Through A Glass, Dimly

I read a couple thought-provoking exchanges today. The first is theologically heavy, and the second is funny, witty, and somewhat profound.

The first is on the Trinity. Greg Stafford, a Jehovah’s Witness apologist, posted an entry with an argument against the Trinity based in part on John 17:3, in which Jesus refers to the Father as “the only true God“. Steve Hays at Triablogue responded, as did Jeff Downs at Countercult Apologetics. Be forewarned, it’s somewhat high-level.

The second is a series of poster wars on the Emerging Church movement. Stand To Reason’s blog alerted me to a set of “motivational” posters satirizing the Emerging Church, using most of the Emerging buzzwords. Some of them are pretty funny, and point out some of the potential abuses and dangers of the movement. Of course, I can understand why some in the movement would take offense. Then an ECer posted a set of posters in response. They have a wonderful tone, and do a good job of explaining some of their concerns. They set forth an image of what the Church should look like. Food for thought.

For those unfamiliar with the Emerging Church: It’s a somewhat hard-to-define movement. It’s associated with the newer generations (teens to early thirty-somethings). It’s a reforming movement, aimed at modifying some of the ways we do things and view things in the Church. It’s a diverse movement, with some heading off into major theological problems (i.e. heresy), and some who are entirely orthodox in their theology but who are concerned with matters of church practice and matters of how we live out our lives as Christians. As with any generation-based movement, there’s a mixture of naiveté and insight–and in the reaction from the “traditional” church, there’s a mixture of dismissiveness and mature wisdom.

If you’re interested in a more thorough introduction, you can read Five Streams of the Emerging Church from Christianity Today, and a paper presented at the Evangelical Theological Society called Essential Concerns Regarding the Emerging Church.

Update: The original satirical posters were created by the folks at the Team Pyro blog.  Here’s the first entry with the posters.  It includes a critique of the Five Streams article.  If you look around the blog, you can also find some entries dealing with Emerging reactions to the posters.