COMMENTS & COMPLAINTS
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… just what it says in the title (but from a British perspective)
COMMENTS & COMPLAINTS
If you have something to say, or think this website unfairly treats someone or some organisation you know, comment about it here.
Within reason (no abuse, no obscenity), no comments will be censored.
February 10, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Whilst I acknowledge that not everything in the emergent conversation is palatable I think we must remember two other occasions (one biblical, one historical) where the established religious leaders had a real problem with the theology of a new emerging group.
The first can be found throughout the Gospels and especially in Acts. The Religious Leaders of the Jewish nation, chosen by God, rejected the teaching of a small sect called ‘The Way’. The leaders of the sect were vilified by the religious authorities and imprisoned. Only a few voices stood up and suggested that maybe time should be allowed to be the judge!
The second happened some 1,500 years after the first and once again the religious leaders of the time sort to stamp out the obscene heresies of a small group of emerging theologians. This time that small band of radicals spoke out against the excesses of a church that, they claimed, had lost sight of the true Gospel. However, that church knew that it was right and there excommunicated the heretics.
Is it possible that we need to take a step back and learn a lesson from these events of the past? Is it possible that we are so prepared to shout heresy that we fail to see that there may well be something vitally important for us to learn? Is it possible that just for once the church could stop, listen and allow God to reveal in the fullness of time whether the emerging church is a valid expression of the Kingdom? There was one brave voice in the Jewish religious authorities that suggested that if this was not of God then he would not allow it to gain a stronghold, yet if it was nothing at all could stop it!
Is it possible that in the light of some 30,000+ Protestant denominations that on the whole split apart because of disagreements over theological issues that just for once we could to the Christian thing and allow God to judge, rather than judging ourselves?
February 15, 2010 at 3:43 pm
thank you
February 16, 2010 at 10:17 am
Sorry some comments have not appeared. No censorship intended – apologies particularly to the poster who thinks it is deliberate. A glitch seems to have stopped them being automatically posted which is what is meant to happen. Please be patient. Will fix it asap.