Saturday, March 07, 2009

Mark Driscoll Critiques Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and Doug Pagitt



This is great audio! Mark Driscoll, who is pastor of Mars Hill church in Washington, as well as being one of the founders of the movement known as "Emerging, or Emergent, give some great biographical background to this movement, himself, and others. He lays out a case for the orthodox side of the movement, as well as critiquing the unorthodox movement embedded within the very liberal side of the movement.

I can recommend one book that will give both a theological and philosophical critique of this movement, as well as reading a bit of Christian history:



(From a reviewer on Amazon.com): J. Gresham Machen led the internal Presbyterian struggle against the debilitating effects of the downgrade controversy, evolution and destructive higher criticism. He stood strongly for the inerrant truth of scripture and the unique deity of Jesus Christ and His role as savior. The end result was his expulsion from the Presbyterian Church and its seminary at Princeton.
You must understand where he was coming from when you read this book. He was not a fundamentalist (as, for instance, I am) but a warrior of Calvin's Reformed Faith. In terms of Biblical authority, theology and salvation - we are in agreement. So I enjoy the fact of his stand as a believer in Jesus Christ and in God's Word.
The primary point of this book - which is a classic of Christian scholarship - is that liberal Christianity isn't Christianity at all - but something else; some other religion that has nothing to do with God, Jesus or the Bible. He makes his point - which ought to be intuitively obvious - with skill and panache by putting his finger directly on the issues that liberals and those who believe the Bible can NOT agree on: 1. who was Jesus? 2. what does he do for us? 3. what did he do at Calvary and after? 4. what is our final authority?
Once he pins down these issues and analyzes them he draws the dividing line between Christianity and liberalism cleanly and no one who has read this book has the slightest excuse for confusing the two.