Dan Phillips has offered yet another excellent look at the Emergent Church Movement on the Pyromaniacs Blog.
Part 1
Part 2
Great quote:
“So did Paul reinvent himself to fit the times? Did he change his core beliefs to be more acceptable to the blind? Did he adapt his message to accommodate the Satanic veil?
Absolutely not. To the contrary, Paul held such a mindset in molten contempt ([2 Corinthians 4:2]). What he did instead was a full-out, pedal-to-the-metal proclamation of Christ in all His world-shattering, uncongenial, edgy glory (vv. 4b-5). He described beauty and glory they could not see. He told them a message they hated to hear.”
And then in the Meta, further explanation:
“To say the least, I have no problem between using cultural touch-points that make the offensive message — not more palatable, but — more clear and inescapable.
When Nathan approached David and told him a story about two guys and a little lambie (2 Samuel 12), it wasn’t to make his confrontation of David in his sin easier for David to swallow.
It was to make it impossible for David not to swallow (at least in the sense of feeling the sword’s tip at his throat).
I don’t see the goal of much modern contextualization (such as Phil criticizes) to be springing a “Thou art the man.”
It’s more like, “Look! A sparkler! Cool, huh?”"
