Joel Garver’s Wright and the Emergent Church is a solid refutation of Richard D. Phillip’s celebration of the out-of-context quotation as an art form on the Reformation21 blog. Phillips pounced on Justin Taylor’s insinuation that Bishop Wright and the Emergent Church are at least dating, if not engaged, because the back of Wright’s latest book has endorsements from Emergent figures John Franke and Brian McLaren.

Hey! I just noticed that a book written by Tremper Longman III and assigned for his Old Testament History & Theology II course has an endorsement on the back by Emergent Church patron saint Walter Brueggeman! Maybe I should drop that course; Tremper’s obviously gone over to the EC darkside!

UPDATE: It seems that theological discussion in the Reformed world has been reduced to the level of “Mommy, mommy, the bad men said nasty things about me!.” And I agree with Carl Trueman that both left and right (whether politically or theologically)–and your Foolish Sage included–are equally guilty of the tendency to dish it but not be able to take it. Perhaps we would all do well to heed the words of John Newton quoted recently by none other than Rick Phillips:

“A critical knowledge of the original languages, a skill in the customs and manners of the ancients, an acquaintance with the Greek and Roman classics, a perusal of councils, fathers, scholiasts, and commentators, a readiness in the subtilties of logical disputation; these, in their proper place and subserviency, may be of considerable use to clear, illustrate, or enforce the doctrines of Scripture: but unless they are governed by a temper of humility and prayer; unless the man that possesses them accounts them altogether as nothing, without that assistance of the Spirit of God which is promised to guide believers into all truth; unless he seeks and prays for this guidance no less earnestly than those who understand nothing but their mother-tongue; I make no scruple to affirm, that all his apparatus of knowledge only tends to lead him so much the farther astray; and that a plain honest ploughman, who reads no book but his Bible, and has no teacher but the God to whom he prays in secret, stands abundantly fairer for the attainment of true skill in divinity.” (John Newton, Works, 2:329).

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2006 at 1:34 am and is filed under Emergent, Post-conservative Evangelicalism, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.