John Armstrong, founder and president of ACT 3, was recently taken to task by John MacArthur in the latter’s most recent book, The Truth War. Armstrong weighs in on the emerging church controversy offering a clarification of his position and a critique of those who too hastily condemn without carefully listening.
Most of the critics on the right have not bothered to read this movement carefully and thus these critics level massive broadsides against something that is still quite small and young. I prefer to interact, to listen and to give these friends time. The broadside approach looks and feels like old fundamentalism dressed in modernist epistemology. The more open approach, that wants to listen and learn, gets labeled as “liberal” by people of fear and personal suspicion who react to all new forms that do not fit their notion of how things ought to be.
Relying on a single article in Armstrong’s newsletter Viewpoint, and a single post from his blog, MacArthur writes (pp. 20-23) that Armstrong is suffering from the “illusion” of postmodernism, having replaced his former certainty “with a wholly subjective, irrational, postmodern antihermeneutic.” MacArthur implies that Armstrong is a false prophet and a false teacher, one of the Satanically deceived—and deceivers—in today’s evangelical church (p. 23). On what basis? Because Armstrong dared to say publicly that he had changed his mind, not about his doctrinal beliefs (which stand unshaken), but about his epistemic beliefs—that is, how he arrives at and holds his beliefs. MacArthur considers this epistemic shift unforgivable and worthy of scorn and obloquy.
The Resurgence has a helpful piece by Tim Keller on preaching hell to postmoderns.
In contrast to the traditionalist, the postmodern person is hostile to the very idea of hell. People with more secular and postmodern mindsets tend to have (a) only a vague belief in the divine, if at all, and (b) little sense of moral absolutes, but rather a sense they need to be true to their dreams. They tend to be younger, from nominal Catholic or non-religious Jewish backgrounds, from liberal mainline Protestant backgrounds, from the western and northeastern U. S., and Europeans.
Here are the four big points that Keller believes are necessary to make with postmodern listeners:
Sin is slavery.
Hell is less exclusive than so-called tolerance.
Christianity’s view of hell is more personal than the alternative view.
The 2007 Ligonier National Conference, Contending for the Truth, was held in Orlando last weekend. The goal of the conference was to “equip believers to answer the false claims of postmodernism, naturalism, and our culture’s other atheistic theories.”
The speakers were R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Al Mohler, John Piper, and Ravi Zacharias.
Tim Challies was liveblogging the conference. Here are his posts:
Jay Bakker, son of Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Messner and pastor of Revolution NYC, has recently taken an open stand in support of homosexuality and gay marriage. He believes that the passages of Scripture that appear to condemn homosexuality have been misunderstood. More than that, he claims that God told him homosexuality is not wrong: “I felt like God spoke to my heart and said ‘[homosexuality] is not a sin’” (taken from this article).
Some Presbyterian churches in the PC(USA) are discontent with their current hierarchical governmental structure—a model of church government that many believe no longer works in our postmodern generation. At a recent meeting, there was unanimous agreement that change is necessary. PC(USA) churches now have the option of joining a new presbytery, New Wineskins Presbytery, which will be under the EPC.
The New Wineskins Presbytery would run under a newly designed constitution based on a grassroots polity. . . . The new polity recognizes the local congregation as the primary decision-making group. And it sends resources to the congregation rather than drain away from.
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The Resurgence has a helpful piece by 
