open source theology

The war in America between Emergents and Reformed is a depressing business. A recent piece by Greg Gilbert on the 9Marks blog (Not Just Important, Not Even Just VERY Important. “Of FIRST Importance.”) expresses satisfaction that defensive measures taken against the insurgents have ‘effectively cut the legs out from under “emergent” theology, considered as a system’. But the basis for this confidence seems rather flimsy. Carson’s Becoming Conversant, which I have read, and DeYoung and Kluck’s Why We’re Not Emergent, which I have read about, might knock down a straw man and frighten a number of people back into the arms of a modern orthodoxy, but I doubt that they will prove to be the ‘one-two knock-out punches’ that bring conclusive victory to the traditionalists. The effect is entrenchment, not resolution or even constructive dialogue.

The story of the woman caught in adultery who is dragged by the scribes and Pharisees to Jesus for judgment (John 7:53-8:11) is a fascinating one, for various reasons. I made extensive use of it in a sermon on gentleness at Crossroads in the Hague yesterday – I love the way that Jesus stills the storm and so gently restores the woman’s humanity. But I probably gave myself too much freedom to explore some of the literary questions that it raises.

Reading through John Piper’s response to N.T. Wright, The Future of Justification (see also Piper’s objections to Wright’s ‘good news’), and not having much of a background in Reformed theology, I found myself repeatedly asking where the idea that the real moral righteousness of God is imputed to those who are in Christ actually comes from. Although admittedly Piper has written a great deal elsewhere about the doctrine (167), I found the main exegetical chapter of the book (163-180) remarkably flimsy; and although I have set out below my immediate response to it, I can’t help thinking that I must have missed something somewhere.

The Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow is currently hosting an exhibition called Made in God’s Image, in which the artists Anthony Schrag and David Malone ‘have explored faith and sexuality with members of The Metropolitain Community Church, Quest, Al Jannah Muslim Group and individuals from a range of faiths’. One exhibit, proposed by the Metropolitan Community Church, consists of a copy of the Bible (from the picture it appears to be a Family Faith and Values Bible), some pens, and an invitation to people to write themselves into sacred text: ‘If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it.’ Perhaps not surprisingly people have responded with enthusiastic profanity and obscenity (see the article in the Times for the lurid details).