We had a visiting speaker today from the emergent village John Franke, quite a departure from HTC's usual speakers. A very nice man who describes himself as reformed, evangelical, postmodern and post conservative. He dismissed the idea of truth with a Capital T outside of the Godhead. He affirmed the place of scripture which he believed to be inerrant (as far as a human/divine work can go). he had something of Barthian attitude to the word of God which he saw as being Jesus, preaching and Scripture. He is less sure that the canon is closed.
He also believes that all the different traditions within Christendom have small t truth. I asked him how these small t truth claims could coexist while being contradictory. He argued that it could only be by recognising that we are all finite and that we do not grasp the whole truth as we are affected by both our culture and our tradition.
I realise Christianity is always affected by culture as we do come to scripture from within a framework of our culture. Accepting all the different truth claims within the wider Christian Church does sound very nice and I appreciate we do need to get on with other Christians outside of our conservative evangelical circles. Yet Paul warned the Ephesians elders that savage wolves would come into the flock, how would emergent village deal with the wolves? Paul told Timothy to keep away from those who do not teach sound doctrine, why does Paul see doctrine as important and warn against error if there is no capital T truth.
Rant over. God Bless
Stephen
He also believes that all the different traditions within Christendom have small t truth. I asked him how these small t truth claims could coexist while being contradictory. He argued that it could only be by recognising that we are all finite and that we do not grasp the whole truth as we are affected by both our culture and our tradition.
I realise Christianity is always affected by culture as we do come to scripture from within a framework of our culture. Accepting all the different truth claims within the wider Christian Church does sound very nice and I appreciate we do need to get on with other Christians outside of our conservative evangelical circles. Yet Paul warned the Ephesians elders that savage wolves would come into the flock, how would emergent village deal with the wolves? Paul told Timothy to keep away from those who do not teach sound doctrine, why does Paul see doctrine as important and warn against error if there is no capital T truth.
Rant over. God Bless
Stephen
2 comments:
So why do you suppose HTC had him speak there?
All our lecturers and Evangelicals as our most of our readings. If we are to be taken seriously we need to come into contact with other views and be able to learn from them and to challenge them. It is much harder to challenge someone, than to challenge a book. Franke was very gracious and answered our questions in a gracious manner. I believe the objective was to stimulate thought and discussion so we can theologize rather than just catechize. God Bless,Stephen
Post a Comment