IKDG was a book written by a guy who got married in his early 20s. EricL, your comment about comparing him to a 10yr old writing a driver’s manual was also spot on too.
I’m just glad I was done dating before people got wise enough to write books on how to date or not date.
I don’t think the absolution link is correct, is it?
Dan from Georgia (#10),
The current director of Boundless is a 40-something single woman and the current editor is a 20-something single woman. I have no idea if the dating philosophies they embrace have anything to do with their being single, but one would think they’d have some advantages in attracting potential suitors by holding such high-profile positions.
I, on the other hand, am pushing 60 and still single despite rejecting Joshua Harris’ legalisms. Then again, I’m not as visible in the church and my dating/courting life has essentially been one disaster after another. At least those disasters ended well short of the altar.
Internet Monk seems to be caricaturing both religions, but I didn’t read really closely, once someone caricatures what they are refuting they automatically lose my attention.
Larry (#14). I guess I was kind of brash yesterday on Boundless (IKDG book, though, deserved it!). I do appreciate Boundless, even though they are outside my place in life (late 40s and married). I see a lot of hand wringing and naval gazing from many Boundless readers, trying to jump through every theological and social hoop to find a spouse.
I comment there once in a while if I feel I can offer something helpful based on my story – not marrying until I was in my 40s, so I have had plenty of experience being single. Also, my story doesn’t involve buying into the no-dating/courting-only rubric, but the false belief that you can sit on your a## and God will just magically bring you a spouse, and the belief that God wanted me to put off dating in order to focus on Him. That was hogwash in my life also. God never told me to put off dating to focus on Him.
I wish I knew what their dating/courting philosophy was too. And your right, it probably doesn’t explain singleness in their ranks.
Talk about being out of it. I met my wife 50 yrs ago this month – I was 17 she 16.. She is the only one I ever dated and we were married at 19 & 18 (I had to get her out of school and legal) 😉
I have so many friends from school who did the same and are still married. Are we sure that we have not allowed ‘methods’ to take over from the natural.
I don’t know what the theological hoops are – I know God has only 2 requirements for choosing a mate – that they be of the opposite sex and a believer. Is there more. What are the dating complications?
I always tell my wife we should sign up for E Harmony to see if we get each other — I doubt it, we probably don’t fit their formulas and methods.
MLD, I am not sure what “theological hoops” are either! LOL! Probably should have thought that one through more. Although not a marriage anniversary, still congrats on being married for so many years!
If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend the ‘Corpse Trials’ link! It’s the story of a pope in the year 897 who had his predecessor’s corpse dug up so it could be put on trial.
Dan from Georgia (#16),
I spend little time at Boundless these days, but I had a few clashes with Ted Slater back when he was the editor. Still, I was sad to see him go when he was caught up in a mass layoff at Focus on the Family. After he left Boundless’ focus tilted more toward their female readers, and that’s when I lost interest.
As far as a dating/courting philosophy, you might want to look up some articles on “biblical dating” by Scott Croft published on Boundless’ site a few years ago. The Gospel Coalition recently published one of Croft’s articles on its site. I’m no more a fan of Croft than Joshua Harris, but at least Harris is showing a willingness to change.
MLD ,
I’m another who didn’t date at all until I met my wife. Not because of any “theological hoops”, that was just the way it happened. We were 19 and 22 when we married, and still going strong.
I can’t think of any other “requirements”‘ either…… when did this all get so complicated?
We’ve thought of signing up for Eharmony just to see the results – but it ain’t worth the money, IMO.
MLD
I love it… you are just a couple years ahead of me but we too were 19 & 18 and I met her 45 years ago.
from the link to Christian identity… interesting food for thought
“Diversity officers treat Christianity differently from Islam for precisely this reason: Islam, like Christianity, is a religion. But Islam is recognized as an identity and given accommodations because, in the West, being Muslim generally goes along with being part of an ethnic minority. Ethnic status is at least partly unchosen, and is identify-defining—therefore Islam, as an expression of ethnic identity, deserves protection and cannot be questioned. Being Christian, on the other hand, is never seen as unchosen, and it does not place one in an ethnic minority. Christians are perceived as being over-represented and over-privileged, and Christianity is thought of as little more than an irrational, tasteless (and potentially pernicious) moral ideology.” yep, that’s us 🙂