I'm going to Taco Bell!
Always a good choice!
FTW!
heheheh
Davo, you know I love you too. This discussion is actually helping me to understand the emerging side better. To me Rob is tearing down the Bible when he says that we can't for sure know what the Bible says but it open to each person's interprtation. Basically we make up our own truth based on what we think the Bible says. I think that is dangerous.
Not that I agree with everything the 'church' teaches. I listen to a guy now that departs from most traditional churches on LOTS of doctrines (i.e. we only inherited physical death and separation from God from Adam, not some original sin that makes us guilty and on our way to hell from birth, there is no such thing as a "sinful nature", we don't need to confess our sins on a daily basis to be forgiven because we were forgiven on the cross, we can truly walk free from sin because according to the Bible we are dead to sin, (no need for sin management) etc) so I have been going through a period where I now question most teachings I have been taught, BUT the guy I listen to believes the answers are in the Bible and it is black and white, the church has been relying on their doctrines and not reading the Bible where Rob says cannot know what is the truth for sure.
here's the thing: you have to pay
close attention to what rob says, because he doesn't characterize the bible the way you say. he's
not saying we can't trust the bible. he's saying there's many doctrines that we can't know for sure,and there's tons of empirical evidence to support that:
i could list a bunch,but arminian/calvinism, pre/post/mid/amillenialists, rapture/no rapture,free will/determinism/compatablism, etc etc etc. many people much smarter than all of us have been arguing about these things for millenia now.
ya see, when people say "we just preach the bible", do they think they are literally the only denomination in the world that honestly thinks they're "just preachihng Bible"? there's a few thousand christian denominations out there who all think they have the correct interpretation of the bible...
your preacher you listen to up a PERFECT example of what i'm driving at
"we don't need to confess our sins on a daily basis to be forgiven because we were forgiven on the cross" this is standard practice in many, many churches, AG included,but this is not what the bible teaches as i understand it. You tell God your sins to keep your relationship strong with Him, not to be forgiven. (just like you would if you offended a friend or parent here on earth).
Now this doctrine has been taught as fact for at least 100 years by the AG church...but it seems to be wrong. AG is
sure that it is what the bible says. but it doesnt.
*this is exactly what Rob Bell is talking about in Velvet Elvis when he talks about springs versus bricks. if you think of your doctrines as bricks in your faith wall, it's not gonna take too many before the whole thing crumbles. if you think of your (non essential) doctrines as springs that support the basic gospel message, then when you find out that repenting on a daily basis is not biblically correct, you can just 'keep on jumping' and not worry about repairing your wall all the time... i think Rob Bell's whole point is to keep the main thing as the main thing. "Gospel" means
good news, not sin management or doctrinal perfection. It means showing how great Jesus is, not how bad people are. They know deep down what they're doing and if it's wrong or not.
