Sunday, December 26, 2010

emergents bravely running away

Admittedly, however we think our biggest test of modeling the community practice of reading Scripture and interpreting together requires that we step headlong into the controversial... Texts that engage challenging and controversial issues potentially pose the greatest threat to a community hermeneutic, for if anything, it is here that a definitive and authoritative voice seems necessary.

Yet, we wholeheartedly believe that Christian communities are in dire need of having controvesial conversations...

...So, with some honest trepidation, we decided to address the intersection of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community with the church.
Conder and Rhodes, Free For All, p 132,133


Oh, those brave brave Emergents, tackling such a controversial topic! Such a pity no one else doth ever comment on such a thing! Oh, what people of great great courage!

So, over the next few pages, they give an account of their discussions of Romans 1. I'll not go over much into it, because it's quite long. Let it be enough that the waffling starts early, and it continues through the whole thing, including the putting forth of the position that Paul in Romans 1:18-20 is simply being the typical grumpy old man going on about how bad the world of his time was, p 146-147.

All of it, though, for this conclusion.

As you have noticed, perhaps to palpable frustration, we did not produce either a definitive reading of Romans 1 or a community dictum on the issue of homosexuality.
p 149


And they gallantly chickened out.

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