3/26/2005 11:42:00 AM|||Joel VandenBrink|||

Well, Brooke and I are back from hiking and relaxing in the Olympic Peninsula. We have some amazing stories to tell and to remember, but I'll leave those for another day and another time.

When I got back from the woods I immediately ran back to my lifeline (not immediately, but close enough) -- the internet. A lot goes on in the world in 3 days when you purposefully decide to check out of it and go on vacation. Anyway, one of my good friends, Dwight Friesen, made me aware of an article by Al Mohler (preseident of the Southern Baptis Theological Seminary) that got my attention. It was an article in response to Brian McLaren's book A Generous Orthodoxy. As you might guess, it wasn't a favorable article, in fact it said that the Emergent conversation and Brian McLaren are great threats to Christianity. This, I find, quite histerical. Does Al not know that Brian serves the same God that he does? Does Al not know that not all differences are bad? And just because he doesn't like the book doesn't mean that it is bad, and a 'threat to Christianity.'

But none the less, Al is entitled to his position, and from his hermeneutic I can see why the emergent conversation is a threat. If you want to read the atricle go here.

As many of you know Brian Mclaren is a Faculty member at my school and he is teaching a class this summer on this book. I am greatly excited for it, not only because it asks some good questions of Christianity, but also because Brian always makes me think about what I believe and why. Some other person about 2000 years ago did the same thing to his religious community...and he got murdered for it. And tomorrow he will be alive and I will celebrate because I have a hope beyond this world. I have a hope that someday I will wrap my arms around Jesus and thank him for living the life he did, does, and will.

May you celebrate Easter, and your Savior, like you have a hope beyond this world.

peace
joel

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