2008
Emerging -> Liberal ?
A great article from Collin Hansen about the seeming link from emerging theology to liberal politics. His call to preach King Jesus first echos much of the content from the 9Marks Blog of late.
We celebrate those Christians like Bonhoeffer or Wilberforce who stood on biblical principle and challenged the evils of their day. Timeless theology enabled them to see what their contemporaries sinfully ignored. They started with the radical message that it was necessary for Jesus Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead. This is the gospel Paul preached, the gospel that led the Jews to complain to city authorities that he and Silas had “turned the world upside down.” Paul and Silas acted “against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:6).
If Christians today want to turn the world upside down, then we must preach the apostolic gospel of King Jesus. Before “everything must change,” Jesus is building a kingdom of subjects who repent of their sins and trust him to forgive them. Then we can follow Jesus’ example and reject political power plays; otherwise, “we will, ironically, be assimilated into the very idolatries of wealth, status, and power we seek to change,” as the Gospel Coalition’s Theological Vision for Ministry explains. “If we seek service rather than power, we may have significant cultural impact.”
[From Emerging Theology, Liberal Politics | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction]