Spong’s legacy
It seems my Shifting the Deckchairs in Newark has stirred up quite a bit of interest over at Signposts.
A few thoughts. . .
First of all you may want to read my original post on Spong The Suicide of Liberal Christianity.
It’s important to remember that Spong is not an isolated phenomena but part of a recurring trend in church history to “secularize” the faith.
Following Finke and Stark, by secularize I mean,
“to move from otherworldliness, to present a more distant and indistinct conception of the supernatural, to relax the restrictions on members and to surrender claims to an exclusive and superior truth.”Whenever this happens decline is inevitable. No exceptions.
The opposite is true of dynamic movements. Of which there are too many examples to list. Here’s a few:
- The expansion of the early Church.
- The rise of Pentecostalism.
- The explosion of Christianity in the “Global South”
- The Baptists and Methodists on the US frontier.
The stream within the emerging church that Stetzer calls “revisionists” are in danger of succumbing to this tendency. See also Frame’s review of Generous Orthodoxy.
Make no mistake: Head in this direction and you’ll discover it is the death rattle of a declining faith.
As I’ve already written, Dynamic movements are characterized by “engaged orthodoxy”. They hold fast to the faith and adapt their methods to suit the context.
The truth of God incarnate in Jesus Christ is the foundation for this principle. Radically distinct and radically identified.
Tomorrow I’ll post my findings from another major case study which will have some relevance for this discussion.
In the meantime. Here’s some reading on Orthodoxy from one of the great prophets of the 20th Century—GK Chesteron.
