Hey friends, this is Michael Bohm with Youth Apologetics Training. Today we're going to keep going with this series about the Emergent Church, and we're going to be talking about the postmodern views of the Emergent Church. So with that, let's go ahead and jump right in. And so moving on, talking about postmodernism. And like I told you guys earlier, I've covered this in a previous series, Postmodernism, and I've touched on it many other times throughout my various series. Postmodernism is a rejection of modernism, or sometimes referred to as modernity. And it is this concept or idea that we're rejecting truth claims, we're rejecting people who claim to have a corner on the truth, whatever the truth might be, and it usually falls within the realm of morality, but also, and very much so, when we're looking at the Emergent Church movement, It is a rejection of truth claims concerning the Bible. And so, like I've been saying this entire series, the Emergent Church, in my opinion, is characterized by questioning everything and answering nothing. Another thing you're going to find as we read through these postmodernism Emergent Church quotes is you're going to see this feeling of truth evolves with the culture. So, as your culture changes, so must your version of biblical truth change. There's an evolution that takes place as the culture changes, your position on various topics found in the scriptures will evolve as well. And you're going to see this also, for example, outside of the Emergent Church, although you'll see it a little bit in the Emergent Church, but in our government. When we look at our laws, the laws of the land, our Constitution, they will say things like, the Constitution is a living document. And what they mean by that, it's kind of a real squirrely perhaps even a little bit of a deceptive, dishonest way of saying, the Constitution evolves. The words of the Constitution do not stand as the authors intended, but rather, the meanings of the text evolves as our culture evolves, which leaves us with mush. It leaves us with nothing. Because, guys, think about it. The majority opinion is basically what determines what text says. Okay, so, during the time of Hitler's reign in Germany, the Bible meant something completely different than it does now. I don't know what they would have done with Thou Shalt Not Kill, but you get my idea. You get the concept, right? It just flows. It changes. Whatever our culture, whatever's popular in our culture right now, for example, slaughtering unborn, innocent, defenseless, little human beings in the womb is good. It's okay. And we're going to interpret the Bible in whatever way we can to make that feel okay. Another example, homosexuality. The Bible is very clear. It condemns it. God doesn't like it. when men lie with women and women with women. God doesn't like it. In fact, he says that people that practice this will go to hell. They will not inherit the kingdom of God. But a postmodernist, a member of the emergent church, will interpret those scriptures in light of the culture and will change them accordingly. And then, well, hey, they'll bring out the deconstructionist guns, if you know what I mean. I've done a series on deconstructionism. They'll take out their deconstructionist tools and start deconstructing the Bible and reinterpreting it to say whatever they want it to say. So, anyway, all that to say, here are some quotes. from our friends in the Emergent Church in the area of postmodernism. Here's Brian McLaren. He says, I don't think we've got the gospel right yet. I don't think the liberals have it right yet. But I don't think we have it right either. None of us have arrived at orthodoxy. Okay. So basically, Brian McLaren, and like I mentioned at the beginning of the series, postmodernism It denies absolute truths. And so here we have Brian McLaren saying, here's the truth, guys. We don't have any truth. Does anybody find that ironic? Does anybody find that to be a self-defeating argument? Friends, here's my truth. I don't think we have the truth on the gospel yet. I don't think the liberals have it right, but I don't think we have it right either. Nobody has it right, not even me, but I'm going to tell you that we don't have it right. But don't you think you need to understand what is right? Brian, before you can say we don't have it right, he's making a truth claim that there is no truth. that we have found yet. Interesting. Rob Bell, the Christian faith is mysterious to the core. It is about things and beings that ultimately can't be put into words, even though he's putting them into words. And if we do definitively put God into words, Rob Bell, you are doing that right now, we have at that very moment made God something God is not. The truth is, Rob Bell, God spoke of Himself in the Bible. No, we can't define God 100% because God is bigger than that, okay? God is outside of our space and time. He knows everything, and He's everywhere. It would be very difficult for a finite, fallible human being who's only, well, somewhere less than 100 years old has not lived forever, has not had the opportunity to be outside of space and time, and to be omnipresent, and omnipotent, for that matter. It's pretty hard for us to fully grasp who God is, but He has described Himself in His Word. And again, if you doubt that the Bible is God's Word, go to my series on the evidence for the divine inspiration of the Bible. God has placed his fingerprints, his signature, his clues throughout the whole Bible, tipping us off that, hey, guys, I wrote this. I wrote this. Now listen to my words. I'm going to give you miracles. I'm going to give you prophecies. I'm going to tell you things about your world that you will not scientifically understand for thousands of years to come. But I'm going to tell you now. before you have complicated technology to be able to figure these things out. I'm going to tell you ahead of time. That's our God. He tells us beforehand. And then we look back and we say, wow, God's fingerprint is all over this Bible, and we can trust it. And then God comes in and He says, see, now that you trust this Word, I want to tell you what I want from you. And it's not that hard, guys. He asks us to live a holy life, and He tells us what He wants, and He tells us what He doesn't want. And we mess up, and then He comes down and lives a perfect life. He dies on a cross for us, dying on our behalf, taking our punishment. And if we just trust in Him, and we ask for forgiveness, we repent of our sins, we'll be forgiven. It's not that hard. It really isn't. But to a postmodern, Everything is up for question. Anything that doesn't feel comfortable is going to be questioned and deconstructed. And so anyway, here we go. Here's Brian McClare and he says, we see modernity with its absolutism and colonialism and totalitarianism as a kind of static dream, a desire to abide in timeless abstractions and extract humanity from the ongoing flow of history, an emergence, a naive hope to make now the end of history, which actually sounds either like a kind of death wish or millennialism. In Christian theology, this anti-emergent thinking is expressed in systematic theologies that claim, overtly, covertly, or unconsciously, to have final orthodoxy nailed down, freeze-dried, and shrink-wrapped. So you see how he just spends his time questioning truth? He wants the readers to understand him literally. He wants his readers to read what he says, a fallible human being who is not God. He wants them to take his words at face value, at the way that he understands them, the way he wants them to be interpreted. And then he wants to impart to the reader this philosophy, this mentality, to take this questioning stance to the Bible. Not his own words, but take it to the Bible. Question everything, tear everything down. So here is the absolute, factual, overtly, covertly, and unconsciously totalitarian absolutism stance according to Brian McLaren, freeze-dried and shrink-wrapped for how we should interpret the Bible. And that is, question everything. Doesn't that sound ironic to you? He wants us to have an absolutist, totalitarian, full, 100%, covert, overt, unconsciously, total package understanding of what he's saying, so that we can take his concepts, take them to the Bible, and then act as if we can't understand anything that the Bible says. Even though God says anything that God finds very important in the Bible, He will say it many times and in many different ways, just in case we're so thick-skulled we don't get it. Okay? How many times does God say, in six little days, He created the heavens and the earth? There was evening, and there was morning, the first day. There was evening, there was morning, the second day. Then God goes as far as to stick it into the commandments. In six days, I created the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day I rested. So, in like manner, you shall work six days, and on the seventh, Does that mean that for six periods of millions and millions of years, God worked, and on the 7th, He rested, so we should work six long periods of millions and millions of years, and then take the 7th millions and millions of years off? I think, surely by now, we're on the 7th, so maybe we should all stop working. But all that to say, anyway, God will say something many times in many different ways, and that's why when us Christians want to argue against a particular thing in a totalitarian way, because the Bible is God's Word. But when we want to argue against something, we have a whole slew of scriptures that we can line up and say, no, God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the one that wrote this Bible that we can tell is inspired by God, it has His fingerprints all over it, this is what He says, here, here, here, here, and here, all these different places, this is how He denounces that particular behavior. Stop! It's not what our Creator wants. but rather they want to question everything and create an idolatrous God, an idol, a God after their own fashion, their own likeness. All right, let's stop right there. Come on to the website, YouthApologeticsTraining.com. And there guys, you can leave comments and questions. I do want to talk to you. You can also catch me on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. And with that, I love you guys, and I'll see you tomorrow.