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Touchstone Responds to "A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future"

Those that have not read the September issue of Christianity Today that addresses Robert Webber's "A Call to an Ancient Future Evangelical Future" or read the related documents at Ancient-Future Worship dot com, should do so.

THEN, they should read the engaging response and critique from Touchstone.

Though I would hardly consider myself well-versed in all things "ancient-future," Russell Moore summarizes my general suspicions quite well in his article, Listen Closely:

At the end of the day, the “Ancient/Future” Evangelicalism is a natural extension of American Evangelicalism’s besetting sins of faddishness and consumerism. That’s the reason it is fanned (as so many Evangelical winds of doctrine are) by publishing houses. This project comes to us just as Evangelicalism is in the throes of an infatuation with the so-called emerging church, which is also fueled by publishing houses (the sellers of youth ministry curricula) and which is also enamored simultaneously with postmodern cynicism, egalitarianism, doctrinal flexibility, and ancient-seeming worship.

The rest of the articles can be found here: Back & Forth to the Future: A Critical Symposium on A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future

(HT: JT)

Association of Vineyard Churches Adopts Egalitarianism

The Vineyard USA Board's Policy on Women in Ministry

In response to the message of the kingdom, the leadership of the Vineyard movement will encourage, train, and empower women at all levels of leadership both local and trans-local. The movement as a whole welcomes the participation of women in leadership in all areas of ministry (Berten Waggoner Letter to Vineyard Pastors, p.3)

...

This decision is not a dictate passed down from the national leadership. Pastors continue to be free to handle these issues acording to their convictions within the context of their local churches. It is simply a description if how we will act toward women in leadership as we endeavor to lead the Vineyard movement in the U.S. at the national level (ibid., 4)

...

Please bear in mind that we have simply addressed the issue of whether to restrict someone from trans-local leadership positions in the Vineyard based on gender. We are not speaking to the questions of marital or family roles as this has never been a prominent concern in our movement (ibid.)

Technorati Tags: Association_of_Vineyard_Churches_USA, egalitarianism, Vineyard+Church, womeninminstry

Piper on the Role of Mystery in Our Joy

The Supremacy of Christ and Joy in a Postmodern World

What then is the role of mystery in our joy? The Bible says, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now we know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). If you get most of your joy from what you don’t know about God, God is not glorified in your joy. His Son and his Book and his world are the revelation of his glory. He has made the knowledge of himself possible. The function of mystery in the awakening of God-glorifying joy is like the unexplored mountain ranges you can barely see from the magnificent cliffs where you worship. You have seen much—if only a fraction. You have climbed. You know these mountains. God has made himself known in the mountain ranges of the Bible in such a way that all the discoveries of eternity will be the revelation of the God you already know truly in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the joy you have in what you know of God is intensified by the expectation that there is so much more to see. The mystery of what you don’t know gets its God-glorifying power from what you do know. God is not glorified by strong feelings of wonder that flow from ignorance of what he is like. (read the whole sermon)

Technorati Tags: JohnPiper

Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Conference Audio

David Wells
The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

Justin Taylor, John Piper, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll
A Conversation with the Pastors

Voddie Baucham
The Supremacy of Christ and Truth in a Postmodern World

Tim Keller
The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World

Mark Driscoll
The Supremacy of Christ and the Church in a Postmodern World

Justin Taylor, Voddie Baucham, John Piper, D. A. Carson, David Wells
Speaker Panel

D. A. Carson
The Supremacy of Christ and Love in a Postmodern World

John Piper

The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World
Read | Listen

(Thank you Desiring God for making the audio available for free-- and for doing it so quickly and all at the same time!)

Technorati Tags: AboveAllEarthlyPowers, DesiringGod, DGM+Conference, SermonAudio

Karl Barth's American Lectures Available on CD

For those that have googled their way, linked from Aberdeen student forums, or otherwise stumbled upon my Karl Barth Audio post, I wanted to post an update. Kate Nicholes and her husband have digitized Barth's 1962 lectures and produced the first digital *authorized* version to date.

PURCHASE THE AUTHORIZED CD'S

Digitized from an excellent copy of the 1963 Word Records seven LP set, this is the only authorized modern market release of the rare lecture tour recordings made by Princeton Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago Divinity School.  We are privileged to offer this to you by arrangement with Dr. Barth's publisher, Theologischer Verlag Zurich, and with the approval of his family.

Technorati Tags: KarlBarth

Wired Magazine & Speaking in Tongues?

Wired News Blog posted an interesting piece today regarding brain activity and speaking in tongues. I have re-posted the article in its entirety below.

Is Speaking in Tongues a Language?

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have performed the first brain-scan study on a group of Pentecostal practitioners while they were speaking in tongues, a practice also known as glossolalia.

It turned out that activity in the language centers of the Pentecostals' brains decreased during the tests, "although the practitioners spoke in a coherent language-like way," according to an email from Mark Waldman, who is editor of Transpersonal Review and is writing a book with the lead Penn researcher on the study, Andrew Newberg.

To me it's not so surprising that the language centers weren't very active. I'm not sure how speaking in tongues is coherent and language-like at all, and to me the results seem to simply suggest that speaking in tongues is not related to language. But Waldman and Newberg suggest other explanations: 

...the language was being generated in a different way, or possibly from some place other than the normal processing centers of speech. For the believer, this experience could be taken as proof that another entity had actually spoken through them. For the disbeliever, it might simply mean that other unique circuits were being stimulated that directed the style and form of glossolalic speech.

Newberg also discovered, Waldman writes, that the practitioners had an unusual and permanent asymmetry in thalamic activity. The same asymmetry was found in nuns and Buddhists, which supports the theory that either intensive prayer permanently alters the brain, or that people with an abnormally functioning thalamus are more prone to having spiritual/religious experiences, according to Waldman.  

The glossolalia work will soon be published in a psychology journal, Waldman said. Newberg and Waldman's book, Why We Believe What We Believe, is due out in September.

(HT: Nacodoches Player)

Anne Lamott & Assisted Suicide

At Death's Window (L.A. Times Op-Ed). In this piece, Lamott casually recounts the story of helping a friend commit suicide. Not the happiest way to start a Monday.

He wanted to feel as well as he could for as long as he could, savor his family and friends and the beauty of life, on his own terms, in the strange basket of sickness.
[...]
Mel was sort of surprised that as a Christian I so staunchly agreed with him about assisted suicide: I believed that life was a kind of Earth school, so even though assisted suicide meant you were getting out early, before the term ended, you were going to be leaving anyway, so who said it wasn't OK to take an incomplete in the course?

What makes us feel like we have the right to do anything on our terms?

Wright Wrong on the Resurrection?

N.T. Wright says one can deny the resurrection and still be a Christian

Al Mohler disagrees

Kevin is terrified...and agrees with Mohler
(BBrown? Comments?)

Technorati Tags: AlMohler, N.T. Wright, resurrection

Michael Haykin on the Church Fathers

Why Study the Fathers?
What to Read in the Church Fathers

Why The Puritans Still Matter

Physicians of the Soul // Packer, Christianity Today