Fuse is Burning
First voice: “Are you sure?”
Second voice: “Yeah, we’re good. Do it.”
First voice: “Maybe it’s not the right time. Are you sure about this?”
Second voice: “What’s to be ‘sure’ about? I’m tired of twiddling my thumbs. Go on – fire it up.”
First voice: “I dunno, man. This is the point of no return …”
Third voice: “Aw, c’mon, guys, enough with the procrastinating! Light the dang fuse already — and take cover!”
(sizzling sound followed by a pregnant pause lasting 0.5 seconds)
Robbymac is back! Weeks of online silence, instigated and abetted by a deluge of technical back-end glitches … fortunately, I have friends in high places: Subversive Influence’s very own Brother Maynard, aka Brent Toderash.
So, let’s just dive in, shall we?
Now that I can wander about greater blogdom again and catch up, I notice Sir Brian of McLaren has written yet another book, A New Kind of Christianity. Early reviews suggest it’s a classic case of ...
- the GOOD: Brian is finally coming clean about what he really believes. His trajectory’s gotten clearer over the past five or six years, but it’s nice to have the smoke finally clear.
- the BAD: It’s not historic, orthodox Christianity – not much of a shock for many of us, but it’s high time all the cards were laid on the table.
- the UGLY: Some of the heresy-hunters were right, after all. Not their attitudes (condescending), tactics (sleazy), or factual research (shoddy at best, GBA at worst), but isn’t it ironic that, flaws and all, they called it?
In a funny way, it’s like greater blogdom heaved a sigh of relief. People who’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with the trajectory of Emergent™ are free to move on and create new things, untethered to what the “Big Three” (McLaren, Pagitt, & Jones) are pushing.
The quest to be Biblically faithful and culturally engaged hasn’t changed, but freedom from an increasingly pomo-dogmatic Emergent™ status quo is a significant step forward.
