Comments on: The Next Christendom

By: sharon

sharon — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:26:42 +0000

Hi Ben. Thanks for the article. If you have a chance, I recommend John Armstrongs blog this week for a very interesting discussion on hermeneutics, especially in a premodern context.

By: Ben W

Ben W — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 03:53:01 +0000

@Joe,

I have not read The Blue Parakeet–on my long list to read. It’s hard to know what to do with those blue parakeets; they sure are troublesome and throw a monkeywrench into our Bible reading. My mom grew up in a church where dancing was forbidden. It’s clear that that was a cultural preference and NOT biblical, as much as the culture would have liked it to be biblical. What do we do with women pastors and priests? In certain cultures it’s not an issue. Some cultures, based on what appears to be a misreading of 1 Corinthians, forbid women to even speak in church.

By: Ben W

Ben W — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 03:42:31 +0000

@Gerardo, he covers China ever so briefly, but as the book is an overview of non Western Christianity, everything is brief.

By: Gerardo R

Gerardo R — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 03:00:57 +0000

Great article! I have always wanted to read more about what the Holy Spirit is doing in Africa. Though lately I have had my eyes set on Christianity in China. Thank you for the article.

By: Joe Schafer

Joe Schafer — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 15:59:58 +0000

I hope that soon we can start to discuss how we (members and friends of UBF) approach the Bible. It is tempting to think that we are just reading the Bible straight and doing what it says. But every Christian community has values, traditions and cultural assumptions that strongly color its sense of what the Bible says. One great little book that helps to uncover some of these hidden assumptions is Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope you will check it out.

By: Ben W

Ben W — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 15:12:14 +0000

Thanks Joe for your helpful comments on this short book review. Hermeneutics, I feel, is the most important thing Christians will have to pay attention to. YEC, homosexuality, the work of the Holy Spirit, whether your church is mission centered or gospel centered, etc. all can be boiled down to how one reads and interprets the Bible. I believe this will become clear as we interact more regularly and intimately with global Christianity.

By: Joe Schafer

Joe Schafer — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:47:15 +0000

Ben, thanks for this article. Since the early 20th century, Christians in the United States have been mired in conflict between traditionalist/conservative and liberal views. For better or worse, we have been putting people into boxes and labeling them “conservative” and “liberal.” But as you have correctly pointed out, these categories simply do not apply in other parts of the world. And they don’t really apply in the United States either.

For example, consider the idea of young-earth creationism (YEC), which maintains that God created the world approximately 6,000 years ago in six 24-hour periods. There are quite a few Christians here in the United States who still believe that, if you deny YEC, you must be a “liberal” who denies the authority of Scripture, doubts the bodily resurrection of Christ, approves of homosexual relationships, etc. Perhaps those stereotypes had some validity 50 years ago, but today they are quite ridiculous. Christians do not fit into these neat little categories, and applying labels like “conservative” and “liberal” is now inaccurate, unhelpful, divisive and dehumanizing.

I strongly agree with you that our (usually unstated) assumptions about how we should read the Bible, and our (usually unstated) assumptions about the work of the Holy Spirit, lie at the heart of nearly all of these controversial issues.