J.P. Moreland's Shot Across the Bow

Another post from the National Pastor's Convention in San Diego:

Morning Bible study was an insightful overview of the book of Acts by British scholar N.T. Wright. While I (and John Piper) think Wright is flakey on justification, this guy gets the Biblical message right in the macro arena.

J.P. Moreland, professor of philosophy at Biola/Talbot, did a great seminar this morning on sex and secularism. It's largely drawn from his book Kingdom Triangle. I love a guy who says things I'm thinking but can say it so much better than I can. He also issued a none to subtle shot across the bow of the infatuation large segments of the church have with post-modernism.

Just came from hearing John Ortburg speak about vision, drawing largely from Caleb.

I'll try to develop some thoughts on the divide I see here between the "hard" evangelicals (those who came of age in the 70s and 80s) and the newer "soft" evangelicals, who've come of age in the 90s and in the 00s (I pronounce that the oh-ies).

Stay tuned.

Chuck Colson and a Surprise from Ben Stein

As mentioned in the last post, Chuck Colson spoke at the National Pastor's Convention here in San Diego today about the call to doctrinal solidity in reforming the church and in transforming America. "Creeds before deeds," he quipped. "If I had not come to believe what I did, there would never have been a prison fellowship.

After afternoon seminars with Gordon Fee (on Bible translation) and with Scot McKnight (see his blog at http://www.jesuscreed.org/), I attended an advance showing of "Expelled", a new movie with of all people, Ben Stein. It's smart, funny, and moving at times, and a surprise: a smart enquiry into the banning of Intelligent Design from academia and from the public square via blackballing any scientist or journalist who dares to even mention ID without condemning it. I urge you to go see "Expelled" when it premieres in theaters in April.

Monring Update from NPC

Last night, Rwandan Anglican Bishop Rucyahana (left) spoke movingly about God's call and his experiences in Rwanda during the genocide there.

This morning I attended a Bible study (1 Thess. 5) with Gordon Fee, who was one of my NT profs at Gordon-Conwell. (He's currently writing a commentary on 1& 2 Thess.) As always, he was precise and insightful.

In a few minutes, a new general session will begin with speaker Chuck Colson.

More to come.

Erwin McManus Open National Pastor's Convention

I'm reporting from the National Pastor's Convention in San Diego the next few days...

The conference opened today with Erwin McManus of Mosaic Church of Los Angeles. I've met Erwin before, several years ago, and it's amazing how much he's starting to look like a 45 year old Robert DeNiro. But I digress.

First, a few observations on the NPC as compared to the National Outreach Convention which I attended in the same place (the Town and Country Conference Center) last November.

1. NOC was bigger than NPC--by a factor of about 1/3. NOC topped out at almost 3000; there are about 2000 here.

2. NOC was more theologically conservative than NPC. Not that NPC is a hotbed of liberalism. More controversial speakers (such as NT Wright) and writers (such as Brian McClaren) as on display here.

3. NOC was younger than NPC. The average age is probably about ten years older here.

4. Both NOC and NPC devotes a lot of programmatic space to The Emerging Church. I should add that NOC focused more on the missional church, which in my mind is a much more useful concept (i.e., when a church thinks and acts like a missionary in its community).

(By the way, I'd need an hour to give you my whole take on the emergent phenon. There are both positives and negatives. Personally, think the category will pass as it merges with missional and organic church concepts.)

Erwin explicated some of the concepts of his newest book (Soul Cravings), namely that all humans have the same cracving and questions, and that questions should be the heart of our apologetic, not answers first. BTW, I know from people inside Mosaic that the church rejects the moniker "emerging."

I'll try to update the PM session later or Wednesday AM.

A Good Sum-Up of the (Dysfunctional) Summit

I pretty much ignored the coverage of the New Baptist Covenant fiasco in Atlanta last month. I thought it was pretty much a peacock show devoid of substance, and I still do. This article from Associated Baptist Press sums up the attacks on the meeting quite well, so I thought I'd pass it on:

Post-Covenant criticism comes from left, right

By Hannah Elliott

Published: February 19, 2008

NEW YORK (ABP) -- Although organizers hailed a recent pan-Baptist gathering as a success, a handful of critics have leveled a wide array of charges against the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant.

The critics of the event, held in Atlanta in late January and early February, include conservatives who continue to accuse it of having a thinly veiled liberal political agenda. But they also include moderates and liberals who say the gathering was not inclusive enough of ethnic and sexual minorities.

The Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant drew an estimated 15,000 Baptists to discuss working together despite denominational, ethnic, political and economic differences. Its headline organizers were the two living Baptists who have held the presidency: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Many observers praised the event as a momentous occasion that generated new unity, energy and focus for Baptists across North America. It earned rave reviews from secular and religious media outlets alike as a crucial first step in the walk toward racial reconciliation in the Baptist faith.

Covenant leaders like Leo Thorne, associate general secretary of American Baptist Churches USA, even said the diversity of political opinion actually adds quality to the discussion.

“It doesn’t make any difference what decision you make or action you take, there are always
people who use their freedoms to express disagreement,” Thorne said. “That’s rich. That’s energizing. That’s wonderful that we can have a diversity of opinions of issues.... If there are those who disagree, that is okay with me.”

But Carter and Clinton’s involvement in the event and the lack of official participation by the Southern Baptist Convention on a denominational level led many conservatives to criticize the celebration soon after it was announced in 2007. Although organizers made an effort to include prominent Baptist Republicans in the program, some conservatives have continued to criticize it.

Paul Proctor, in a Feb. 11 column for the Nashville Tennessean, said the celebration achieved only an “image of unity,” which validated conservatives’ critique that liberals tend to promote “symbolism over substance.”

“As far as I'm concerned, outgoing SBC president Frank Page, who incidentally declined the invitation to attend, was right on calling the meeting a ‘smoke-screen left-wing liberal agenda,’” Proctor wrote. “Carter can preach Christian unity all he wants, but he was the one who spurned the Southern Baptist Convention back in 2000. If anyone is guilty of promoting division among Baptists, it is the presidential peanut farmer from Georgia.”

More progressive Baptists also criticized the event for insufficiently displaying unity amid diversity.

Laura Cadena, a graduate of George W. Truett Theological Seminary and a member of Peachtree Baptist Church in Atlanta, said the meeting’s rhetoric of Baptist unity appealed to her, and she attended to observe it as well as see friends from her Texas seminary days. But, she added in a Feb. 7 opinion column for EthicsDaily.com, the meeting proved to be a letdown when it came to representing all Baptist groups.

“I think that we could have done better, but it’s a beginning,” Cadena, 33, said. “I think that if the planning committee could have been more diverse -- and by that I mean including more women, more young people, more Asian Baptists, maybe more Ghanaian Baptists -- that would have been good.”

On the other hand, in a Feb. 8 Wall Street Journal column, Naomi Schaefer Riley described the event as a “liberal answer to the Southern Baptist Convention.” She said it showed how difficult it is for progressive evangelicals “to unite, let alone get under the same tent with secular liberals and become a political force….

“The New Baptist Covenant is supposed to be more ‘inclusive’ than the SBC. It's OK to rail against abortion, as long as you mention the problem of uninsured children in the same breath,” she said. “The group also wanted to distinguish itself from the SBC on the issue of homosexuality. But to get all of these church groups to sign on, the language of the agreement had to be chosen very carefully.”

Todd Thomason, pastor of Baptist Temple Church in Alexandria, Va., wrote in a column to be published by Associated Baptist Press that he’s not convinced there is much new about the covenant celebrated at the meeting, especially when it comes to the issue of homosexuality.

Organizers decided not to allow the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists or the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America -- two pro-gay groups -- to participate in the event in an official manner. That decision, Thomason said, smacks of the “top-down exclusionary action” used by Southern Baptist leaders during the narrowing of the group’s policies in the last 20 years.

Champions of the New Baptist Covenant “cried foul when the leaders of the so-called ‘conservative resurgence’ seized the reins of power within the SBC and then circled the wagons, forcing out all who wouldn’t accept their narrow ideology or who dared to ask questions,” he wrote. “For these same Baptists to turn around now and disenfranchise other Baptists in much the same way (if not on the same scale) is the height of biblical hypocrisy.”

Covenant leaders “didn't think they could hold together the large coalition of Baptists needed to create a new Baptist voice in North America while addressing the issue of sexual orientation at the same time,” wrote Ken Pennings, director of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Event organizers have said homosexuality is to be “tolerated,” though not necessarily “affirmed.” While the pro-gay groups were not involved on an official level, many of their members attended, and they used exhibit-booth space provided by the Alliance of Baptists -- another pro-gay group -- to display materials at the meeting.

Cadena -- a fifth-generation Texan of Hispanic background – also wondered why participants from her ethnic group were not better represented at the meeting. She asked whether there is “room in the family photo for Latino Baptists?”

“Where do we fit? Here in the South, Latinos are relatively new … there are not enough people that speak Spanish, there are not enough doctors that speak Spanish, there are not enough teachers that speak Spanish,” she said. “So what does a Hispanic church look like? I don’t know.”

Cadena said the meeting should have included specified time for networking between people from the same region or affinity group. That way, Latinos could have seen more clearly whether they should wait to be included in leadership of the larger Baptist family or create their own group.

Schaefer Riley, for her part, pointed out that one thing attendees did have in common was their age, which skewed to the older end of the spectrum. And that doesn’t bode well for the movement, she said.

“The reason for the overrepresentation of seniors may be that young people have increasingly been moving to non-denominational churches or because they are often more conservative than their parents on issues like abortion,” she wrote. “Either way, it doesn't bode well for the Covenant. Or for the left.”

Thorne said Covenant leaders will continue to address such concerns, especially through the efforts of the North American Baptist Fellowship, which played a large role in organizing the meeting. The body is the umbrella group for all North American Baptist bodies that belong to the Baptist World Alliance.

Leaders at NABF “are serous about continuing to strengthen relationships and efforts in networking for missions,” Thorne said. “They are committed to that. So this event … is not going to be a program that is a be-all and end-all.”