The previous post got me thinking also about Cluetrain and the “Emerging Church”. The SBC , with pundits like Mohler at the various helms, will NEVER voluntarily surrender “orthodoxy” to the “conversation”. They have been staunchly “anti-conversation”. If Christian theology were to open to “open source”, then this would be, for the fundamentalists, the ultimate “relaxing” of what they consider to be the “duty” of the “Christian soldier”, which is to “safeguard” and “specify” what passes as “legit” and “Biblical”.

The SBC pulled out of the Baptist World Allinace because there was just too much “criticism of the U.S and their bloved president” to suit the fundamentalists, and there was just “too much pluralism”, which fundamentalists have been taught is the ultimate evil and leads to “believing in nothing”. Actually, I believe that these attitudes reveal intolerance rather than orthodoxy. Any attempt to “reach common ground” is hard work , the more diverse perspectives are in the mix. In today’s tense situations, where diverse world leaders are in the mix, defensiveness abounds in “American” circles, and it’s a “us vs them” approach, and usually “to hell with the rest of ’em, there just a bunch of wimps”. Many Christians I know just look at me like I’ve asked a stupid question when I ask “would Jesus bomb Iraq?” or “what would Jesus do if he were making this decision?” Some will defer to the “submit to the magistrate” passage, or “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” passage.

Back to the cruz of the matter: Christianity and its theology are a “Movement”, and in constant need of “contextual application”, and that includes the language of heremeneutics. Mohler and such “theological guardian” types are opposed to the idea in “Emergent Church” circles that theology must eschew certain “irrelevant” models and words and modes of thinking. These SBC-types are thouroughly “modernisitc” in their thinking, and therefore preceive this call as a threat to orthodoxy. If one’s command of the language of “correct theology” is of paramount importance as it seems to be among fundamentalists, then this is understandable, but also sad. They miss the heart, and substitute the “trappings”; they cling tightly to “appearances” of orthodoxy, and these “appearances” are tightly defined , and rigidily applied so that to take a different track, or “venture outside” the acceptable modes of “evangelism and proclamation” is to be attacked, discredited, and accused of disobedience (when often, it is the very people are are actually DOING something which are the targets of the witch hunts, becuase they are the ones whose mission challenges the established order. “Religious practice” didn’t bother the Romans at all, as long as it “kept order” and didn’t challnege the might or the right of the Empire. They paid Jewish authorities to “keep the peace”. The ones who “question and challenge” the application of the “mechanism of observance” like Jesus did when he confronted the temple practices, these people were in trouble. Many sholars point to the “overturning of the moneychangers tables” as the straw that broke the camel’s back and thrust the leaders into the “we gotta get rid of this guy” mode.