Apologies for absence - holiday, boredom, no inspiration. Usual stuff, you know.
Anyway, saw this on an apologetics site. Really funny that the emerging church is listed with Buddhism and other such faiths to combat. See here for a chuckle.
See here and the links for a down right wince and guffaw......
Now don't get me wrong, regular readers will know I'm all for a reasoned critique and theological debate around missiology, ecclesiology, soteriology, sociology and whatever ology takes your fancy. . . ironically all I could think of in response to the above was rather rude and dismissive, so I won't type it.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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4 comments:
Hey man, I read the last link (wince) one and to some degree I understand why you say that although there are elements in here that I think are fair.
In reflection of the short amount I read, it did appear they were on a rout to get anything out and critiqued that this organisation didn't like. However they made two good points in the two I like.
The first is they refer to a book and its discussion about repeating prayers 300 times a day. This may be a misrepresentation of emerging church, but they say this is pointless and fruitless. They continue to point out that we should repeat the same prayer twenty times in a morning. The question if this is good - unfortunatley it seems illogical to me, as I would have thought meaning it from the heart is more important than the amount of times its said.
The second one was about drumming. They said that having drumming circles wasn't good and reflected pagan attitudes. Although they outright make this to be wrong, I don't feel so strong, but the effect of music on a group of people needs to be carefully controlled. Its easy to create trance like states with rythm, whether drums, taze singing or often repeated choruses in church.
I think I will go back and read some more later, D
Genuine question. Out of interest why is a trance like state bad?
I guess linked to that is the other point you make which is about meditation and different levels of consciousness.
Re the prayer thing, the Jesus prayer is "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Having not read the book I'm speculating, but the context appears to me they are suggesting it as a phrase to use for meditation. I'm not quite sure why that would be intrinsically bad or heretical, I can appreciate why it wouldn't float some peoples boat though! Can't say it does mine.
However to me they are logically in consistent - "You don’t have to be Bible scholar to understand that repetitive prayers designed to get one into a state of consciousness in order to bring one closer to God, is not in the Word of God."
You don't have to be a bible scholar to know that eating with a knife and fork isn't in the word of God.
However, we could call that semantics. How though they then go on to it being "anti biblical" is more than inconsistent it's a huge swinging leap of logic. If it brings people closer to an experience of Jesus how could it be anti-biblical?
But then I'm biased since he then goes on to critique the rosary which I use as an aid to prayer!
This is a quote from one of the websites Paul mentions that criticises the Emerging Church re it's relationship with the RC Church........ "The Reformation was a time in church history when Christianity was led out of darkness into light.".........The RC was the bogeyman of my Evangelical youth now largely replaced by the fear of Islam.
In fact there was much in pre-Reformation Medievil Christianity that was profoundly devout as books by the historian Eamon Duffy clearly demonstrate. The Reformation was as much a political power struggle as anything spiritual.In order to retain the support of some of the German princes who were his protectors, Luther for example became as anti-Baptist and anti-Semitic as he was opposed to the might of the Holy Roman Empire. Other reformers such as Calvin and Knox imposed systems of control and censorship of thought on their followers that were profoundly damaging both psychologically and spiritually.
In reply to the question about a Trance being a bad like state, my worry is your self inducing a state of mind that opens up susceptibility and possible manipulation. Your also possibly not in control. I have no quarms with hypnotism though since I am not convinced this is a trance but more so a sleep like state.
I would argue that if a trance by means of chanting or whatever is therefore no different from taking drugs (albeit drugs are illegal and harmful) but if it induces a trance like state, is that ok too? I know from a legal perspective its not.
I guess my concern is that if you get yourself into a trance because your chanting, how is that useful? It may give you a buzz or a great feeling, and that might be ok, but as far as I can see is totally seperated from a holy encounter.
With regards to the rosary, I don't know enough about it, and I don't use it - but if it allows you to focus on prayer and mediation on God then why not. At its simplest form, I think its a great why of worshipping and praying using another part of the senses, touch.
This would appear missing in a lot of church where we worship by all senses, incense for smell, pictures / images for sight, bread and wine for taste etc etc.
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